A Dark Sicilian Secret

So why would she leave?

In the house, he dropped keys on the ornate sideboard in the hall next to the vase of fresh flowers and stood frozen in place.

How could everything have changed so quickly? Just hours ago everything had seemed so perfect he’d planned an impromptu getaway to his favorite five-star hotel in Capri. But just hours later, Jillian was gone and she’d abandoned him, abandoned their son.

Why?

How?

Something must have happened. Something must have driven her away. But what? Or more accurately, who?

He replayed the morning’s events over in his head one more time, picturing waking up with her, making love, showering, breakfast, his mother’s appearance.

The phone call.

The phone call.

Someone had said something to her. Scared her. Threatened her. Chased her off.

He’d find out who called the house. There were ways to trace numbers. Even unlisted numbers.

He climbed the stairs to the library, determined to find out everything he could when he heard the sound of his father’s wheelchair down the hall.

Vitt paused at the top of the stairs and spotted his father waiting for him at the door of the library. But his father wasn’t the only one in the wheelchair. Eleven-month-old Joseph lay on his grandfather’s chest, his thumb in his mouth, sound asleep.

“Where has she gone?” Salvatore asked Vittorio.

“I don’t know.”

“Why would she leave her son?”

“I don’t know that, either.”

His father stared at him hard. “Has she done this before?”

“Never.”

“Then why now?” his father demanded.

“I don’t know. But trust me, I’m going to find out.”

Jillian had purchased a last-minute seat on an Air Italia flight from Catania to Heathrow. From Heathrow she’d catch the cheapest flight she could to the States. Where in the States she didn’t know. She’d figure that part out later. It was hard enough just leaving Vittorio and Joe behind in Sicily without thinking of the vast Atlantic Ocean separating them.

The flight attendant on Air Italia offered Jillian snacks and drinks but Jillian shook her head, unable to speak, almost catatonic with despair.

What had she do

ne? How could she have left them both? Why hadn’t she gone straight to Vittorio and told him everything?

Because you’re scared, a little voice whispered. You’re scared that if you make a mistake, you could lose the people you love.

And she did love Vitt, just as she loved Joe. She loved them so much she wanted to be brave and strong and do what Salvatore had done—sacrifice herself for the good of his family, but how it hurt. It hurt so bad she wasn’t sure she could survive it.

Arriving in Heathrow, Jillian purchased the cheapest ticket she could on a U.S. airline, which ended up being to Houston, Texas.

She didn’t want to go to Houston. But she didn’t know where else to go. The problem was, she didn’t want to go to the States. She wanted to jump back on a plane for Catania. She wanted to tell Vittorio she couldn’t live without him and yet she was so afraid of him being hurt. For the two hours before her flight, Jillian wandered around the international terminal in a fog.

Nothing about leaving Paterno felt right.