She shook her head. “Then we would never have met.”
“I can’t imagine it either,” he admitted and grasped her hand. “But since your small Italian-speaking country of Domodossola on the northwestern Italian border is only two hours away from the orphanage on the outskirts of Biella, it sounded possible.
“My mother or parents could have lived within that radius before I was put in the orphanage. Unfortunately, a thorough investigation here in this country as well as the region around Biella and Turin hasn’t turned up information. At this point I’ve been investigating elsewhere. The chances are that I could have been born somewhere in northeastern Italy, or parts of Austria, or even in Slovenia or La Valazzura.
“But nothing promising has turned up yet. Right now I’m focusing on the fact that my parents could have come from any country where Italian is spoken. I’ve been whittling down the possibilities because I refuse to give up.”
“You’re a truly amazing man.”
“Why? Because I want to know my parentage?”
“No, because you don’t let anything get in your way.”
He drank more coffee. “Angelo has told me he thinks I’m foolish to keep spending my time and money looking for them. The other day he told me that finding my parents wasn’t meant to be, that I should accept the situation.”
“But Angelo doesn’t know your heart,” she said with her incredible insight.
“You’re right. I’ll never give up searching. Enzo has continued to encourage me and has backed me financially in order to help.”
“He’s a remarkable man.”
“I couldn’t agree more. If I should find out that I was born in Domodossola and that one or both of my parents still live here, I’ll keep my position at the hospital and live out the rest of my days here. But so far the fruitless searches have proven to me and Enzo that I came from some other part of Italy or Italian-speaking country.”
“But you don’t know that positively!”
“That’s true. What I want you to understand is that once I stumble onto my history and family, whenever that might be, whoever they are, wherever they live outside Domodossola, I could be leaving here and my job for good to be near them. That’s assuming they might want to be with me after all this time. In that case, it wouldn’t be a good idea for us to go on seeing each other.”
A gasp escaped her lips. “Why do you think that?” Her head flew back. The way he was staring at her out of those midnight blue eyes, she knew he meant every word he’d just said.
“Please don’t look at me like that, Fausta. I can’t promise where I’ll be next week, a month, a year, five years, ten years from now. Every day my money goes to pay for researchers doing the footwork for me. I live my life a day at a time and wouldn’t ask anyone to share it with me.”
She leaned forward. “Why can’t you continue making your life
here so we can be together? Why is it imperative that you uproot yourself as soon as you learn about your beginnings?
“If you should catch up with your parents—if one of them or both want to be with you—couldn’t you visit them often, or help them to come here to be with you? You could do whatever it would take without turning your whole life upside down,” she argued. “And mine...”
He didn’t answer right away. Instead he let go of her hand and got to his feet. “Come on. Let’s move to the living room, where we can talk and be more comfortable. I need to explain that I don’t want to force you to live in limbo while I wait for that day.”
Fausta left the kitchen first and sat down on the end of the couch. To her chagrin he sat on a chair opposite her and pulled it closer, clasping his hands between his knees. This evening he’d dressed in trousers and a dark blue polo shirt. She couldn’t take her eyes off him.
“What else aren’t you telling me, Nico?”
“I learned something about myself when I did my internship. Part of the year I did a rotation in psychiatry. I did that on purpose, not only to get a better perspective on my patients, but to find out what made me tick.”
“I can understand that,” Fausta murmured.
“Dr. Neri, the director of the psychiatric program for my unit, had long talks with me after hours about my particular situation. He said the uprooting of a child’s first emotional attachment from within a family group can be catastrophic.
“According to him, the particular shortcoming of institutional care like the orphanage means that a child like me didn’t get the continuity of care no matter how well-meant.”
“I’m sure that’s true.” Her heart was pained for him.
“He said it’s almost always impossible to maintain any kind of continuity because of the high ratio of children to staff. There’s always the speed and frequency of staff turnover and the nature of shift work to consider.”
She moaned. “You saw that borne out when the Mother Superior and the doctor at the orphanage both died.”
Nico nodded. “As the director went on to explain, institutions like the church orphanage have their own culture, which is often rigid and lacking in basic community and family socialization. A child like myself had difficulty forming relationships, even with the other children. I wanted the security I’d been torn from.”