Page 131 of The Unraveling of Julia

“Was she related to Caterina? Am I?”

“I believe we are, and I know she believed it, and the resemblance is there. She always said the Sforza family was where our money came from. She never worked a day in her life, so I think it’s true.”

“I think it’s true, too. Iknowit’s true, in my heart.”

“That said, where I differ with my mother is what it means to be descended from the Sforzas.” Fiamma pursed her lips. “My mother wasobsessed with Caterina, always looking back to the past. It made her snobbish, and she built her identity around it, you see from the frescoes in this house.”

“Right.”

“Me, I’ve learned to look forward, not past. I believe that as an artist, my job is to create myself.” Fiamma’s blue eyes calmed like a sea. “I think we’re all artists, and we create ourselves. The past does not create you, thepresentdoes, and in return, you create the future. Your future.”

Julia thought it was a wonderful sentiment. “I get it. If Caterina stood for anything, it was that.”

“Yes, she invented herself. She was ahead of her time.”

“So, how did your mother know where I was?”

“I’m sure she kept looking for me. She hired people. I always suspected she knew where I was and that she knew about your adoption, or even had a hand in it.”

“How?” Julia asked, surprised.

“The agency I used was a private charitable organization in Bologna. They handled me with kid gloves. I always wondered if she’d made a secret donation. You would never believe what my mother got away with because she was rich.”

Julia couldn’t ignore the bitterness in Fiamma’s tone.

“She knew I would never speak to her again, but I believe she kept track of you. She would have found out where you went, who adopted you, all the things I couldn’t bear to know.”

It hurt to hear, but Julia understood.

“I understand how, and why, she left you her estate. She couldn’t have known where I was. After I gave you up, I left Italy, I went into a depression, missing you. I experienced grief, I couldn’t shake it.” Fiamma looked at her plaintively. “I hope that doesn’t sound self-indulgent.”

“No,” Julia answered, since it struck an uncomfortable chord.

“I traveled through Scotland and Ireland. I didn’t have any address, I was staying with a series of artist friends. ‘Couch-surfing,’ they call it now. Even my mother couldn’t have found me.” Fiamma straightened. “Losing you became my turning point, and I went back to Italy, changed my name, and got back to school.”

“Why do you think she didn’t go after you, try to meet with you?”

“Because I’d run away again. She knew I didn’t want to see her.”

Julia’s mind raced. “Maybe she left me the estate because she hoped I would find you, and we would find each other.”

Fiamma blinked, as the revelation dawned on her. “She was trying to reunite us?”

“Yes, exactly. She couldn’t find you, but I’m not hard to find, even in the US. She found me and sent meafteryou. She willed us back together again.” Julia felt a lump in her throat. “It’s lovely, isn’t it? She wanted to reunite us, and here we are, because of her.”

“Ha!” Fiamma smiled, her eyes shining. “I guess that’s true. She put us together.”

“Kinda smart, huh?”

“She was something.” Fiamma shook her head, amused. “I guess I have to hand it to her.”

“Me, too.”

Suddenly Fiamma’s expression darkened, lapsing into angry lines, like a lithograph etched with acid. “And so my mother, ever the master manipulator, did one good deed in her life.”

Ouch.“Really?”

“What? Should I forget that she locked me in a cell? Never let me off the property? Wouldn’t send me to school? Wouldn’t let me have friends?”

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