Page 47 of Return to Whitmore
They agreed to get up early, grab the rental car, and head to Francesca’s villa before the private investigator-gardener arrived. Francesca hadn’t fired him, choosing to keep him close. Charlotte wanted to get a look at him, to talk to him, to try to sniff out what he was after. Maybe he would be willing to be interviewed for her documentary.
When they walked back to their hotel that night, Nina asked, “Do you have any guesses about where Jack is? Anything at all?”
Charlotte shook her head sadly. “Sometimes I think he never wants to see me again. We were too close for too many years. It all fell apart.”
“I hate that.” Nina closed her eyes and stopped dead in the center of an old stone bridge. The orange light of the lit-up city glowed in her black hair. Although she wasn’t Italian, she looked the part.
“Throughout the past year of living at Seth Green’s house, I’ve been hoping and praying he’d show up,” Charlotte admitted. “I realized I could finally go to Nantucket without losing my mind. And when my funding kept falling through, I realized it was the only place I could afford. I figured Jack would get it.”
Nina nodded. “I still can’t believe I tracked you down like that.”
Charlotte didn’t want to say it aloud, but she hoped that Nina’s tracking capabilities would extend to more members of the family. She hoped this was only the beginning.
Chapter Twenty
July 2025
The woman waiting for Charlotte and Nina on the glorious villa veranda was the most beautiful creature north of seventy Charlotte had ever seen. Perhaps her dark hair was dyed, and maybe she’d perfected her wrinkles with Botox, but you would never know it. She looked fifty-ish, tops. And miraculously, she was smoking a cigarette as though she did that every morning, as though she never greeted the day without a dose of nicotine. It hadn’t aged her. She was perfect.
It was true—and maybe devastating—that Charlotte hadn’t seen her mother in years. When Francesca’s catlike eyes pegged her, she stood gracefully and arched her eyebrow. In Italian, she said, “My goodness, who have you brought with you?” Of course, Nina didn’t understand, because Francesca had never allowed her to speak the language and had hardly spoken it to her during her childhood.
“Mom,” Charlotte said, “we need to speak English.”
Francesca’s eyes flickered with alarm. “Is that Nina?” she asked in English. Her voice broke.
Was that real emotion on her face? Was that something like regret? Charlotte couldn’t believe it.
Nina stepped toward the beautiful old woman with tears in her eyes. “Mom,” she said, her voice shaking.
At first, it surprised Charlotte to hear it. But of course, Francesca was the only mother Nina had ever known. Just because Francesca had abandoned her didn’t mean Nina didn’t still love her that way.
Oh, it was complicated. It made Charlotte dizzy with sorrow. Why couldn’t they have just brought Nina to Italy with them? Why couldn’t they have maintained the lies they’d always told?
Francesca touched Nina’s cheek delicately, as though it were a flower petal. Charlotte hung back, waiting. Francesca’s emotions could turn on a dime. In the silence, Charlotte let herself survey the grounds, looking for Jefferson Albright, her birth father. Were they still together? She couldn’t believe she didn’t know.
“Why are you here, Nina?” Francesca asked. She still sounded tender.
Nina sounded uncertain, as though she’d forgotten. “I found out you’re not my real mother.”
Francesca closed her eyes and sat down. For the first time, she showed her age, if only for a moment. Nina sat in the chair across from her and reached for her hand, glancing over at Charlotte. Charlotte couldn’t believe it. She’d expected there to be an incident upon their arrival, but nothing as emotional as this.
Charlotte hurried over to sit next to Nina and take her mother’s other hand. Together, they sat in a beautiful circle—the mother and her daughters—as a soft wind traced its way through the stone pine trees.
Slowly, Francesca opened her eyes again and looked from Charlotte to Nina and back again. “You look so similar,” she said of them. “It doesn’t make any sense, does it? Or maybe it makes all the sense in the world.” She pursed her lips. “Nina, I have thought of you every day. I have thought of what I did to you every single day. I have paid for it.”
Charlotte felt regret echoing from her tone. She couldn’t believe it.
“I’ve thought about you every single day, too,” Nina said. “But I don’t want you to pay for it. I’ve had a wonderful life. I have two children and a career I love.”
They sat in silence. For a moment, Charlotte couldn’t remember why they’d come.
Francesca bent her head. “I can’t ask for your forgiveness because I don’t deserve it.”
Never in Charlotte’s life had she heard Francesca somber and reflective. She was suddenly terrified that her mother was sick, that she was coming to the end of her life and wanting to rectify what had happened in the past.
Before Nina could speak again, Charlotte said, “Nina found me in Nantucket. She’s been digging around, searching for clues about what happened that night. She’s an anthropologist and probably much better at ‘digging’ than your average private investigator.”
At the mention of the private investigator, Francesca’s eyes became electric. “Anthropology?” she asked Nina. “That is an incredible field. You are a genius, like your grandfather.”
