The Gift of a Charm Read online

  He squeezed my hand and toyed with my bracelet. ‘It’s just beginning. Everything is. Our whole life, together. There is no other person I want to experience everything with. And I know we will. I have never loved anyone the way I love you. You are my everything,’ he said softly.

  I felt my eyes tear up, and I leaned across the table to kiss him again. ‘Such memories we are making.’ I tapped the top of my camera. ‘There’s no way this thing can ever do what’s in my mind justice. I love you, and I just know I am going to love where our lives take us, the family and the home we will make. Like I said, I’m a lucky girl.’

  He kissed me again. ‘Well then, lucky girl, how about we finish this wine and head back to the hotel? I see some room service in our future.’

  I smiled again. ‘Perfect.’

  As we started walking back to our hotel, navigating the cobblestones of the street and holding hands, an interesting storefront came into view. A red awning bedecked the outside, and polished brass and other metals shone like a treasure chest from inside the small leaded windows. Italian corna in all shapes and sizes were displayed. An Italian talisman of ancient origin, a corno was a long, gently twisted horn-shaped object, believed to protect against the evil eye. I’d noticed that they were quite prevalent in Florence.

  ‘Oh, look at that!’ I let go of his hand and crossed to the store. ‘How pretty! Let’s go in.’

  He held up the shopping bags that we had been accumulating throughout the day and made a look of surrender. ‘Sure, I mean, what’s one more shop in the scheme of things?’

  ‘Get used to it, mister!’

  We entered the store and were immediately hit by sensory overload. The entire store was covered in corna. It appeared to be all that this store sold.

  I crossed the room quickly and came upon a display case like you would find in a jewellery store. Inside it was a selection of smaller horns – cornicelli – pieces in silver and gold to be worn round the neck or on a bracelet.

  ‘Look, how great is this? Look at these!’

  He came up behind me and peered over my shoulder. ‘They’re very pretty.’

  At that moment, a man emerged from somewhere out back. He had a jeweller’s loupe on a string round his neck and, seeing he had customers, wiped his hands off with a handkerchief he had stowed in his back pocket.

  ‘Buonasera. Come posso aiutarla?’ Good evening. Can I help you?

  I thought quickly to the rusty Italian I had been struggling with for days. I loved trying new languages, even though it definitely wasn’t my strong suit.

  ‘Um … Mi piacciono i ciondoli, molto carini, quanto costa?’ Sure, it was a broken translation of ‘I like charms, very pretty, how much?’ But the shopkeeper caught my drift. As well as the fact that Italian was not my native language.

  ‘Grazie, lei è americana?’

  I smiled, feeling as if I had just been rescued. I didn’t know if I could conduct an entire conversation in Italian.

  ‘Yes, we are,’ I giggled nervously.

  ‘No problem, I speak English,’ the man said smoothly. ‘I am Giovanni. Welcome to my store.’ He raised his hands as if he was summoning the heavens to attention.

  ‘Thank you. You have such beautiful things.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Giovanni smiled. ‘This I know, all crafted by hand. I do all of this. And someday, when I can no longer, my son will. Do you have children?’ He pointed to us both.

  ‘No, not yet, but maybe someday, maybe lots of bambinos!’ I laughed. ‘We just got married. We are on our honeymoon.’

  ‘Ah, beautiful, congratulations to you. Maybe Florence will bless you with a baby while you are here.’

  I blushed and tried to change the subject. A honeymoon baby wasn’t necessarily in the plans. A baby someday, just not right now. We had a lot to do together before baby made three.

  My lovely husband sensed my discomfort and interjected to redirect the conversation. ‘Signore, this charm, we like it very much.’ He pointed to a tiny Italian horn made of silver within the display case. ‘How much is it?’

  ‘Ah, for you, venti, ah, twenty lira.’ He opened the display case and removed the tiny charm. ‘For your wife, yes?’

  He nodded.

  ‘See, I have a bracelet.’ I held up my wrist and showed him.

  ‘Can you add this right now to her bracelet? So she can wear it today?’

  Giovanni nodded in agreement and I removed the bracelet from my wrist. Taking the money, Giovanni retreated to what had to be his workroom. My husband wrapped his arms around my waist and placed a kiss on my neck.

  ‘I’d say that’ll be a pretty good souvenir of this trip,’ he whispered.

  It was perfect. Exactly right to commemorate our time here together.

  Minutes later, Giovanni returned with my bracelet. Behind him scampered a little boy who couldn’t be more than four or five years old.

  ‘Here you go now – enjoy,’ Giovanni said. ‘You see, this here is my son, Lupo. He is only little today, but this someday will all be his.’ He once again raised his hands to the store. ‘Lupo, say ciao.’

  ‘Ciao,’ the small boy replied.

  ‘Ciao, Lupo,’ I said, leaning down to look at him. ‘You are a very lucky boy to have such a talented father.’

  Giovanni threw up his hands. ‘Ah, he no speak any English, not yet. He learn, though. Giusto?’ Right? The little boy nodded his head. ‘And now, you have fun in our city. And much luck in your new matrimonio. May you be blessed. May you remember here always because of this.’

  He pointed to the charm and I smiled.

  ‘Thank you so much, Giovanni. Thank you. I’ll never forget this place. We’ll always remember because of this beautiful charm.’ I took my new husband’s hand and we began our retreat from the store, my new charm getting settled into its new home on my wrist. ‘Arrivederci.’

  Indeed, I would remember this place for the rest of my life. I looked again at my bracelet and smiled. That much was guaranteed.

  Chapter 8

  It was Sunday morning and, as Danny was fast asleep, Holly had the peace and quiet of the morning in bed with her coffee and paper.

  Thank God for delivery, she thought, as she cracked open the New York Times. She scanned the front page – too depressing, just the picture was enough to make her turn the page. She immediately flipped through to the book reviews and scanned the fiction list to see if there was anything good. After that she turned her attention to the crossword.

  Holly could do the NYT crossword practically in her sleep. She smiled to herself. Today, the theme was old movies.

  Let’s see … She bit her lip as she read the clues.

  1941 Frank Capra film: MEET JOHN (_ _)E

  Too easy. She pencilled the letters D and O in to read ‘Doe’ and then, just as she was ready to move on to the next clue, she heard Danny start to rustle in his bed.

  Holly got out from beneath her own warm covers. Having briefly freshened up in the bathroom, she moved to the small kitchenette and got out a pan and some pancake mix. She had pre-made it and stored it in a jar for just this purpose. As the pan began to sizzle, she heard Danny call out, ‘What’s for breakfast?’

  ‘Pancakes,’ Holly grinned, predicting the response.

  ‘Yes!’ Danny’s feet hit the floor.

  They ate in the little breakfast nook off the kitchen and Holly studied Danny, who was looking more and more like his father every day.

  He had the same straight nose and dark hair, so different from her own colouring, and a nose with a bump on the end. His cheekbones were high and his hair curled around his small ears as if it had been styled that way. He was practically tanned all through the dead of winter, a tribute to his father’s Mediterranean roots. Holly burned or got red if she was out in the sun for more than ten minutes, winter or summer. Danny seemed to be made for the sun: he never burned, nor complained of the heat.

  Having practically inhaled his pancakes, Danny stood up and put his dish in the sin
k without being told.

  Then, for the first time, he looked out of the window.

  ‘Snow again, yay!’ he exclaimed, excitedly hopping from one foot to the other.

  She smiled indulgently at him. ‘You mean you only just noticed?’

  ‘Let’s go out. Can we, Mom, please?’ He pushed his face against the cold glass of the window. ‘Maybe there won’t be any school tomorrow?’

  ‘Not with that light dusting.’ Holly gulped down the rest of her coffee and got dressed – no use torturing him.

  Besides, she wanted to try and see if she could make it over to Tiffany today. It was near enough to Columbus Circle, so they could take a quick walk through the park while they were there. When she got out of the bathroom he was waiting by the door, dressed and ready to go. He took her coat off the hook and pointed to her boots on the floor. ‘Here you go.’

  ‘Are you a golden retriever now?’ she joked, shaking her head indulgently as she slipped on her coat and got into her warmest walking boots.

  When they got out onto the street, it was wonderfully calm and quiet – a world away from the usual weekday hustle and bustle. She looked at the snow softly falling on cars and lying undisturbed on the ground. Soon the paths would be a slushy mess and most of the young people in the neighbourhood would have missed it. But the snow definitely wasn’t wasted on Danny.

  He was trying to catch flakes on his tongue as they walked. Holly threw her arm around him. How could she not be the happiest woman in the world? Danny’s shoulder felt bony and muscular at the same time, the shoulder of a boy on the verge of becoming a teen. Not long now, she thought sadly, until he tries to pull away from me. Would it be harder or easier than it was for her and her mother?

  Holly recalled the day her mother, during one of their infamous arguments, had blurted out the news that had shattered her heart. She’d just turned sixteen. Overcome by teenage hormones, Holly had been complaining resentfully that her mother was continuously on her case.

  ‘It’s like you wish I’d never been born!’

  ‘More like I’m glad you’re not actually my daughter!’ Eileen shot back, before putting her hands to her mouth, horrified.

  The words had washed over Holly like a tsunami of betrayal, fear and anger. Adopted? Impossible!

  Everyone was always commenting that she was petite like her mother, and looked like her dad. Was it all lies? Everything? Maybe she wasn’t smart and pretty either, or creative, or interesting, or fun …

  Her world had ended on that day. It was like the Holly she knew had died, or was erased, non-existent …

  The memory made her squeeze Danny’s shoulder tighter, who in turn wriggled away from her grasp. He jogged ahead of her, sweeping snow off cars as he went to make snowballs and throwing one at a passing crosstown bus. As she watched him, Holly tried to remember herself at that age: carefree, with two parents at home who loved her.

  How that had all changed when Eileen had gone on to admit the awful truth.

  Holly had stared at the women across from her, the woman she had called Mom all those years. It was as if she’d suddenly been given a pair of glasses that completely altered her vision. Instead she saw Eileen as separate from her: small and dowdy, with a bad haircut and poorly outlined lipstick.

  ‘I’m … not your child?’ Holly screamed, hysterical.

  Eileen grabbed her hands and Holly snatched them away. The blood drained from her mother’s face. ‘I’m so, so sorry. I never meant you to find out like this. Your dad and I had planned to sit down together one day and…’ She trailed off.

  ‘When? When were you going to tell me that I’m not your daughter?’ Holly started to cry and was angry with herself for it. She swatted a tear away as if it were a fly.

  ‘Oh, Holly, you are my daughter. You were sent to us – me and your dad…’ Eileen reached for her again and Holly stood up from the table, knocking the chair back.

  ‘Maybe someday you might want to find her – maybe when you have children of your own…’ her mother continued pleadingly.

  ‘Children of my own?’ Holly spat at her. ‘I’m sixteen. What – you think I am going to follow in her footsteps and get knocked up?’ she hissed, assuming that was what had happened with her real mother. Her real mother … it was all so horribly surreal.

  ‘Holly…’ Eileen pleaded.

  But Holly did not hear her; she was gone, leaving the house in a whirl, running down the stairs and out into the street. She had started walking and found herself in front of the hardware store. Her beloved dad was behind the counter, ringing up a can of paint for a young man in tight pants. When she entered, the young man grimaced at her lewdly.

  ‘Hi, sweetheart,’ her father said calmly, leaning his full weight on his hands on the counter. Looking the young man square in the eye, he said, ‘Couldn’t be luckier, having a daughter who likes to stop by to help her poor old father.’

  But poor and old were the last words Holly would have used to describe her father that day. He stood about six feet two and was built like a large square, with broad shoulders and a long jaw. He pushed the can of paint across the counter to the now nervous-looking young man. ‘Enjoy!’ he said cheerily as the guy scampered out through the door.

  When the door shut, Holly burst into tears. The next thing she felt were her father’s large, solid arms around her and him saying, ‘Shh, it can’t be that bad, you haven’t got a worry in the world.’

  When she finally calmed herself enough to tell him what had happened, he switched the door sign to ‘Closed’ and gave her a cup of coffee with a dash of whisky in it, his Irish coffee special for bad days, he called it.

  ‘Do you know where I came from?’ he had asked her, very seriously. ‘Do you, Holly?’

  She had shrugged in her impartial teenage way and waited for him to tell her, but he had just kept asking her questions.

  ‘Where was I born?’

  ‘In Ireland, Dad,’ she had sighed.

  ‘Yeah, but where?’ he insisted.

  Holly paid attention now. ‘Your mother’s bed, in the Liberties.’ She had no idea where that was or what kind of a place it was, but it sounded like a good place for a childhood, carefree.

  ‘Yeah,’ he nodded sadly. ‘I was born to a woman who wanted another baby like she wanted a hole in the head. My older sister had sat out on the front step with her ears covered as my mother screamed her agony to the whole world.’

  Holly looked at him. She knew the story about him being born at home, but he had never said he wasn’t wanted. He had come from a large Irish Catholic family, where lots of children were inevitable – no one complained about it.

  He pulled her closer. ‘Holly, my mother had me and barely looked at me, hardly said two words to me my whole life with her, which was only up to the age of fifteen.’ Holly had heard this story too, but in her mind she assumed he had left for New York at such a young age because he had just been wild and rebellious.

  ‘You know, when I left for the boat to America, all my mum said was, “Good luck.” She didn’t even say my name. I think the whole time I was in the Liberties with my family, I never heard my mother say my name once.’

  ‘Oh, Dad.’ Holly hugged him back, suddenly tired of knowing more than her years.

  ‘All I’m trying to say,’ he added, squeezing her tightly, ‘is that we are all born – that’s the easy part. It’s being loved and wanted that’s tricky.’

  Now, walking the snowy streets of New York, Holly watched her son, who ran ahead of her, then waited, then broke away from her again, like a colt experimenting with leaving its mother. She kept a steady pace, letting him be free and return as much as he wanted. There was no question that Danny was wanted and very much loved, at least by her.

  They reached Twenty-Third Street, where the crowds were beginning to come out on the hunt for coffee, papers and fresh-baked goods. Danny’s pace had slowed from a boisterous snowball pitcher to a shivering ten-year-old. She linked his arm through her
s. ‘Let’s take the crosstown bus to Madison and then catch the uptown?’

  He nodded and took her arm. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Well,’ she said with an enigmatic smile, knowing this would appeal to his imagination, ‘we are going to solve a mystery.’

  When the bus got near enough to walk to Fifth Avenue, the two of them hopped out and started to walk to Tiffany.

  When they got there, Holly paused to look in the windows and admire the wonderfully elaborate displays.

  ‘So we’re going to a jewellery store,’ Danny said flatly.

  She punched him in the shoulder. ‘Yep, but I know a great movie theatre near by that might be playing … the Marx brothers.’

  ‘Really? YES!’ Danny did a goofy happy dance on the sidewalk.

  Holly pushed him towards the entrance. ‘But here first, OK?’

  They passed the swarms of tourists posing for pictures in front of the iconic store sign, and found refuge inside the revolving doors that led to the main ground-floor jewellery hall.

  They walked past the opening display cases that showcased a variety of glittering jewels, and Holly quickly sought out a quiet area towards the rear, leaving Danny to wander around at his leisure. She caught the eye of a pleasant-looking salesman and smiled brightly.

  ‘Hello, I was wondering if you could help me?’

  ‘Of course, madam. What can I do for you?’ he smiled, and she saw him surreptitiously take in her vintage Chanel handbag and chic, expensive-looking waffle-weave jacket – somewhat different to the majority of the ‘I ♥ New York’-type tourists in the store just then.

  Holly took a deep breath and pulled the charm bracelet from her pocket. ‘Actually, I was hoping to show you something. I found this bracelet…’

  She quickly recounted the story. ‘It’s just so important that I get this back to the rightful owner. I know I would be missing it terribly, if it were mine. See this heart-shaped key charm here – it has a Tiffany mark on it. Do you think you could tell me a little bit more about it? Something that might perhaps help me trace the owner?’