“We didn’t let him,” Jack said. But then he added what he knew was true. “We couldn’t have done it without you, Addison. Really.”
He could see Addison smiling in the moonlight.
In the car the following morning, Francesca was quiet, watchful. She didn’t say a thing till they’d been in the car for nearly two hours, long after they’d boarded and then disembarked from the ferry. Jack knew better than to interrupt her thoughts, although he was dying to know what was on her mind. His mother was a complex person.
“You know,” Francesca said finally, speaking in a slow and poetic Italian, “when Angelo was young, my father was sure he was going to be famous. He was sure that Angelo would go on to make famous films, that he had the personality for the bright lights and famous people. That he’d get an Oscar one day. I was the one who wanted to be a filmmaker, but our father didn’t care. He thought Angelo had the right temperament. I guess he was right. Angelo was ready for fame. But he came at it in a completely different way. That’s putting it lightly, I suppose.”
Jack tried to read sorrow in his mother’s voice, but he heard nothing but nostalgia—and, bizarrely, kindness. It was as though she knew how her brother had suffered through the years, as though she knew that at the core of his heart was loneliness.She knew the origin story of Angelo and, therefore, maybe, could forgive him—to a point.
But could she really forgive him for splitting apart her family for so many years? Jack knew that he never could. Nor could he forgive him for pulling Jack into a criminal world, for ruining his life all those years ago, for poisoning his heart. If it weren’t for everything that happened, Jack knew, he never would have met Addison and he never would have had his three kids. But still. Some pains you never got over. Some bruises never healed.
Francesca stopped talking after that, as though she felt she’d already said enough. That, or she had to conserve her energy for what came next.
At the facility where they were keeping Angelo prior to his trial, Jack and Francesca were told that Angelo was something of a celebrity there.
“They love him,” the security guard said as he led them back to the visitation room. “Apparently, he’s very charming. He can get anything he wants from everyone. But don’t worry about it. We have everything locked tight back there. He won’t find his way out.”
Francesca looked sort of pale, as though she didn’t believe him. But all at once, the big iron door was opened, and they were shown to two chairs in front of a wall of glass. A full minute passed during which Jack struggled to breathe. Only then did another guard bring Angelo into the room on the other side of the glass.
In Italian, Angelo opened with a joyous, “My sister!” His eyes were like a child’s. When he sat down, he began to speak in a rapid Italian that Jack almost couldn’t understand. He said, “My darling Francesca, I never imagined you’d come to this place. I never imagined you’d want to see me again. But it means so much to me. It makes me open my heart to your understanding. It?—”
But Francesca interrupted him with a tilt of her head. Jack felt as though she were a lion, taming her prey before she ate him. Angelo stalled, his smile faltering. Soon, they were two much older siblings, looking at one another from either side of a thick pane of glass.
“Angelo,” Francesca said delicately. “Angelo, what have you done to my family?”
Angelo was frozen, maybe with surprise, maybe with sorrow. Jack guessed that he’d never sat with someone who genuinely loved him, not since he’d left Nantucket. Maybe the fact of Francesca’s love made Angelo understand all he’d lost through the years.
Angelo didn’t have anything to say to his sister's question.
“I opened my home to you,” Francesca went on. “When Mama and Papa didn’t want you anymore, after everything you’d done in Italy, I brought you here. I introduced you to my children. I gave you responsibilities at our lodge. What did you do to repay me, my brother? You burned my lodge. You sent my husband and my son to the four winds. You forced me to lose decades of my life.”
Angelo interrupted, if only briefly. “I’m sure you didn’t do too badly in Italy, Sister?—”
“No. Don’t. Do not equate me making the best of a bad situation with me having a beautiful life,” she shot back. “Tell me, Angelo. Why should I ever forgive you? How can I?”
Angelo flared his nostrils, as though for the first time in his life he was stumped. Jack tried to relish the moment, but it almost felt too emotional. He could feel how brokenhearted his mother was.
“I have cancer, Angelo,” Francesca added. “And throughout my treatments, I’ve thought about you endlessly. I’ve thought about what I would say if you were in front of me. And now that you’re here, I still don’t know what to say. Unfortunately, I stilllove you, my brother. I suppose I always will. I don’t know what to do about that, either.”
For the first time in Jack’s life, he watched his uncle wipe away a tear. Jack couldn’t believe it. Francesca put her elbows on the desk between them, which was also something Jack had never seen. Usually, she sat properly, like a lady.
“I understand that you don’t want to confess to burning the White Oak Lodge,” she continued. “Which still puts my family at stake. We need to close that case, Angelo. We need to say it once and for all. Angelo Accetta set fire to the White Oak Lodge. Say it.”
Angelo flared his nostrils and shook his head.
“I need you to say it, Brother.”
Angelo’s hands were in fists. He’d lost his cool. “What do I get out of confessing?”
Francesca laughed gently. “What do you want?”
Angelo took many staggered breaths. “I want you to visit me.”
Francesca was taken aback. “Is that all? After all these years, you missed your sister?”
Angelo didn’t say anything. Jack recognized how frightened he was. For decades, he’d been running, and he’d finally been caught. Maybe it had been because of Jack and Addison; maybe it hadn’t. But the fact remained that it was over for him, while the Whitmore family could rebuild.
“I’ll visit you,” Francesca said gently. “But it’s only because I love you, and I’ve worried about you over the years. Despite everything. Despite every horror you brought into my life.”