1. Lucia

In the cold, darkened room of a convent lay a girl who is minutes away from becoming a woman. 

That’s what they say you are once you turn eighteen, right? You’re a woman now, you’re legal, and people can do with you what they want because you’re a grown-up and can handle the repercussions. 

Then why do I still feel like a child? 

It might be the way they look at me, as if just breathing air is a sin. They think I can’t tell, but the punishments became worse when I started filling out more of my clothing. When my cotton underwear started getting too small, when my body started becoming curvier, when my bra went up by four sizes in five months.

How can I be an adult now when one look from the Mother Superior makes me feel shameful to be a woman? How many Hail Marys will I need to say before I’ll be forgiven for being me?

I hide beneath my shapeless dresses, but what good does that do? I wish I knew who my mother was, just so I can see if I inherited her genes. But I’ve been here since I was only three days old, abandoned, and the nuns don’t let me forget it.

A girl with no name and no history. A girl no one wanted and left on the steps of a convent in the dead of night and the middle of winter.

Rosalita De Francesco Convent. The place I have called home for as long as I can remember, and those memories are not any I hold dear to me. Old fashioned and cold, there are no other children here, just me and the nuns and they’ve drilled their teachings into me since I was able to walk.

How would they feel, I wonder, if I had to tell them I lost my faith after the third beating with the leather belt? That I don’t believe in any higher power because if such a power exists, why leave me at the mercy of women pretending to be pious?

Ah, Lucia, stop thinking such nonsense and close your eyes. Tomorrow will be a long day and you know it. 

Sighing, I close my eyes and try to drift off to sleep. Perhaps I’ll have the lovely dream where I open my own place of safety without old-fashioned religious teachings. Where abandoned children don’t have to feel alone and terrified. 

I smile as the thought crosses my mind, and sleep eventually takes me.

Three hours of sleep and I am up getting ready for the day. It’s better than being woken up by a bang on the door. After braiding my hair and tying it up in a bun at the base of my neck, I leave the confines of my small room and walk to the kitchen.

As I walk inside, the smell of vanilla brings a smile to my face and I see Nonna Lola icing some white cupcakes, save for the singular blue one - mine. Her wrinkled face is curled into a happy smile as she places the white rose petal on the blue one.

“You beat me to it again, Nonna,” I say affectionately as I walk toward her. She chuckles and holds her arms open to embrace me, and I have to bend down to sink into her tiny, crouched frame.

She’s not my real grandmother, but when I met her the first time, she had wrinkled hands and I called her Nonna without thinking. Her name is Lola, but now she refuses to let me call her anything else. Not only that, but she’s the only one who has ever shown me a sliver of warmth and kindness.

“Buon compleanno, Tesoro,” she says in that croaky voice I love so much and as she breaks off the embrace, she takes my face in her hands. Her eyes are welled up with unshed tears and there’s a look of sadness in her eyes. “Oh, you’ve grown up too quickly, mia ragazza!”

She looks as if she’s about to lose me forever and it makes my eyes mist with tears as well. “Grazie, Nonna,” I say, feeling a tear slip down my cheek and she wipes it away. “But there’s no reason to be sad! I’ll still be here until someone calls me Nonna as I cook for them!”

Chuckling at this, I bend down as she kisses my cheeks and feel that same warmth curling in my heart again. Nonna Lola is the sole reason I’ve been hanging on for as much as I can because once I leave here I am taking her with me!

“Here,” she says as she picks up the cupcake and holds it close to my lips. “Make a wish and blow, Tesoro!”

This is the little tradition that we’ve kept hidden from the others. Every morning of my birthday, she would make a batch of cupcakes and ice them in their usual boring white. But for me, she would ice my birthday cupcake blue and top it with a rose petal in place of a birthday candle.

And when I make my wish, I blow the petal instead of the flame of a candle. She didn’t want to use a candle, because the others would smell the burning wax and wick immediately.

Closing my eyes, I make the same wish I have made for years: Please let this year be different.

The petal blows off the cupcake and, as usual, she catches it and puts it into the pocket of her apron. I don’t know what she does with the petals and she refuses to tell me, so I proceed to eat my birthday treat and we get our day going. 

Nonna Lola is the one who taught me to cook from a young age, and instead of teaching me Sicilian recipes, she taught me mostly Italian. Same with the nuns and the languages they taught me. I always thought this was odd since we’re living in Catania, but I’ve stopped questioning her and her odd ways. 

After finishing some ciabatta and focaccia for lunchtime, we move on to the quick oatmeal for breakfast. Everyone should be down in about fifteen minutes, and then my dreaded day starts. 

But this time things felt… different. For starters, during breakfast, the Mother Superior, or Badessa, wished to speak to me in private. That has never happened before, and I wonder if she’s going to force me into choosing this life or kick me out.

I think the latter is more realistic. There’s hatred in her eyes whenever she looks at me and it doesn’t go away when I walk into her chambers. She’s sitting behind her desk when I approach her and I come to a stop with my hands clasped in front of me.

“You’re eighteen today, Lucia,” she starts because I’ve been taught to speak only when you’re told to. “A woman. Old enough to go out into the world now.”

“Si, Badessa Maria,” I answer her and nearly frown when I see her smiling at me. 

She’s never smiled at me once, so why is she doing it now? The act sends a shiver down my spine, but when I hear footsteps behind me, I know it is all an act. But why pretend to be nice to me in front of someone else?

“And since you’ve come of age, your family has decided it is time for you to know who they are,” she says and I have to blink a few times to understand what she has just said.

Wait…

“My family?” I gasp, my hand going to my chest. “But I don’t…”

Suddenly, the presence of the unknown person behind me makes sense. Are they my family? Is that why she’s suddenly being nice to me?

I spin around and my breath catches in my throat when I see the tall, imposing man behind me. He’s older, his salt and pepper hair slicked back and he’s wearing a black suit. There are tattoos on the knuckles of his fingers as he clasps them in front of him, but even as imposing as he looks, I see the warmth in his eyes as he looks at me.

“Buon compleanno, Principessa,” he says in a rough, American-accented voice with a similar warm smile on his face. “You look as beautiful as Catalina did.”

I suck in a breath. “Catalina? Is that my mother?” I ask and look back at a scowling Badessa Maria before turning my head to face the man in front of me. “Are you… Are you my father?”

He chuckles at this and shakes his head. “I suppose you would think that since I look old enough to be your father, but no. I am not,” he says, then his eyes go to the Badessa behind me. “Please leave us for a few minutes, Badessa. I need to inform Lucia of her lineage.”

The chair scrapes behind me and my heart leaps into my throat when the Mother Superior actually listens to him and walks towards the door. “Fifteen minutes, Signor,” she says before the door closes behind her.

Now I am all alone in a room with a man who I know is about to crush whatever I thought I knew about myself.