It was the same woman as the previous picture, but this time she held a little girl who looked very much like Daniela.
“Your sister?” I asked, getting closer.
“Giovanna,” she said, her voice mournful.
“Why do you sound so sad? She’s not dead, right?”
She paused again, and then continued to scrub.
“Maybe, maybe not. She left years ago, never looked back. So I have no idea.”
“You could find her,” I said. Doing so wouldn’t take much effort, even if Giovanna didn’t want to be found.
Daniela stop then, turned to look at me.
“No. Giovanna made her choices. I’m going to respect them,” she said.
“So she just ditched you?” I asked.
“She did what she thought was right,” Daniela said.
“She ditched you. And you respect someone who did that?”
“I don’t get to make choices for her. I don’t get to make choices for anyone,” she said.
A loaded statement, and I couldn’t help but wonder if Daniela included herself in that equation.
“You shouldn’t waste your sadness on someone who doesn’t give a shit about you,” I said.
She huffed quietly, but didn’t seem offended at what I’d said. Instead, she looked at me and smiled.
“What?” I said.
“It’s almost romantic, the way you can simplify it like that,” she said.
“It is simple. You don’t turn your back on people,” I said.
“You’ve never turned your back on anyone?” she said.
“No one who didn’t deserve it,” I said.
“What makes you think I didn’t deserve it?”
She turned then, went back to polishing the frame, but I wouldn’t let her off so easily.
“Call it a hunch,” I said, pushing the topic.
“Which may or may not be right. Giovanna thought I deserved it,” she said.
“Did you have a fight?”
“No. Not exactly. We just had…different opinions,” she said.
“That’s bullshit, Daniela,” I said.
I wasn’t sure why this was bothering me so much, but though Daniela almost never spoke of her sister, never spoke of her family at all, I knew that she suffered. I didn’t like that.
“It’s not. And I can’t say that I blame her. If I were different, braver, I would have done the same,” she said.
“But you didn’t, and now you’re stuck with me,” I said, frowning.
“You’re not so bad,” she said, looking over at me.
I gave her a faint smile, but didn’t feel humor.
“Not so bad, but not your choice,” I said.
“Just like I wasn’t yours,” she said.
I didn’t say anything else, because what was there to say? She’d spoken the truth. Daniela hadn’t been my choice, but she was mine now, and I was happy about that. From the sound of her voice, though, she didn’t feel the same, and pointing out the truth of our original meeting didn’t distract me from that fact. I didn’t push it, though, and instead changed the subject.
“What happened to your mother?” I asked.
“She got sick right after Giovanna left. They were always closer. After that, she just kind of slipped away.”
She didn’t sound bitter about that, only a little wistful.
“You think she died of grief?” I said.
“If anybody had a reason to, it was her,” Daniela said.
“What do you mean?”
“She was married to Santo, but all she ever wanted was a family. And all she ended up with was me,” she said.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I said, knowing that anyone lucky enough to have Daniela in their life should be grateful.
“No. But it wasn’t what she wanted. What he wanted,” she said. And she was living out the same life, stuck in a place she hadn’t chosen with a person she hadn’t chosen.
She finished the pictures and looked at me, and I stood, silent. I had a crazy impulse to tell her she should leave here, go find out what she wanted, but I couldn’t do that. Because more than anything, I wanted her to stay. I didn’t know how to process that.
“What about you?” she asked.
She had tucked her hands in her pockets, pushing her shorts down low on her hips.
“What about me?” I said when I mustered the focus to speak.
“Any brothers or sisters? Parents? Any family at all?”
“Brothers and sisters? Who knows? Parents? Not anymore. Family,” I said, pausing. “Sort of.”
“Interesting,” she said, studying.
“What’s interesting?” I said.
“This…business. It makes so many ties, bonds, but you don’t seem to,” she said.