The Mermaid Garden(162)

“Mamá.”

“What news? I haven’t heard from you for a week.”

“I have found my biological parents.”

Maria Carmela sat down. “You have found them? Both of them?”

“Yes. Marina, the woman who owns the hotel, is Floriana. She fell in love with a man called Dante. They’re here, both of them.”

“Are you all right?”

“I’m happy, Mamá. I know where I come from now, but I also know who I belong to.”

“You do?” Her voice sounded strained.

“I belong to you, Mamá. I always have.”

Maria Carmela’s heart felt as full as a bag of sunshine. “I have been so worried. You see, when Father Ascanio asked us to adopt you, I had to confide in my employer, Señora Luisa. When she took you under her wing, I feared she would take you from me, for she was the only person who knew you did not belong to us and she was enchanted by you. When you set out on this quest to find your biological mother, again I feared I’d lose you. I have always been aware that you were entrusted to us, but not one of us. I’ve always feared I would lose you one day.”

“But that makes no sense. You were the mother who kissed me good night, who read me bedtime stories, who bandaged my knee when I fell off Papa’s mare. You were the mother I ran to when I was unhappy, to whom I poured out my heart when it was broken. You are the woman who has been a mother to me in all the ways that are important. I had no other mother but you.” He sensed her emotion down the line and understood that she was too moved to speak.

“Listen, you know the girl I told you about? Clementine?”

She sniffed and composed herself. “Of course, Rafa.”

“I want to bring her to meet you.”

“You’re coming home?”

“Yes, I’m coming home.” There was a pause. Rafa could feel his mother’s happiness, and his heart swelled with joy. “She’s incredibly special. I know you’ll love her, too.”

“If you love her, then so will I. How wonderful to think that you went in search of one woman and you have found two. Tell me, hijo, was your biological mother very happy to see you?”

“Yes, she was.”

“Did you tell her how well I looked after you?”

“I told her that I have had the happiest life possible.”

“We weren’t rich.”

“Neither was she. But like you, she is rich in everything that matters.”

“I think your father would be very proud of you.” Rafa didn’t reply. “I mean it, mi amor, he would consider you very brave. You took a risk, one he would have advised against, but it has paid off.”

“I miss him.”

“And I miss him, too. He wouldn’t have approved of me giving you his brother’s box of personal items, but he would be happy to know the outcome. That you are safe, that you know where you come from, but that, above all, you still know where you belong.”

Rafa put down the telephone and pulled the little pouch out of his pocket. He tipped the ring and the bracelet into his hand. He had always wondered about the woman to whom these had once belonged. He lifted his eyes to the window and saw Marina and Clementine beneath the cedar tree with Biscuit. He had arrived with a sense of dislocation, as if the truth about his birth had cut him off by the roots. Now he realized that those roots had never really been severed, for Maria Carmela and Lorenzo would always be his parents.

What changed now was his future. In his search for his mother he had found Clementine, and she had altered everything. Suddenly, he felt the desire to commit, to settle down and raise a family of his own. Floriana and Dante had not enjoyed a happy ending together, but he and Clementine could. He clenched his fingers around the jewelry. With Marina’s blessing, he’d give the jewelry that had once meant so much to Floriana, to Clementine.


That night, in order to distract herself from Harvey’s hoard of stolen treasure, Marina sat on the bench at the bottom of the garden with Costanza’s letters and the half-written letter Father Ascanio had never sent. The sea murmured gently below her, and the moon lit a silver river across the water to Jesus’ marble kingdom, where he had finally answered her prayer. She pulled her shawl around her shoulders and opened Father Ascanio’s first. She switched on the torch and read his tidy, looped writing.


My dear Floriana,

I trust this finds you well in your body and healing in your heart. You are a very brave girl, and I am immensely proud of you. You have conducted yourself throughout your ordeal with great dignity and strength.

I would have given anything for you to have remained in Herba where I could keep a fatherly eye on you, but as I explained at the convent, your life and the life of your son are in grave danger. This was the only way. Beppe Bonfanti is a very powerful man, capable of silencing his enemies in the most brutal manner. Therefore, I’m afraid I cannot forward any of your letters to Costanza—as her father now works for Beppe, it is too dangerous. No one must ever know where you are.