For most of my life, I had been told that my "duty" as a woman was to be a model wife and prepare to raise a model family for the greater good of Italy. This sentiment was increased tenfold when I was 17, and word of the Fascist party taking control reached my family's spacious home on the coast in Ancona, just a little ways from Portonovo. I remember distracting my two youngest sisters with dolls and a make-believe tea party as my parents talked in hushed tones in the room next to us. I pretended to be engrossed in play, but would try my best to sneak glances and to detect bits and pieces of their worried conversation. 

My father was a politician, and once Mussolini came into power, worked directly for the dictator. I didn't know exactly what my father's duties in that capacity entailed, but the less I knew, the better; I didn't ask questions. 

I never accepted the Fascists' way of thinking. Something about it seemed wrong. It felt flawed. I never expressed any of these inner thoughts with anyone in my family, because none of them would have taken me seriously, anyway. Women's opinions only mattered in politics when they upheld the previously established beliefs of the very men forcing those opinions onto them in the first place. It drove me wild, but I did my best to hold my tongue and refrain from complaining about the system. The only place I felt comfortable and safe enough to do so was in my journal. The little leather-bound book had been my companion ever since my eighteenth birthday- a gift from my eldest brother Oreste before he went off to the military -and I carried it with me everywhere. 

It was a fairly nice day in 1927 when I decided to look back through it. Sitting down on my favorite rock overlooking the bluff, I tucked my legs up under me. The rock was smooth, worn from years of a young girl perching on top of it as she wrote about her innermost thoughts and feelings. In that same exact spot, my fingers flipped back through the tattered pages, glancing at different entries, often accompanied by a quick sketch, doodle, or sometimes even dried leaves and flowers pressed directly into the page. I smiled as I came to one entry from four years prior, shortly after I had received the journal from Oreste. I was hit with the fragrant scent from the petals of an Etruscan Saffron that I had somehow managed to stumble upon. 

"I can't believe I found one of these! Mama says they're super rare, and I managed to find one! I wish I could show Oreste, but he left yesterday to go rejoin the others at the capitol. 

"I don't understand all of these men fighting for a system that doesn't care anything about them. Oreste says that things will get better, and that one day the economy will be the best in the world; that Italy will expand its borders to the horizons and far beyond. I'm not sure that I want Italy to grow that much. What if its expanse is so vast that I won't be able to find my way back home? What if the Italy they want is not the Italy I want? 

"Oreste and Domizio got into another fight yesterday. I think Dom was drunk. I wish they could get along. I know things are hard right now, but Mama needs for us to behave. She's not getting any better, and hasn't gotten out of bed, today. I hope the fever breaks, soon. Papa says that the doctor told him she should be feeling better by tomorrow. I'm not sure if I believe him." 

I frowned a bit as I read the last bit, remembering the unease and anguish I had felt as I penned it. Sometimes my parents thought that hiding the truth from their children equated to protecting them. I didn't see it that way. I felt unnerved and frustrated by the unknown and what lies beyond it. Yet, my parents did what they could to keep my siblings and me relatively happy and carefree. That included reassuring me and the twins, Rosetta and Chiara, that Mama was sick, yes, but she was getting better! Any day, now, the fever would break and she would be back to normal! 

Little Rosetta and Chiara never once doubted the things my father told them. How could they? Their young minds couldn't begin to reconcile with the fact that our mother was dying from Scarlet Fever. So they believed every word of what Papa would tell us. And I never begrudged them that. They were only twelve, after all. 

And since they were so young, the household duties mainly rested on my shoulders. Mama was sick and could barely hold her eyes open, so there was no way she would be able to take care of the girls or do any of the chores. I did what I could to ease the twins' worries about Mama, but I wasn't about to lie to them like my father had been doing. If they asked me about our mother's condition, I would answer them truthfully: 

"I don't know." 

I shifted a bit on the rock I sat atop, cursing under my breath at how frustrating skirts could be. I had often lamented the fact that my brothers got to where breaches while I was confined to the skirts and frills and ribbons of a "cute little frock", as my mother fondly called them. 

I flipped forward a few pages in my journal, coming to an entry I knew so well that I didn't have to even read it to know what it said. The edge of the page was worn and stained with oils from the repeated presence of my fingers flipping to it, and tear splotches scattered different areas of the weathered paper. 

I looked out at the horizon, recalling the day that was the subject of this particular entry. 

"See? Yours looks more like Aunt Rosa." 

"Hey! Mine looks pretty! You're just being mean!" 

I chuckled a bit at my bickering sisters, shaking my head and setting down my own charcoal. 

"Chiara, don't be mean about other people's artwork, that isn't very nice." 

She looked a little bit ashamed, eyes dropping back to her paper on the table the three of us sat around. 

"And Rosetta, I think if you give your princess a little bit more shadow under her chin, she'll look even better!" 

Her dark eyes lit up in appreciation as she eagerly picked up her charcoal again, getting to work to incorporate the advice I had given her. 

The three of us worked comfortably, humming and making comments to one another every so often. I got lost in the process of making the marks of charcoal on my paper, building up the stem of the flowering plant I was sketching. Using my finger to build up the tone a bit in places, I didn't hear my father come into the room. He cleared his throat, and my sisters' and my head snapped up at attention, hungry for any word on our mother's health. 

"You girls continue drawing, I just need to talk to (Y/N) for a bit in the other room. It'll only be a few minutes," he added, and flashed that award-winning smile that could put a hostage at ease. 

Rosetta and Chiara smiled and nodded, going back to their pictures. I stood from the table, dusting my hands off on my dress, to my father's displeasure, and followed him into the other room, wondering at what it was that he was going to tell me that he couldn't tell the girls. Foolishly, I thought he might be discretely telling me the truth about Mama and her sickness. I hoped it was something about Mama and not about this "suitor" he kept referring to a few days prior. I didn't want to be married, and especially not to a man who was close friends with my father. Apparently he was a widower with four children, all young girls, and was looking for a wife to give him boys. The thought horrified me and turned my stomach. 

I was brought back to the moment when my father did not stop in the other room, but instead continued and climbed the winding staircase that led upstairs to my parents' large suite, where my mother had been confined for the past few weeks. My eyebrows turned up in worry and confusion, wondering why my father was taking me up to their room. I felt a knot form in the pit of my stomach and the palms of my hands begin to clam up. 

My father hesitated at the door before rapping his knuckles against the wood gently. We could hear a faint response: "Come in."

He opened the door and we stepped into the room, the only light a candle lit on the bedside table and all the curtains drawn shut. My eyes migrated over to my mother in the bed, sickly pale and sweat droplets beading on her forehead. I swallowed the knot making its way up into my throat, my heart sinking at the sight of her. I locked eyes with my father, and he gave me a slight, grim shake of his head. 

I looked back at Mama, and recklessly rushed to her side, grasping her hands in mine. Her eyes fluttered open and landed on me, seeming cloudy and distant. Her labored lungs heaved a bit as she let out a breathless chuckle, a small smile dancing on her full lips. Her thumb rubbed the back of my hand comfortingly. 

"(Y/N), my precious child."

"Mama, how are you feeling?" 

I knew it was a foolish question to ask. I knew from the way my father slowly paced around the room and avoided looking at us. I knew from the fragility of my mother's grasp. I knew from the sorrowful smile she wore. 

I knew she was dying. 

All the same, I asked her. Because I didn't have the heart to not hope against hope that maybe she really would recover. That things would all go back to normal and I'd get to have my mother back. The reasonable part of me knew that it was stupid to think that, but all the same, I couldn't bring myself to face that reality, just yet. So I asked. 

"Oh, bambino, I don't have much time left here on this earth before the Father takes me." 

I felt a tear slide down my face as I pleaded with her. "Mama, please. Don't leave us. We need you. I need you." 

"(Y/N), you are such a strong, beautiful woman. And I'm so proud of the person you're becoming. I know you will do great things, even after I am with the Saints."

I didn't want to hear what she was saying; didn't want to think about having to bury my mother and telling my sisters that Mama was gone. All the same, I forced myself to listen, drinking in every fleeting moment I had left with her like I was parched. 

"(Y/N), my child, listen. I have something I need to tell you." I noticed my father slightly glance our way when she said this to me. I leaned forward eagerly. "Eighteen years ago, when you were born, you were very sick." 

My brow furrowed in confusion. I didn't know why she was telling me about my birth, but continued to pay attention, anyway. 

"Your father and I did everything we could to get you well, and barred no expense to try and find a number of doctors who could help you. It didn't work." Her voice wavered. "I felt your little heart stop beating as I held you in my arms." 

I blinked at her. What she was telling me didn't make any sense, and I wondered if maybe the fever was making her delirious. Yet, if that was the case, why did my father look like he also believed what she was saying? 

"I wouldn't- I couldn't- give up. I knew that there must be some way that we could save you, even in the state you were in. I prayed. I prayed so, and the Father heard my cries. He sent one of His Servants to us. A woman knocked on our door and told us that the Lord had sent her here, and that she had the Divine Hand of the Father and the Saints aiding her. She told us she could help you. 

"We brought her into our home and she immediately started to anoint you with Holy water and other spiritual cleansers. And by a miracle sent from above, you began to cry. Your father and I were overjoyed, and still do not regret the decision we made in entrusting you to the Lord's Servant. However, your miraculous rebirth came with a consequence." 

"Consequence? Mama what do you mean by that?"

"La mia bambina," she said to me, stroking the side of my face as tears welled in the corners of her eyes. "You're cursed to never die."

It felt like, for a moment, my world stopped spinning. Time seemed to grind to a halt. Even if I believed what my mother was saying to me, how had I been aging for this long? In all the stories and tales that I had read and heard, immortal beings didn't age, or stopped at a certain point. I was still aging, as far as I could tell. Would I keep aging for eternity until I was nothing but a bag of bones and wrinkles? 

But that was ridiculous. I wasn't immortal, and I wasn't destined to be a bag of bones and wrinkles. 

My father spoke up from his spot over in the corner. He spoke in my general direction, but made no eye contact with me. 

"It's true. The Servant told us that your body would stop aging on your 22nd birthday. It's why we've been trying to find you a suitable marriage beforehand, before people grow suspicious. They'll think you practice witchcraft." 

I blinked at him, my brain in a fog and my inner monologue sluggish. It was one thing for my mother to be telling me this in her feverish state, but for my father to agree? I didn't want to admit it, but that meant that there was a slight chance that there might be some validity to my mother's fantastical statements. 

Before I had time to really absorb, let alone process, any of the information my parents had just thrusted upon me, Mama flew into a coughing fit. I noticed at this point that a couple of staff and the physician had entered the room, and one of the maids drew me away from my mother. She was coughing up blood, and I knew enough to know that this might be the last time I ever spoke to my mother. 

"I love you, Mama! I love you so much!" I said to her through tears even as the maid guided me out of the room. 

I heard her gasping for air and the ghost of "I love you too" before the door shut, separating me from my mother. 

A splash on my hand jolted me back to the present, and I sighed at the fresh tear stains on the page. I gently swiped at the page with my hand, leaving dark splotches behind to dry. 

My mother had passed shortly after they escorted me out of the room, and my father had to deliver the news to my inconsolable sisters. I could hear their wails from the seclusion of my own bedroom as I sat in shock. So much had happened, and I still didn't quite grasp the gravity of it all in the moment. 

Now, four years later, the memory was still as clear as it had been that fateful afternoon in my parents' suite. I felt a pang in my heart at the hole my mother had left when she'd passed. My sisters were a lot less innocent, and a lot more reserved. I couldn't remember the last time I had seen my father smile. And for my elder brothers? I wasn't sure. I hadn't seen Oreste or Domizio since Mama's funeral. 

But there was no denying that when Mama left, she took the glue that held my family together with her. We were still a family in the sense that the military is a "family": close proximity and a sense of loyalty, but nothing beyond that. Mama was so joyous and balanced out my father's intensity. And I certainly was not anywhere near ready to be a mother. 

Rosetta and Chiara needed Mama, not their sister pretending to live up to that standard. 

And I needed guidance. Because I felt as lost in life as driftwood at sea; no sense of direction kept me grounded, and no amount of nationality would lead me to find my home. But Mama was gone, and no amount of grief or wishing was going to bring her back. 

I wiped my eyes, closed my journal, and stood up from the rock. Adjusting my skirts, I knew that I was going to have to keep playing the part. If for nothing else, then for the sake of my sisters. I took a steadying breath and left the bluff, the rock, and the memories behind me, for now.