The Correspondent: A Novel by Virginia Evans - 48

Dezi Martinelli

138 South Carrington St.

Hasbrouck Heights, NJ 07604

January 8, 2018

Dear Dezi,

I received your letter of October 21, 2017. I can see only one way to begin, and that is to tell you, yes, I do remember you and your brother, Aldo, very well. I remember the day your mother brought you to Judge Donnelly’s chambers, and I remember the circumstances of the case. In fact, all of this has stayed very vivid in my memory for many years, and as troubling as it was to read your furious letter, it was also something of a relief. It seems age is softening me.

I am going blind. I am not telling you this as a plea for sympathy. When I was told by my eye doctor seven or eight years ago it was as if suddenly I was waking up from a long dream, a dream that had been my entire life, and now here was the real life and a timer had been set. When my eyes go, that will be the end of me, I thought, and the notion of the end of my life, though it feels trite to say, made me reminisce and consider the past in ways I had not done. You should know that among other things, there you were. You, your mother, your brother, and your father, Enzo.

About four weeks before your father’s case came before Judge Donnelly (and, therefore, me) my son died. He was eight years old. He was the middle of my three children. If you have suffered the death of a child, you have my complete sympathy and you do not require me to go on. If you have not, then suffice it to say there is no greater pain. Imagine the most severe pain, multiply it by a thousand. Ten thousand. Then you will have some inkling. Gilbert died, and two weeks later I returned to work and the matter of your father’s hearing. In your letter you said my eyes were cold and dead and cruel when you met me, and you are correct. I was cold, dead, and cruel. Was I a mother? I was asking myself the same. I was an evil witch, yes. If you had said these things to me that day, I would have said yes. I would have relished it.

Here is the whole truth, and this is my confession: when your mother came into my office with her two perfect, healthy sons begging for Judge Donnelly to have mercy on your father, I was cold and cruel. I hated her because she had you. Your big, curious eyes. How like Gilbert you seemed to me. The cowlick at the back of your head. Your brother with his socks sagging down at his ankles. She introduced you—“my sons Dezi and Aldo.” It was as if she’d stabbed me with a knife. You were tall and thin, and I could see you were paying attention. She begged for mercy, and I thought, I admit it, my thought was if I could not have my family back, then why should she? There had been no mercy shown to me; why should anyone receive mercy? My misery made me cruel. When Donnelly returned from lunch he said the secretary at the courthouse said I’d met with the defendant’s wife. He came to me, wondering why your mother had come, but I waved him off. I did not plead on her behalf, as I should have, as I, a mother, should have. I knew I had his ear, and I did not speak up for your mother. When Donnelly delivered your father’s sentence, the harsh sentence I knew he would deliver, I was silent, I relished my silence in that moment, and for this I am sorry.

After the sentencing, though, I was haunted. Your father’s testimony, your visit, it all bothered me. I was outside my mind during that time, unable to sleep, deranged with grief, and I became fixated on your family in a way, some parallel guilt, I guess. After a while I wrote to your father in prison, just a short thing with a few dollars. I didn’t confide in him, really, just a little note to say I hoped he was getting on OK, but he wrote back. His response was a beautiful letter, honest. He was so young, not thirty, but gentle. He said he wasn’t angry with me, he was so gracious. So wise. It moved me. We exchanged a handful of letters, the letters you have seen, and I always included a few dollars he could use at the commissary, but his letters rather always surprised me. Even though I kept myself at a distance, he told me little things about his life in Bergamo, and how he had fallen in love with your mother when he was just a boy, his happiness with having had sons. He told me that he’d only wanted to make something for you and your brother. He talked about the dream of buying a house with a garden for vegetables for your mother, Florencia. He said when he got out of prison he planned to go to you all in Italy and bring you back.

The last time I wrote him it was returned to me because he’d been released. I’d never really apologized to him for my part in the outcome of his life, though I guess he knew I was sorry. Where is your father now? I think I’d like to write to him again, to apologize.

With respect,

Sybil Van Antwerp