The Correspondent: A Novel by Virginia Evans - 50

Sybil Van Antwerp

17 Farney Rd.

Arnold, MD 21012

29 April 2018

Dear Ms. Van Antwerp,

I read your letter. It was very full. I am surprised to be saying this, but I am sorry your son Gilbert died. My oldest daughter is with the angels. She left us the day after she was born, that was in 1992.

In spring last year 2015 my son took an overdose of heroin. The good rehab programs are so expensive. We took another mortgage on our house. He lives, but he is not the same, and we are always in worry. I think I can understand your sadness.

One thing, I wasn’t clear. My father is dead. He died when I was fifteen years old. This occurred in a terrible way. He got out of jail and borrowed money to come to Italy. By then he was like a dog in a junkyard. He was drinking and ill from it. He wanted my mother to come back to America and they would try again, but she was angry and would not have him. Life was very hard on her, and she was a black sheep because of my father’s crime. She is the second daughter in a family with four sisters, and my grandfather was not a rich man. He was of the mind she married a fool. Everyone knew she had gone away to America, and come back without my father. Everyone knew everything somehow. We were living with my nonna on the edge of Bergamo. My grandfather had died. My father arrived on the porch. My mother did not let him in the house because he was ragged and drunk. On this same night he went to a bar and after some hours they said he went out and he was hit by a car in the street. He died five days later in the hospital there. My papa was a good man, but this is the outcome. I think this is the reason I have been so angry.

My mother lives in Italy still, but I came to America when I was nineteen. I have an Italian sandwich and meats shop in Hoboken called Nelli’s, which you may have heard if you have been in the area. The oil and vinegar blend I use is selling in most grocery stores in the Northeast and out west as far as Ohio.

Best regards,

Dezi Martinelli