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In the end, what Passione was and wasn’t meant very little to her. Things like hope and ambition are reserved for people who live in reality, which is to say they believed in the world more than they believed in the chasm that bridges one moment to the next. She cared not for the state of her native Italy, nor did she care much about herself, anymore.
Living in a hotel is easy, if you have the money. Many things are easy if you have the money, but this one is especially so. No one will talk to you once you’re locked in your room. No one will make you do anything. And every day, you’re met with endless opportunities on what to do with yourself. Every day, you could just pick up and leave, if you wanted to.
It went on like this for a while. Awareness of the passage of time ebbed and flowed with midnight walks and morning dinners, and before she knew it, against all odds, Trish found herself very used to it all. Used to the world, a little, but mostly just used to herself. Equilibrium has a way of just finding people sometimes, whether they want it or not. Whether they think it’s the right time or not. Until the day came when she got the call.
If you were to ask her what she’d been doing, Trish’s go-to lie would be that she’d been waiting for that call.
Passione’s newly opened base of operations is a grand villa in the Neapolitan countryside. Giorno himself comes to open the door for her and ushers Trish inside. He pours the tea himself, as well, and sets a cup down in front of her. There is no one else around that she can see—just him and her in a quiet room. Questions come: How have you been? Did you make it here alright? I debated on sending someone to escort you; I know this is a ways out from Genova.
He listens to her replies intently, as if the things she said were important. Yes, Giorno is very warm to her, indeed.
“There’s a place for you in Passione, of course,” Giorno tells her. “If you want it.”
If she wants it.
“You could join Mista with the bodyguards,” he continues. “Or be a Capo elsewhere and lead your own team. It doesn’t have to be on the front lines, either. We could use you on the analysis side of things.”
The tea is nice. The tea is earl grey. Too bad she’s never thirsty.
“Or travel. You could be an independent agent of mine. I’ve been looking to set up a connection in France; Paris would naturally be the first place to start—”
“You’re worried about me,” Trish says. “Aren’t you.”
“Well, yes,” Giorno admits.
“ … They burnt down my house,” is what she ends up saying, staring down at her tea.
“A house?” he remarks. “I could get you a house.”
“His house,” she tells him. “I want his house.”
Trish was homeless.
They told her she’d be homeless when they first came to her door. Four plainly-dressed men, one of which was her long-time neighbor, Mr. Derosas. He had babysitted her a few times when she was little. He was one of the five other people who’d attended her mother’s funeral.
“So you’re going to come with us, now,” he’d said.
“I have to?” she asked.
A gun. She had to.
They sat her down on the bench across the street while they cleaned out her childhood home. Every last trace of her was sandblasted off the face of the Earth, fingerprints scrubbed off every surface, chemicals dumped down every drain—vacuum bags full of dust and stray hairs lit on fire, pictures taken from frames and lit on fire, clothes and linen and shoes lit on fire—till the only evidence left of her existence was Trish herself.
She stayed with the man assigned to her until the rest finished up. They led her by the hand past another pink-haired girl who stepped through the front door like nothing was wrong.
“You wanted to meet your father, right?” Mr. Derosas asked.
Ten days later, when Trish finally made it back home, she found it had been burned to the ground. The other pink-haired girl was found with three bullets through her skull, and the family cat had been nailed to the mailbox. Dad, Trish thought to herself. And then, Dad.
“I wonder if I’ll be able to like my father.”
“No family worries about that.”
And the hand holding her own, even after she pushed him aside.
She can’t remember when exactly he let go of her hand. Here’s what she does remember: walking into that church and knowing she was going to die. The knowledge was both distant and immediate, dizzying, pounding in her ears with each new step she took—stop taking, stop walking, run, run—stepping up to the execution block because she didn’t know what else to do, because she couldn’t do anything else—could she? Couldn’t she?
And Bucciarati not knowing any of this. He didn’t know, after all; he was innocent in all this. Trying to comfort her. Thinking he was helping her.
She remembers choosing to let herself die for that kindness. A pretend decision in the heat of the moment, as if she ever had a choice to begin with, but some of her will was expressed in it nonetheless. It wasn’t an act of selflessness—she will always be the most selfish of girls—but more like her way of thanking him. Yes, she had wanted to thank him. So she entered the elevator without a fuss. So she let him think he was saving her.
And she remembers Bucciarati saving her from that, too.
There’s a scar circling her wrist where the zipper had encircled it. Something must’ve been cut off. Someone must’ve carried it back to her. She doesn’t know, but she knows—
“You’re right. It’s strange to even worry about that.”
And it’s strange to think that the one who gives her away is the same one who takes her back. It’s strange that she should land on her feet. It’s strange to think that maybe, just maybe, he never let go. That he kept holding her hand even when she had no hand to hold.
She always remembers men most of all, secretly, involuntarily. The small, momentary intersections scattered across her lonely days. The cashier who waved the change she owed and told her not to worry about it. The neighbor who always greets her on her way to school. The waiter who recognized her by name.
Her first grade teacher putting his hand on her shoulder and giving her an extra star on her homework. Walking home alone in the rain to a house just as empty. Running her finger over the yellow sticker. Sitting at the kitchen table and pretending she was back at school. And crying for no reason.
So yes, she remembers Bucciarati very well indeed. She remembered him even when he was right in front of her, before there was even a need to rely on her memory. At night, she squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to feel so much.
There was something she should’ve said to him.
Even now, she still wonders what it was.
It’s a small house in the suburbs of Naples, smaller than she’d been expecting. There’s a school nearby, as well as a great restaurant. It’s right next to the beach, too. Giorno offered to buy her some adjacent beachfront land to have to herself, but she turned him down. That was more than what she wanted.
There are no pictures on the walls, nor are there any houseplants. The only truly personal items down here are the dozen or so books shelved in a small cabinet, but they have no journals among them, no notes scribbled in the margins—just a few dog-eared pages and the ghosts of hands.
Her fingertips linger on everything she passes, like the trail of a wedding gown. The lines they draw through the dust are straight and true. Upstairs, in the only bedroom, there’s nothing but a closet and a neatly made bed; the quilt is old and worn, with a textile fish carefully patterned into every square. It smells like someone else when it’s pulled over her head, the mattress creaking under her weight. The box springs don’t give much until they do, and in the love-drenched quiet, eyes closed, Trish lets her Stand’s power seep from her hands till the whole room sobs with it, and everything bends, and then something makes a noise right next to her ear.
Slowly, she reaches under the pillow and pulls out a glossy piece of cardstock. Her eyes drift open to see a photo of a family with two young children posing on a bridge; none of the depicted are anyone she knows, but something about the mother’s face is familiar. The smiles stare back at her, and she turns it over.
June 15, 1998
Went to the pier with the kids today and had a good time. Weather’s been very good for us, not too hot at all.I visited dad’s grave last week. Miss him a lot and thinking of you.
Hope you’re doing well
Her hand curls inward, a clamshell against its own shape.
“Me too.”