Virginia

“It had been 24 years since she had last seen it, but the place looked exactly the same”At least that was the impression Virginia got from the pictures and videos her sister had been sending her after her return there.

People who knew her were confused when Virginia would call Scarlett her sister, so she always had to specify that Scarlett was her “host sister” from 24 years ago. 

Virginia had been a high school foreign exchange student back when she was 16 years old. Her mother made her apply to four different cultural exchange organizations in Rome but was not accepted by any of them. She saw it as an unspoken confirmation that it was not in the cards for her. Her mother thought differently. She was not a believer in such things as universal signs and she was as stubborn as a bull. She had made up her mind that this was the right thing for her daughter and so she figured out a way. 

She convinced a family friend, who was part of an elite and exclusive international service organization that regularly funded these kinds of programs, to give Virginia a chance. It would have been in normal circumstances close to impossible but to Virginia's disbelief, she made it happen. She left for the States eight months later. 

Virginia was now strolling through the most recent pictures she had received from Scarlett. They were mostly photos of Charlie, her three-year-old son, but the background was what really interested her. The old rusty facade of their high school, with the big white and blue sign on the right of the entrance that shouted “Go wolves”. Another one showed the little run-down house of Blake’s parents looking like it had been built by a group of drunk friends. Its wild looking front yard and the old derelict of a trailer house parked outside. 

“I can’t believe we spent months in that trailer, with a barely working toilet,” Virginia half-smiled.

The destination in the USA that the program assigned her came as a bit of a surprise, considering that at the time the only places that really mattered to Italian teenagers were Southern California and New York City. So at first, it sounded a bit like a joke. Virginia is going to Virginia. But then it just became plain old annoying. If she had a nickel for every time she heard “Virginia, welcome to Virginia!” or “Virginia, welcome to your state!”. 

She paused to look at the phone in her hand, and then, more precisely at her wrist. The scar was still there, imprinted almost gracefully on her skin, but it had aged with her. She was in her forties now and in exactly 18 hours she was about to be back to the little town she had only seen pictures of for half her life. 

The flight went relatively smoothly. She was not accustomed to traveling alone anymore and it felt lonely and liberating at the same time. She didn’t want to spend the whole flight thinking she was due in court in Richmond in a few days. As soon as she took her seat, she swallowed a mild sleeping pill and she welcomed the lethargy a little later.

She was still groggy and disoriented when the plane landed and when she stepped out in the arrival hall.

“Nina!” a head with messy red hair surprised Virginia by throwing herself at her. 

“Oh Madonna, Scarlett” Virginia half screamed, mixing Italian and English, not mentally ready to fully switch to her second language yet.

”I thought you were waiting for me at home, you said you could not leave Charlie,” Virginia said. 

“I wanted to surprise you! My neighbors agreed to watch him until Julian comes home. I was terrified to miss you here at the airport since you didn’t know I was coming, but here you are!” she exclaimed turning heads all around them. “You look exactly the same, what is your secret?” Scarlett gave her an X-ray stare. 

Virginia instinctively hid both her hands in the pockets of her coat. 

“Not sure about that” She replied. 

“I tell you what it is, you don’t have kids!” Scarlett laughed at her own joke.

They were walking towards the car, discussing Virginia's flight. They stayed in touch consistently over the years, to keep alive what they once had in what it felt like another life. Scarlett had attended Virginia’s wedding in Rome ten years prior and they’d taken together a couple of trips around Europe and Asia before the husbands and kid came along.

Scarlett had reciprocated the invitation to her own wedding a few years later. She had known it was a long shot, so Virginia didn’t have to explain herself when she declined.

“So Virginia, welcome to the state of Virginia!” Scarlett yelled with fake enthusiasm, while hopping on the driver seat of her Jeep. Virginia welcomed the small talk, she wasn’t ready to discuss the specifics of her court date.

“You saved me a year of repetitive jokes when you started calling me Nina instead of Virginia,” She told Scarlett.

“Yeah you bet! remember that girl who started mindlessly calling you Virgin?” Scarlett laughed out loud.

Nina was proud of the level of English she had sustained. She didn’t speak it regularly anymore, having sadly no opportunity to practice in Rome. She was always concerned about losing it or forgetting it. Thankfully it was still there, fresh in her memory coming out of her mouth effortlessly. 

They were still driving, getting closer to their destination. Nina was tired and giddy at the same time, exhausted from the jet-lag, dusk, and heating, but excited to see her sister.

An hour later they were pulling in the driveway, the jeep slightly bouncing on the cobbled ground. Nina was about to see Scarlett’s home for the first time and it ended up being exactly like she expected it to be. chaotic but inviting. Scarlett’s personality shined through every corner of it.

Julian was home, sitting on the dark green l-shaped leatherette couch. He welcomed her showing no particular excitement.

Charlie was sitting on the floor at Julian’s feet. Focusing on some Lego a moment ago, now he appeared to be confused by the intrusion of a stranger. He had grown exponentially, as only toddlers could. His eyes were exactly like his mother’s.

“Come here Charlie boy,” Scarlett picked him up. “Do you remember your auntie, Nina?” She asked him. 

“Probably not,” Nina replied “You were only a few months old when I first and last saw you,” Charlie frowned at her.

Nina had never felt comfortable around kids, toddlers in particular. Never felt a hint of maternal instinct or understood how people could define them as “cute” or “adorable” and scream in jubilance whenever they would see one. When she expressed that particular concern to her friends, the standard response she always received was “Oh you will see, it is different when you have your own”.

She could never prove them wrong. She and Luca had been trying for ages to have a baby, more because of his desire to be a father than her need to be a mother. 

She planned the trip thoroughly and realized that four days was the maximum amount of time she could bear to stay. Tomorrow, Saturday, and Sunday were dedicated to getting adjusted to her new whereabouts, to catch up and spend quality time with Scarlett, to get to know Charlie. Monday, in the early morning, she was going to sit on that stand and testify. Monday night her flight back to Rome was scheduled. Back to safety. Back to anonymity. 

The days went by faster than she expected. As the quintessential spot for Fall getaways, with leaves bursting into spectacular color and blanketing the landscape, their daily walks and hikes could not have been more endorphins inducing. Now it was the time for Coastal Plain landscapes to shine, with red maple, oaks, sweet gums, and hickories providing a vibrant quilt of color interspersed with pine green. Virginia was the place that made Nina fall in love with hiking. 

They spent their evenings sitting on the porch, smoking weed like old times, eating ridiculous amounts of pies, and laughing hysterically over frivolous things with their mouth full. 

Julian was out working most nights, as his nurse career required, so it was just the two of them almost the whole time.

Scarlett made Nina’s stay as pleasurable and natural as possible, picking up right where they left off. It felt like they had never really been apart. Nina was very grateful for those moments of chemical euphoria she shared with her, knowing that back home such a thing would not be accepted by her husband. He thought only lazy teenagers did that.

Monday morning Nina woke up by the sound of the alarm at six, overall feeling unexpectedly well-rested. She got dressed with the only piece of formal clothing she brought with her, a tailored suit she used to wear most days during her banking career. The skirt felt a little tight on her waist. Maybe the excesses of the past few days were already catching up with her. 

She stepped into the kitchen where Julian was making some coffee for her and some chamomile for himself. He had just gotten back from his night shift and he was getting ready to go to bed. Scarlett was nowhere in sight. 

“Good luck today,” he told her. 

“Thanks”. 

She didn’t know what else to say. She always felt uneasy while alone in his presence, feeling often the need to fill up awkward silences. 

He held her gaze for what it felt like an eternity. She thought he was about to say something else and she stood there waiting. They never really had a conversation that didn’t include Scarlett, their respective jobs, or Virginia weather. Instead, he just turned and headed to the bedroom. 

Scarlett barged in the living room right after. She looked like she had already been up for quite a while.

“Hey, I just dropped Charlie off at the neighbor’s so Julian can get some sleep while I am away. You look great by the way! I have already filled a thermos with coffee, it’s in the car”.

Nina left her untouched coffee mug on the counter. She grabbed her bag which she’d packed the night before and followed Scarlett to the car. She was not going to come back there, she realized. She gave the house a long look before she shut the door behind her. 

They spent the two-hour drive to Richmond mostly in silence. Scarlett made a few feeble attempts at conversation but Nina was not having it. She just wanted to spend this time admiring the fall scenery again one last time, aware of the fact that she most likely was not going to come back. Fall had always been her favorite season. It had the particular smell of roasted chestnut, freshly cut grass with a hint of horse stools. She rolled down the window a little bit to let all the smell in, inhaling deeply while Scarlett gave her curious glimpses. 

“Rome doesn’t have the same smell”.

The memories she had managed to block out until now flooded her mind. Their knocking had become too loud.

From the moment she found out the police had arrested him, Scarlett had been very persistent at trying to persuade her. She had eventually convinced her to testify, after 24 years.

Scarlett was the only one who knew. After the guy abused her, she was the only one who managed to drag the information out of her. She had tried very hard to convince Nina to press charges but she wouldn’t be persuaded at the time. Scarlett eventually even agreed to lie to her parents and cover for Nina, telling them she spent two nights at a girlfriend’s house getting drunk and stoned, her phone lost. It wasn’t very believable, but Nina wasn’t their daughter, they didn’t know her that well, and the best they could do was just to not ask too many questions and ground her for three weeks.

Once she was back home for good a couple of months after the incident, at the end of the exchange year, her mom knew straight away something was up. Nina’s silence and her mother’s frustration drove them apart over the years until their relationship completely disintegrated. The damage was too profound. Virginia’s mother blames herself for it, even though she still doesn’t know what she is blaming herself for. 

With time Nina processed the whole experience. She told herself that maybe it was her fault. She had a crush on the guy after all. He was 22 years old, he had just graduated from college. He was visiting home and some old friends for a few days and decided to have a small get together that Nina joined by her friend’s suggestion. Maybe she could have run away if she had tried hard enough. Maybe it was just a game he was playing, keeping her there for two days, and she took it too seriously. Maybe she wanted to have sex but was too high to remember. Maybe these things just happen and it is not a big deal. That’s how she managed to not talk about it ever again. Until a girl was found almost dead in his apartment a year ago. Then she realized that it wasn’t just in her head. 

“We are here,” Scarlett told her softly.

Nina wondered if she felt guilty at all, having convinced her to do this after such a long time. Probably not. She knew it was the right thing to do, she had always been very practical, even more so now.

“Let’s do this,” Nina told her, reassuring her with a smile.

It wasn’t what Nina had expected. Not that she had hoped for anything in particular. She just felt empty when she saw him. He had aged ungracefully, the skin of his face heavily marked. But the eyes were the same. So deceptively kind. Could have fooled anyone. She wondered if he even remembered her.

She was cold and detached as a clinical surgeon, while the lawyer questioned her. The slight rush of adrenaline and the increased hart rate jarred her. Coldness and emptiness had been her default state since she could remember. That is what she felt when her dad had died, when she got fired for the first time, even when she got married to Luca and they moved into their dream house. Nevertheless, she got excellent at faking it. She would practice mimicking facial expressions in the mirror after studying them on Luca's or her friend’s face.

Excitement looks like this.

Sadness looks like that.

Incredulity looks like this.

Maybe that’s why she agreed finally to face it. To come back to Virginia. Maybe he could give her something she was desperately missing and looking for this whole time. She was opening that door slightly now. And that’s all that mattered.