What’s Left When Everyone Dies
A Daughter’s Memoir
I never thought much about my husband’s hush-hush adoption until that Christmas Day, five years into our marriage, when a loose-lipped auntie let it slip. An explosive slip that triggered my twenty-year quest for the truth of his ancestry. My children’s ancestry. Nothing prepared me for the landmines ahead.
But the story runs deeper. Hopeless, helpless, I stand by my mother’s side as she battles an invisible enemy in a long, slow, painful goodbye. I knew how much I loved her but didn’t know how terribly I would miss her. And as I come to terms with her death, I face the larger issue: who am I without her?
I find my voice in the depth of sorrow. From wide-eyed bride to clandestine sleuth, I untangle the secrets of a close-mouthed Sicilian family to help my husband claim his birthright. To know his biological parents. And, once ready to examine my own history, learn from a stack of wartime letters that love is more powerful than family dysfunction—or even death. And identity is greater than DNA.