Page 16 of Lost Dreams

It was funny to imagine her Great-Grandfather Charles having a twin brother. Having a twin felt like something you were allowed to do as a child. But she supposed many twins grew up. Many twins were allowed to watch one another age, watching the various ways their lifestyles played out differently on their genetically similar faces.

Aurora texted Oren and Kenny in their group chat, explaining that she might have found something interesting for their documentary.

AURORA: We can talk about it over burgers later.

Oren wrote back right away.

OREN: Is it more Whitmore buried treasure? We could use some of that to fund our documentary, haha.

Aurora rolled her eyes and smiled. She set her grandmother's and great-grandfather’s journals on the bedside table, then stacked the rest and prepared to return them to their hiding place in the closet. But right before she did, she noticed one that had a handwritten name on the spine. Lorelei Whitmore. Aurora slipped that one off the stack and added it to the mini-stack on the bedside table. She’d never imagined that her mother kept a diary. She’d never known anything about her mother’s inner life, especially not before she’d come to Rome and met her father.

Right before Aurora left for the night to meet the guys for burgers, she hid the three journals under the bed, frightened that her father would storm in again and get his hands on them. She then stepped into the hallway and hurried toward the kitchen, eager to jump into Oren’s truck and get out of there. But lo and behold, her father hadn’t really left the apartment after all. There he sat at the kitchen table, his shoulders hunched, his eyebrows low. Aurora panicked and nearly swallowed her tongue.

“Papa,” she said, stalling.

Her father spread his hands across the kitchen table. “Aurora,” he growled. “Don’t you think we need to talk?”

8

Four Years Ago

When Aurora was eighteen years old, she graduated from her Roman high school with honors. She was third in her class, a bright and beautiful individual whom all her teachers suggested would go on to do great things. At the time, of course, Aurora wasn’t entirely sure what they meant by “great” things. Although she knew how to talk about her future in a way that people responded to, in a way that made her seem intelligent and driven, her real plan was to have an amazing life. She planned to surprise herself at every turn.

That night, Roberto, Lorelei, Pino, Aurora, and Nadia went out to dinner to celebrate Aurora’s accomplishments. Unlike usual, they dined at a restaurant that did not belong to Roberto and Lorelei, one with a new and exciting Roman chef whom Roberto wanted to meet—and maybe even rob for his own kitchen. They were given the table of honor—not because of Aurora’s graduation, but because of Roberto’s prestige in the restaurant business—and loaded up on all the finest appetizers and bottles of wine. In Italy, eighteen-year-olds were allowed to drink wine legally, and Aurora found her thoughts swimming as she listened to her mother’s laughter and Nadia’s stories and the hum and buzz of the greater restaurant.

Frequently, her father leaned across the table and asked her about the wine and about what she was eating. “Describe it to me in detail,” Roberto said, because he was often thrilled at how precise Aurora could be with words and how delicate her palate was.

“She’s her papa’s daughter,” Lorelei said, grinning in a way that made Aurora sad.

It was true that Aurora had always been Roberto’s favorite. It meant that Aurora and Lorelei had never been as close as Lorelei was with Nadia and Pino. But even at age eighteen, Aurora knew this was life: complications between family members, things you couldn’t explain. She knew Lorelei didn’t talk to most of her family members back in the States. Lorelei refused to discuss it, as though it was too much to bear.

“Tell us, Aurora,” her father said now, raising his glass of wine. “Tell us what you want to become.”

Nadia, Pino, and Lorelei looked at Aurora, captivated by her. She was their rising star. Pino, who was two years older, was already at university, studying the sciences, but she’d heard that he had failed one of his classes last semester and that their parents weren’t proud. There was a hunched look to Pino’s shoulders, as though he didn’t want to be looked at too much.

Aurora spread her hands across the white tablecloth and steadied herself. “You know that I applied to many, many universities,” she said.

“Cambridge. Oxford. The Sorbonne,” her father listed, smiling. She’d gotten into all of them. “Which one will you choose?”

“Don’t forget the American universities,” Lorelei chimed in. “Yale and Harvard aren’t bad, either.”

Aurora laughed gently. Of course, versions of herself went to all these schools. There were timelines in which she went on to become a doctor, a lawyer, or a scientist. There were times when she made her parents terribly proud.

Aurora had come to understand in her eighteen years of life that she wasn’t an average academic. She was an artist. She was here to create reflections of humanity and help people see themselves fully and clearly in a world that was so often distracted by money and time. She’d gotten the art award every year at school, going back forever. But she’d never fully expressed her desire to pursue art to her parents—not until now.

“I’ve decided where I’m going in the fall,” she said, grateful that her voice didn’t warble at all. “I'm going to the Berlin University of Art and Design.”

At this, her father’s jaw dropped with surprise. Nadia and Pino looked at one another, panicked. But Lorelei, only Lorelei, clasped her hands together and whispered, “Oh, honey. Of course. You’re an artist.”

Aurora smiled and nodded. “I want to pursue art seriously. I want to give it my best shot. And the professors I spoke with in Berlin are incredible. They’ve broken new boundaries. They’re on the cutting-edge of what it means to make art in the twenty-first century.” Aurora’s eyes flickered over to her father, who continued to wear a funny expression.

Lorelei reached over to take Aurora’s hand. “You’re going to be incredible, Aurora.”

Slowly, Roberto nodded. His eyes glinted. “Harvard. Cambridge. The Sorbonne. None of them were good enough for you?”

Aurora raised her shoulders. “My parents are artists,” she reminded them, speaking of her mother’s storied music past as a musician and her father’s exciting career as a top chef. “I come by it honestly.”

“She really does,” Lorelei said, smiling in a way that made Aurora feel more connected to her mother than she had in years.