Read Online Stella Mia by Rosanna Chiofalo - Free Book Online

who committed the crime of abandoning our beloved cat. I was the one who took Tina away from Carlotta.
    Soon, I fall asleep and dream of Tina. She has found her way home to me. I hug Tina, asking her to kiss me with her nose as I had trained her to do. I am ecstatic that she’s back in my arms until I open my eyes and realize it was all just a dream and Tina is never coming back home again.

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    Vita da Sogno
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    DREAM LIFE
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    June 13, 1969
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    I t is the morning of my seventeenth birthday. As soon as I wake up, I kneel in front of my bed. Making the sign of the cross, I pray to God to give me strength, for today, I will be running away from home.
    The day after I abandoned Tina, I realized the time had come for me to finally leave home for good. Over the course of the weeks that followed, I began plotting the details of my escape. Every night, I sat at our kitchen table and carefully planned my vita da sogno —the dream life I had always fantasized about, but thought was not within reach.
    I cannot wait any longer. I will never have the courage to run away unless I act now. Tears fall down my face. I haven’t forgotten my promise to my mother that I would buy her another china set and take her and my siblings away from my father. But I am also not a fool. I know how difficult it will be, helping that many people to escape. I also know of the very real possibility that I will never see my mother alive again. And my siblings are so young that they will probably forget me even if we are reunited years from now when they’re adults. Insecurity takes hold of me, but then I look once more at the snail we still have in the jar, and in that moment all doubt vanishes.
    I chose to run away on my birthday, for I wanted my vita da sogno to start on a date that I would never forget. June 13 is also the feast day of St. Anthony of Padua—the patron saint of recovered items. People pray to him when they have lost a treasured possession, imploring the saint to help them find the missing object. St. Anthony is also the patron saint of travelers and for those who suddenly find their lives taking a new direction. I could not help but see the irony that I had chosen this particular saint’s day to make my escape and turn over a new leaf. But this is not the only reason I decided to run away from home on this day. My family and I will be going this evening to Barcellona, where festivities are held in honor of St. Anthony of Padua. The celebrations kick off tonight and last for a week. It will be easier for me to slip away during the feast with its large crowds and many distractions. The fact that it is the feast day of St. Anthony of Padua makes me feel all the more assured that the saint will be protecting me.
    Every week since I decided I would leave home, I have been stealing a few liras from my father’s secret box, which holds his savings. As my mother once told me, he has never even imparted to her where he keeps his money. But when I was a little girl, I used to love crawling under my parents’ bed whenever they weren’t looking. I discovered a loose floorboard that had not been pushed back completely into place. Beneath the loose floorboard, I found a large boot box and my father’s money. I had never before taken any of the liras in the box, for I was too afraid of my father’s finding out. Now it was a risk I was willing to take in order to make my dreams of escaping become a reality. I only took a few liras every week, but last night I took much more. It was enough money for me to take a bus to the resort town of Taormina, where I planned on going door to door of the many hotels there and asking if they could use another maid. I placed a note in my father’s money box telling him I would repay him someday. Though he does not deserve any kindness on my part after the way he has mistreated my mother and me, my belief in God compels me to do what is right.
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