The Last Summer at Chelsea Beach Read Free Page A

know.” I was suddenly angry. Did he really think we could put all of those broken pieces back together and not see the cracks? Doubt thundered beneath my feet like a freight train and the ground began to sway. I had managed to make my way back from the place that nearly killed me and stand despite it all. I could not afford to let him in and risk going there again.
    “Please, Addie. I’ll wait for you.” There was a desperation about him I had only seen once before in my life. Before I could answer, the men spilled forth from the conference room, enveloping Charlie, and we were separated by a sea of suits and uniforms giving off the odor of cologne and cigarette smoke. I had not had the chance to answer.
    Our eyes met and locked, his making a silent plea before he slipped from sight.

Philadelphia
June 1941
Two years earlier
    I struggled to stand in the crush of unwashed bodies that surged forward from the ship on all sides. Then I squeezed my way to the side of the dock, pressing back against a rotted wood railing that I hoped would hold. I lifted myself to the tips of my toes in Mamma’s too-large shoes, struggling to see above the ocean of heads around me. Shoulders pushed close, blocking my view. I hoisted myself onto the rail, grasping it tightly so as not to fall, and scanned the sea of travelers. I wished that I might see the familiar face of one of the girls from steerage (not that they had been so friendly). But I recognized no one from the massive ocean liner, even after traveling on it for seven wretched, seasick days.
    The travelers moved in small clumps, couples and families of three or four. Across the wharf, a woman flew into the arms of a man waiting for her, reunited. Everyone was carrying things, boxes and bags and children. But I was alone, my hands empty. Worry mixed with the hunger that had been gnawing at my stomach, growing to a burn. In her haste, Mamma had not given me so much as an address for my aunt and uncle who were supposed to take me in. What would I do if no one came for me?
    Think. I inhaled, then took in the scene again, framing it and trying to find the right angle to make sense of the situation. Back home I might have snapped a photo with the old camera Papa had given me. But here I was overwhelmed by the chaos, great swirls of strangers moving in all directions, colliding with one another. A dog trotted along the edge of the dock, sniffing at garbage. Even a stray seemed to somehow know where it was going.
    Looking around the smelly, crowded harbor, my spirits sank. Lucky, I’d heard a woman remark days earlier as the Italian coastline had faded from view. Heads around her had bobbed in agreement: we were fortunate to be away from the violence that had worsened ominously against the Jews in recent months. But as the ship pulled from the Stazione Maritima, I did not feel lucky, but alone. My parents were still there—and I wanted to go back.
    “You!” a male voice barked, and I turned with a flicker of hope. Perhaps my uncle had found me after all. But it was one of the burly stevedores who had herded us from the boat. “Down!” I scrambled from the railing, trying to fade into the crowd. The travelers had moved forward, though, dwindling and leaving me exposed like a broken shell on the beach at low tide. “Keep moving.” It had been like this the whole of the trip, deckhands shouting orders to the lower-class passengers, not bothering to maintain a pretense of courtesy. “Someone here to get you?” the man pressed.
    I processed his English slowly. Good question. What if the message had not gotten through and no one was coming for me? Perhaps they would let me go back, I thought with fleeting joy. But after all of the struggle to get me out of Italy, Mamma would think that a failure.
    It was only a week ago that I had been reading in our two-story apartment just off the Via del Monte, snug in the bedroom that I had shared with Nonna before she passed two years earlier,