It was June of 1947, and the ship she had called home for ten days was slowly nearing its berth in the harbor of Genoa. It was not much of a lady, this ship, having been hastily converted from war duty to peacetime hauling of paying passengers from America to Europe.
The war had been over for almost two years, and slowly a semblance of world order and normalcy was returning, yet she knew without ever acknowledging the thought even to herself that things would, for better or for worse, never be quite the same again.
It was an exciting time to be alive and sixteen and American and waiting to meet grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins she had never known, except for sparse word from them which, sporadically throughout the long years of conflict, the International Red Cross had sent to her father. Excitement made her feet tingle to touch the shore of this far-off country that, through her father's reminiscences, had been a large part of the knowledge of her young and sheltered life.
"Listen, listen, Daddy!" she cried, leaning far over the railing, as the ship, almost docked, allowed street sounds to penetrate her awareness. "They're speaking ITALIAN! And so well, too! And look! Look! they're just little kids, Daddy! Why, they can't be more than four or five or six!"
Her father smiled. "Yes," he said. "You'll find that's the way with little Italian kids...even very young ones...they speak Italian very well. Amazing, isn't it?"
They both grinned. It was a good rapport they shared, and always had, and she suddenly gladdened at the thought of six months to be spent with him all to herself...well, at least without interruption of her younger siblings. He had worried aloud to her on the train from Pittsburgh that, etc. miss her mother, and she had in fact cried much of the night up in her upper berth, but now she longed only for the adventure to begin.