Tonio: A Story of Love and Loss

By Lois Silver-Avrin

This book asks the question: Would you give up your only child for the promise of immense wealth?
Antonio DiVincenzo is a nine year-old boy living with his artist mother in suburban New Jersey when his idyllic life is suddenly and dramatically turned upside down, when his mother abandons him to live in Paris with a French billionaire. His neighbor and adult friend, Abby, who is the book’s narrator takes him into her home and her heart. Eventually his biological mother tries to reclaim him and the two women battle for his love. The book tells how Abby reshapes his life and how this exceptionally gifted child copes with both newfound happiness and misfortunes as he passes through childhood, adolescence and eventually into early manhood.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 26, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796079302

Lois Silver-Avrin

Lois Silver-Avrin lives part-time in New Jersey and part-time in Florida with her husband. She has previously published Thanksgiving Dinner, a book of short stories about women in crisis.

Book preview

Copyright © 2020 by Lois Silver-Avrin.

ISBN:              Hardcover             978-1-7960-7921-0

                        Softcover               978-1-7960-7922-7

                        eBook                    978-1-7960-7930-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 12/23/2019

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Contents

Acknowledgement

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

To Valerie, Mark and Jeff, the loves of my life.

Acknowledgement

The author thanks the following people for their assistance:

A. John Haddad, M.D.; Linda Hamalian Avrin, Ph.D;

Tyler Marchiano; and Alyssa Marchiano

Chapter One

Even all these years later I can still remember when I met the pair who were to change my life so dramatically. It was on a Friday, an unusually cool day in late spring, and it stood out in my mind because I had taken a sick day from my job at the college. In those days I rarely took absence days but I had been having pain in one of my teeth and needed to see my dentist. An x-ray revealed that the source of the pain was a cavity. My dentist drilled and filled the tooth and he remembered that I was due for a cleaning. I made the follow-up appointment and left.

Since the appointment only took about an hour, I got home before noon. I decided to catch up on some chores which I usually saved for the weekend, laundry, changing the bed linens, cleaning, and other housework. I reasoned that since I had the rest of the day off, I might as well take advantage of it so I could relax on Saturday and Sunday.

Sporadically, as I did the household work, I went to the living room side window which looked out on my neighbors’ house. The house was now vacant since my neighbors, an elderly couple, had moved into an assisted living facility in another town.

Anne and Andy Donaldson had owned the house next door for over fifty years, since they were newly-weds. They had lived there since long before I had moved into my home. They were lovely people, very friendly, well regarded by the other neighbors. As far as anyone could tell they had had a happy and rock solid marriage and had raised two children, a son and a daughter. Their married daughter who now lived on a farm in upstate New York would visit when she could but it was seldom more than once a month because of the distance. Their son, still a bachelor, lived in New York City. He came down whenever he had a day off. Anne told me that he owned a restaurant in Manhattan and that the restaurant had become fairly successful which meant that he needed to work long hours and had few days off other than the one day a week when the restaurant was closed. If she was disappointed that neither of her children had given her grandchildren, she never indicated it to me.

The Donaldson’s and I were friendly and we often chatted, especially in the nice weather, when we would be in our yards doing the kind of work that homeowners need to do. I was very fond of both of them. They had not only been neighbors but also friends of my aunt who had owned the house. Even after I moved in with her Andy had helped both of us with things that were difficult.

The Donaldsons had both loved their home. I never heard them complain about the work until advancing age forced Andy to hire help with the outdoor jobs like mowing in the warm weather and snow removal in the winter. Both were now in their late seventies and Andy had begun showing signs of dementia. Anne of course was distressed. She confided that he couldn’t remember how to do ordinary things like getting dressed, or where every day utensils and other items were kept and so she was having to assist him with nearly everything. At first she had tried hiring a woman to come in a few hours a day to do some of the household work so she could be free to help Andy. When that wasn’t enough she tried hiring a male live-in to help Andy with bathing, getting dressed and generally as a companion but Andy had begun to resist having the man help him and so Anne had to consider doing what she didn’t want to do.

As she explained to me, Abby, you know how much Andy and I love this house and our neighborhood. I had always planned to live here until we died but it’s become too hard for me. The choice is now to put Andy in a nursing home, which, God willing, I will never do, or move to assisted living where it seems like I will have people to help me and I can continue to take care of Andy myself.

And so this is what she did. She put the house on the real estate market and set the price the realtor advised. During the first few months I saw a few people coming by to look at the place but Anne told me she had not gotten any offers. She even lowered the price a few times. The real estate agent told her that the market was soft and that she might have to wait at least a year to get a buyer, to avoid taking a hit on the selling price. She didn’t think she could hold on that long and so she made the decision to rent the house for a year.

The house had the additional advantage of being rather secluded since it was at the end of a dead-end street. The street was appropriately named Woods End Road. My house was the only house next to it. Past the Donaldsons and on the opposite side of the street there was only a large wooded area which was owned by the town. Also in the area behind all the houses were more woods so the house had a lot of privacy.

The town, Woodmere, is located in northern New Jersey. Lots of homeowners bought in and around the area because of its proximity to New York City. Those who worked in the city had the convenience of having only a short drive to the Lincoln Tunnel, which of course put them only minutes away from midtown Manhattan (traffic and weather permitting).

It’s an old town. Records showed farms being operated as early as the early 1700’s. Of course before that the land had belonged to Indians but the European settlers took it away from them. At first the settlers traded inexpensive trinkets and other paraphernalia for the land. Many times the Indians, who belonged to the Lenni-Lenape tribe, didn’t fully understand that they were essentially giving away their valuable land for things that had little or no value. (I remembered learning as early as second grade that the Dutch bought Manhattan from Indians for roughly twenty-four dollar’s worth of trinkets.) The Europeans would make their unequal trade for the land when they could and when they couldn’t they would take it by force, but take it they would.

The Indians who populated the northern part of the state were a subtribe known as the Minsi (wolves). They were essentially a peaceful tribe but could be fierce fighters when they were attacked. One of their most effective weapons was an arrowhead made of carved quartz. Its unique quality was that when it pierced the body of a foe if the wound didn’t kill immediately it would cause an infection which instead caused the unfortunate victim to die a slow and more painful death.

The first white settlers, who were the Dutch, had little respect for them. In the early 1600’s, a Dutch military leader who found their presence a nuisance, ordered his soldiers to kill the Indians, including their women and children, who had set up an encampment nearby, and they did so with brutal thoroughness. This was the most horrific massacre that took place but intermittent warfare persisted until the English settlers displaced the Dutch around the mid-s.

The British were more diplomatic in their relations with the tribes but had the same determination to take their land in one way or another. The seizure of their land was just the first of the ways in which the Indians faced assault by the white man on their traditions and lifestyle. Diseases brought by the settlers, and alcohol abuse caused severe decimation of the Lenni-Lenape population. Not until the mid-1700’s did the government grant any legal rights to the Indians, giving them hunting and fishing rights. Hardship continued for the Lenni-Lenape and over time their numbers dwindled dramatically. Many of them moved to upstate New York, Pennsylvania or Canada, others to areas like Oklahoma, Wisconsin. The small number who remained in New Jersey assimilated into the general population.

Big business never was, and still isn’t, an important part of Woodmere’s history although a few factories did manage to survive well into the last century. A few farms remain but they are mostly horse farms or gentleman farms and agriculture also mostly disappeared from the area. Woodmere had become, within the past forty or fifty years, a bedroom community, because of its easy commuting distance to Manhattan. Most of its residents are white, Protestant and upper middle class. Property taxes are relatively high since there are only a small number of businesses to pay them.

This is the town I have lived in for about the past fifteen years after I moved from a rural Pennsylvania area. I had lived there all my life before coming to Woodmere. Then I moved in with my father’s aunt who owned the house I now call home. I had been close to both my parents but they died shortly before my graduation from college. Mom had been only forty-seven and Dad was fifty. Their home, the house I grew up in, was left to me, their only child.

It was shortly after the death of my parents that I met and married Ernest Muller whom I met in my senior year at college. Ernie was attending a Master of Science program and was planning to graduate at the end of the semester. After obtaining a Master’s degree, he was hoping to get a job in the computer science field.

Ernie and I developed a friendship and started dating although the relationship seemed peculiarly devoid of sexual contact. I was a virgin and had little sexual experience and so was rather naïve in this regard. Ernie was also sexually inexperienced. When he ended our dates with just chaste little pecks or brushed my mouth with his, I assumed he was just being a very proper gentleman. He only revealed to me after our wedding that he was ambivalent about his sexual identity and thought that things would just fall into place sexually after we got married.

They didn’t. I was a virgin when we got married and after a month when I was still technically a virgin we both realized we had made a mistake.

We parted amicably. I got an annulment and we went our separate ways. Ernie contacted me a year after the annulment to tell me that he had fallen in love with someone, a man, and was sharing a home with him. He finally acknowledged what he had been trying desperately to avoid, that he was gay and was now at peace with that fact. I wished him luck and was genuinely glad that we hadn’t wasted any more of each other’s time trying to make our marriage work, although for years afterward I continued to think about Ernie and our marriage with regret.

I took stock of myseIf. I acknowledged that my looks were mostly ordinary. I had nice skin and hair. As a teenager I had never been troubled by blemishes as other girls had. I had a decent figure; never had a weight problem. I was young however, and like most young girls I fantasized that someday I would meet a handsome prince who would sweep me off my feet. Of course it didn’t work out that way and five years later I was still single, still in fact a virgin, and although I had dated occasionally I had no serious prospects in sight. I had been working for a few years as an instructor at a local community college but I didn’t see a lot of opportunity for advancement there.

Taking all this into account, I decided to sell the house I had inherited from my parents and move to New Jersey, accepting an invitation to come live with my great aunt. She was my father’s mother’s sister. She had never married and so had no children. As she was up in years and was having trouble maintaining the home, she said I could be of great help to her. I was grateful for the invitation. She never asked me for a penny in rent although when I got a job there I contributed what she would accept to household expenses. She made me her heir and when she died six years later, at the age of ninety, I once again inherited a house. This time I kept it.

The houses in my neighborhood, including mine, were all prewar construction. They were wood-shingled two-story homes. Though there were similarities among them, few were exactly alike. Unlike the development cookie-cutter homes such as those in the Levittowns scattered around the eastern part of the country, each house was different from its neighbor. They were painted differently with differently shaped windows, different porches, some with gingerbread, some with third floor attics, some without and so on. Like mine and the Donaldson’s all were nicely maintained with manicured lawns and attractive landscaping, after all, real-estate prices having risen significantly, most could now fetch a hefty price from buyers.

I found a job as an instructor at a private college which was a short commute from home. I continued my education at the state college and four years later earned my doctorate in early American history, which had always been my favorite subject. I did my dissertation on Thomas Jefferson’s history as slaveholder which turned out to be a hot research topic later on.

Within ten years I had worked my way up the career ladder in the school from instructor to assistant professor to full professor and eventually to head of the history department.

It was a job that appealed to me as it involved, among other duties, developing course curricula, setting up schedules, and supervising and helping academic staff with any professional difficulties. I mentored several of my newer colleagues through the tenure process, wrote a few research articles which were good enough to get published in scholarly journals, served as a liaison between the department and the Dean, and even taught one or two classes each semester. My salary wasn’t huge but it paid the bills and even left me enough money to travel during vacations and a few other luxuries. It also paid a generous pension at retirement.

As I finished the remaining household chores, I went to the window again to check on the Donaldson’s house. Anne had told me during my last visit to the assisted living facility where she and Andy now lived, that the tenant she had rented the house to was a single woman with a child. The woman had said she was planning to move in on the first Friday of the month.

I only spoke to her once on the phone, Anne told me. The rental agent gave the woman my number, and I wanted to fill her in on some information about the house and neighborhood. We took most of our furniture with us. The woman said she would bring most of what she needed with her. I couldn’t fit anything but a few pieces in our tiny apartment so I put the rest in storage. I left the refrigerator and the washer and dryer which I couldn’t take with us so I wanted to give her some instructions, also some shopping tips and local information. She sounded very nice, young. We chatted for a while. I told her about you, that you were a very good neighbor and that if she needed any help or information that you might be able to assist her. I hope you don’t mind, Anne added.

I assured her that it was perfectly fine with me that she had done that.

She was living in Manhattan and was not happy about raising her child in the city. You know, the noise, the traffic, the pollution and all that. She wanted the child to have a backyard to play in.

Did she say how old the child was?

About seven or eight, I think.

Girl or boy?

I think she said a boy.

I thought then that since there were no children on the block, the boy might not have any playmates around but that since he was school age he could make some friends at school.

When I looked out the window once again, there was still no sign of the new tenant. It was beginning to grow dark at about 4:30 and I wondered whether the woman had changed her mind about moving in on that day but just as I was thinking of going to the kitchen to prepare dinner, a moving truck was coming down the street. It pulled into the Donaldson’s driveway followed by a late model black SUV.

Two men got out of the truck and stood at the rear, apparently waiting for the occupant of the SUV, a woman, who I surmised was my new neighbor. She immediately got out and went to speak with the two men. She then took a set of keys out of her purse and went to unlock the front door. I watched as the men unloaded the truck. There appeared to be some bedroom furniture, a sofa, a table and chairs, and several cartons. The woman pulled a few suitcases out of the trunk of her car.

I didn’t want to appear to be spying on my new neighbor but I thought maybe I would just go outside and introduce myself, make her feel welcome.

I threw my coat on, went outside and called to her.

Hi, I said. She turned to face me. I’m your next door neighbor, Abby Neumeyer. Welcome to the neighborhood. Anne Donaldson told me you might be moving in today.

Thanks, she responded. I’m Sylvie DiVincenzo. Anne told me you lived in the next house. I guess you are my only neighbor. The rest of the street is just woods. She indicated the end of the street and the opposite side. I liked the privacy but I was concerned that the house was a bit too isolated."

I understood her concern.

There has never been a problem in the area and I’ve lived here for more than ten years, I assured her.

That’s good to hear. The real estate agent, who is a friend of mine, told me that this town has one of the lowest crime rates in the state, which is one of the reasons I chose it.

While we were having the conversation I took a good look at my new neighbor. She was dressed casually in jeans and a short jacket. She had a bandana wrapped around her head. Even in the semi-darkness of the late afternoon I could see that she was extremely beautiful. Some tendrils of hair had escaped from under the bandana and fell to below her shoulders. She was a brunette. She did not appear to be wearing any makeup, at least not that I could detect. I tried not to stare.

The moving men had removed most of the furniture from the truck already and were starting to unload the cartons.

I guess I should go inside and start telling these guys where to put the stuff. I’ll see you soon I hope. She started to move away, then seemed to have an idea.

Say, Abby? She looked at me hoping that she had gotten my name right. I nodded and she continued. I haven’t had my dinner yet and I was thinking that if you don’t have any dinner plans that maybe we could go out to eat somewhere together. I hate to eat alone.

That would be great, I told her. Only, if you wouldn’t mind, instead of eating out we could have dinner at my house. I was planning to microwave a casserole, meatballs and spaghetti, nothing fancy. There’s more than enough for two people. It would only take a half hour or so to get it ready.

Are you kidding? I love meatballs and spaghetti. Are you sure it wouldn’t be too much trouble?

Not in the least, I assured her. What time will the men be done unloading the truck?

She went over to one of the workers and conferred with him then came back over to me.

He says they should be finished in about 2 hours. I don’t have that much stuff. Is that too late for you? She looked at me questioningly.

I hesitated for just a second. That would make it about 6:30, the usual dinnertime for me.

No. I responded. I’ll go in now and start the meal and set the table for us. Come over when you are ready.

The moving men finished on time and drove off. Sylvie appeared at my door shortly after. She apologized.

Sorry for the way I look. I have no idea where my clothes are. Probably in one of the boxes. Also I usually don’t go to someone’s house for dinner without bringing a bottle of wine or something. I thought it would take too much time if I went to the store to buy anything.

Don’t be silly, I said. I hope you will just relax and let me take care of dinner. You have enough to do unpacking your stuff and getting settled.

Thanks, Abby. I do appreciate this.

Sitting at the table with her, I had a chance to take a good look at my new neighbor. My first impression had been accurate. She was movie-star beautiful with a flawless olive-toned complexion, full lips, and dark almond-shaped eyes with long lashes. She had taken the scarf off from around her hair which was very dark, almost black, and now fell loosely down around her shoulders. She was wearing lipstick but didn’t appear to be wearing any additional makeup. I had been right thinking that she was beautiful. She had the kind of exotic beauty that would make most other women envious. I just admired it.

The dinner had turned out okay. I worried that I hadn’t cooked the food long enough to make sure none of it was still frozen, but none of it was. I found a loaf of bread, also from the freezer, thawed it out and served it warm with the casserole.

I took out a bottle of red wine from the pantry that someone had given me. I had been saving it for company. I opened it and poured some into each of our wineglasses.

This meal is really delicious. You must be a great cook. I’m a pretty lousy cook myself, Sylvie admitted.

Thanks. I guess I know my way around the kitchen. I lived with my aunt for a few years and I cooked for both of us. After she died I was alone. It’s hard cooking just for yourself. I always liked it when I had company for dinner.

You live here all alone? No husband?

I found myself telling her about Ernie. I was surprised at how quickly I was confiding in someone who was almost a complete stranger.

I haven’t been involved with many men, I told her. Ernie was the first man I had a serious relationship with. I enjoyed his company and he made me feel attractive.

What went wrong? Did he cheat on you? Wait. Am I being too nosy? You don’t have to tell me.

No. I don’t mind at all, I said truthfully. He was a great guy. I paused, trying to find the right words. I hadn’t told many people the whole story. He was ……..confused about his sexual orientation, I finished lamely.

Oh. You mean he was gay? Or was he bisexual? Sylvie cut right to the chase.

I don’t think he admitted to himself that he was a homosexual. In fact I think he was in deep denial. He came from a family who he knew wouldn’t accept it so he lied to himself for a long time. He was trying desperately to be something he wasn’t. I think I was in denial myself because I was in love with him. He was one of the most intelligent people I ever knew. We used to have great intellectual discussions. The fact is that for most of the time we were together we did little more than cuddle with each other. We were platonic. Almost like a brother and sister. Finally I think we both had to confront the truth, but he was my first real love and I hated to give up my illusions.

Are you seeing anyone now? Sylvie asked.

No, I replied sadly. Men seem to think of me as a sister or a friend. They don’t see me as a girlfriend, I guess.

I’m surprised to hear that. You are certainly an attractive woman.

Thanks. I guess most men don’t think so.

Men are certainly strange creatures, Sylvie said.

I agree. We laughed.

She asked about my family. I told her that my parents were both Pennsylvania Dutch.

My father was a high school science teacher and mom was a hospital nurse. I was their only child. Both my parents died before I graduated college.

They must have been pretty young.

"They were. Mom was only 47 and Dad was 50.

What happened to them? You don’t need to tell me if it’s too painful.

No. It’s okay. They’ve both been gone more than 15 years. Mom’s death was an accident. She was going down the basement stairs with a basket of laundry. She slipped and fell, hit her head against a metal pipe at the bottom. She never regained consciousness.

How terrible. And your father?

I always thought he died of a broken heart. He just grew more and more depressed after Mom died. Wouldn’t go for any kind of help. Didn’t believe in therapy or anything like that. He was an active member of his church congregation. They rallied around him, providing dinners and offers to help with housework, but he only seemed to sink deeper into depression. I also think he blamed himself for her death although I never understood why. Actually I recall that Dad wanted to move the washer and dryer up to the kitchen area so she didn’t have to climb the basement stairs, but Mom had always thought it unnecessary.

How sad, Sylvie said.

At this point I was going to ask Sylvie about her family but she stood up abruptly.

I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed this meal. You must let me reciprocate after I get things unpacked and can find the dishes and stuff. Let me help you clean up.

Before I could stop her, Sylvie was already carrying the dishes to the sink. Please, I begged. "Let me do it. There’s not a lot to do and you probably