Elenora jumped at the sound of plaster falling. She had to stop doing that. From the plane ride to the lawyers, her nerves were now just a touchy extension of how overwhelmed she really was. Her grandfather’s maggiordomo (or butla as the people of the fine state of Georgia would have called him) had been her lifeline through all of this. It was one thing to find a grandfather you had never met, but something entirely different to find out he had been some trillionaire in another country. Pierro had saved her from a great deal of embarrassment throughout this process.
She looked around the dilapidated building that was one of twenty she now owned. This being the worst one, her only job here was to judge whether it should rise or fall. She recalled Pierro’s words trying to convince her it was the “holder of the records of hearts”. She appreciated his attempt to romanticize it, but her quick research had already revealed its identity as an old Poste italiane.
She bent down to pick up a worn envelope from the neglected stone floor. She moved past the Italian writing on the outside to the letter it held. It was surprisingly in English. She gasped at the words on the page revealing lost love. She knew its presence among fifty years of ruin meant remained lost. She looked up and suddenly saw the space through the eyes of this broken heart. The history made her choice. It must rise.
