"Do you want me to drop you off a little closer?" Ms. Marcovaldo asked.

"No, we can walk the rest of the way," Giulia said, closing the door. "Thanks, Mama."

"Thanks, Ms. Marcovaldo," Luca said, hopping out of the car.

"Well… okay. I'll be back to pick you up in an hour." And she drove away.

Luca and Giulia trekked up the hill, admiring the Christmas lights strung up throughout the town, until they reached the little red door of her father's house.

Giulia rapped aggressively on it. "Papa? Papa!"

Massimo opened the door, surprised to see them. Even Machiavelli sitting on his shoulder was surprised. "Giulia. Luca."

"Ciao, Papa. Can we talk to Alberto?"

"Alberto?"

"It's really important," Luca added. "Sorry for barging in like this. He's been calling me… I think something's really wrong."

"Alberto's been missing since August."

"What?!" the kids shrieked in disbelief.

"Come inside," Massimo said, ushering them in. "I'll fix you some cioccolata." And he closed the door to the cold.

. . .

"How is that even possible?" Luca fretted at the kitchen table. "How could he be missing since August?"

That meant that Alberto had gone missing shortly after Luca had boarded the train to Genoa. But the calls… it didn't make any sense.

Massimo set the cioccolata calda in front of the children. The little they could see of his eyes were ringed with red as if he hadn't slept in days, or if he'd been crying, or both. "We had a fight," he admitted. "We were out on the boat. He dove in and I… I haven't seen him since."

Giulia took a big investigative sip. "When did you say he called you the first time?" she asked Luca.

"A month after I left… I guess it was about September, late September?"

"Could he have been using a different phone?"

"Now that I think of it, he might have been on his shell phone." Giulia and her father looked at him curiously. "I could hear the water," Luca said sheepishly. It was the unmistakable sound of whooshing, lapping, an occasional whale call. The sea could also be deathly quiet.

"I made a poster," Massimo said, sliding it to the kids. Luca's heart sank when he saw Alberto's carefree smile, his tail splashing the locals. "I've been putting them up all over town, in case he decided to resurface somewhere close by."

"Papa… " Giulia knew her dad had latched onto the boy. He'd never had a son. And she'd never had a brother.

This was personal.

You know, some things are best left unspoken

And some things just never work out

And sometimes

. . .