Chapter 6

An idea popped into his head. He remembered how his grandparents, who had grown up during the Great Depression of the 1930s, had managed to provide for themselves in their new country, but there had never been money for luxuries. They had not been able to return to Italy for the funerals of their parents. He had once heard them talking about it, his grandmother begging her husband to take out a small loan for a visit to Italy, but her frugal husband not giving in. They had never seen their parents again after they had left home.

As a child, he remembered picking up Petoskey stones when he took walks with his grandfather. These stones, his grandfather told him, were common in Michigan, having been left when the glaciers of the Ice Age retreated. They contained fossilized coral, and Dominic had a small collection of them when he was young. He still had a few.