Maria

Chapter 3

It was now 6 pm. Nona and I have spent the whole day at the beach. I've never felt real sand before, but the second my feet felt the hot yet soft white sand of the beach, I fell in love.

Up in New York the sand felt nice, sometimes it was yellow but always tinted with multicolored rocks but it doesn't compare to this. It was soft, white, and powdery, I felt like I can cover myself in it and come home and take a shower and not get annoyed by it.

The water was surprisingly clear too, knowing that Nonna lives near a port, I was expecting the blueish-brown murky water like in New York. But no, the water took on a shade of deep blue. Looking at myself and saw that my skin has turned to red. Oh no I thought to myself . Hopefully this will turn into a tan. My skin isn't used to this type of heat but I'm a fan. I looked over at Nonna and saw she was sitting underneath a tree behind the beach reading her book. I decided to get up and talk to her.

"Hey Nonna, " I smiled "you like my tan" I giggled, twirling around - showing off my tomato colored skin.

"Oh no, Maria you look like a lobster!" She squealed "did you put any sunscreen?" She asked worriedly.

I shook my head no and she put her head down into her hand and shook her head.

"I think it's time for us to come home" she said.

"Wait let's go in the water real quick" I pleaded.

"Fine" she gave into my plea, I help her slowly got up as we link arm. We made our way to the water and began to walk on the shoreline with the waves crashing at our ankles. My drawstring back pack hung on me and Nonna still carried that book in her hand.

"Do you miss your father Maria?" Nonna asked.

No one has really asked me that question before, not straight up really.

"Uh yeah, more than anything. I would give anything to have him come back to me." I say looking at my feet kicking up the sand.

"I do too, he was such a nice man. He didn't deserve to die like that. Your mother also doesn't deserve to go through pain like that either and that includes you too" she mentions.

The cool water was easing the slight pain I felt at my ankles, it had relaxed me being here with her.

"It's just really hard, it happened a couple months ago but it still feels like it was yesterday when we got the call from the police station. I dream about him almost every night and sometimes when I was New York I avoided going to sleep because I was just so scared that something was going to happen to me or mom," I explained.

She rubbed my hand to comfort me as I feel my throat tightening and my eyes stinging just by talking about it.

"And the people Nonna, they were brutal about it. I understand that it is New York, and people get hurt or shot is normal but Nonna they shrugged off his case like it was nothing. Nothing. Put it into the pile of the many murders that were committed but were unsolved." I whimpered.

I looked at my feet to avoid having Nonna see the single tear fall down my cheek.

"The thing that's bothered me the most is that, they have no suspects. Not even one. It's like they don't care to find out. The whole situation just seems so shady. My dad doesn't deserve that, he deserves justice just like everyone else Nonna." I described as I quickly wiped my tear.

"Honey, we're doing everything to try and figure out who murdered him, it's just incredibly difficult. Because your father has no bad blood with anybody in New York. I'm sure you've seen the video but the video only shows a man wearing a black suit, a black mask and black gloves shoot your father. So it's kind of hard to draw up solutions when we only have that" she shrugged as she put her lips in a fine line.