"Only one photograph of the man who my grandmother called Leonello Giovanni Parenti was passed down to our family. He and his young bride are posed on a photographer's set before a painted backdrop, suggesting they are on the deck of a ship on their honeymoon. Their wedding bands are in the camera's eye, but not so clearly as the gaze in the couple's eyes. Hers is of a young, innocent girl who is six months pregnant with child, looking somewhat confused, maybe resolved to whatever her new life holds. Neither of them are smiling. In studying him, I recognize facial characteristics of my father and of my own. But it is in his eyes that the next chapter of his life is revealed . . . a cold, detached stare, in contrast to the soft, dreamy look of his new wife.
Within a few months, he was gone." - excerpt from page 5