Chapter 18 #2
‘How absolutely awful.’ Amy couldn’t begin to imagine it.
Filippo twisted his hands together. ‘Pietro’s return has brought old memories to the fore but it is not good to dwell on these bad things.
We will parade his casket through the streets, the village band will play, after the service there will be feasting.
In Italy all is celebrated with food, the good and the bad. ’
‘And you wanted my help?’
‘The villagers have raised the money for a permanent plaque in honour of those innocent victims. Unfortunately, a lorry carrying cement reversed into the original commemorative obelisk some years back and it has taken all this time to agree on a suitable replacement.’
Amy nodded, not sure how she could possibly fit in.
‘There has been much discussion about where this tribute should be placed, no one could agree. The mayor placed a box on the counter of the bar for people to vote and the majority believed Sant’ Agata to be a fitting place.
But where? I cannot decide on which wall, north or south?
You appeared at the church door just as I prayed for God’s guidance.
What better person to make the final decision? ’
Amy put her hands to her face. ‘I can’t… I feel overwhelmed.’
‘Do not be, my child. I saw you light a candle. Think of that loved one.’
‘My grandpa Lance.’
‘He will guide you. Is he not up in heaven?’
In Alassio she’d found it so hard to imagine a younger version of Grandpa but now he seemed to materialise in front of her, the parting in his hair as neat as the crisp crease down the front of his trousers.
She saw him walking down the aisle, his wheelchair gone.
He turned towards one wall and then the other, his eyes settling on a space to one side of an oil painting of Saint Jerome in the wilderness.
She waited for the doubts to come but she had none.
‘Just there.’ She pointed.
‘Thank you. I think that will be perfect. I hope you will be here to witness the unveiling, Amy. I understand you are lodging with our parishioner, Fernanda.’
‘I would love to come but I’m not sure how long I will be staying here.’
‘Of course, I understand.’
They walked in silence down the aisle. The priest stopped to lock up the church.
Amy wandered across the piazza feeling slightly dazed.
The priest’s surprising request had helped her as much as it had helped him.
Inside Sant’ Agata she had felt closer to Grandpa than ever.
Even if she never discovered the connection between him and the village, her visit had been worthwhile. She’d come to the right place.
An elderly lady she’d seen that morning smiled and wished her buonasera. Another man nodded in recognition. Amy nodded back and smiled. It seemed that in less than twenty-four hours, she’d become part of the village.
* * *
Fernanda still hadn’t changed the bulb in Amy’s bedside light. She’d been sitting in the kitchen for the best part of the afternoon staring at the wall. Remembering.
It had been the weirdest day. Encountering that dreadful girl Stella Ferrando again had shifted something in Fernanda’s carefully constructed world.
There was an English word for how she was feeling, she tried to remember it.
She took Gino’s school dictionary down from its place next to the cookbooks on her high shelf and flicked through the much-handled pages.
Discombobulated: that was the word. The English had good words like that, so did the Germans but she didn’t remember much German any more, it had been so many years since Violetta had tried to teach her.
Fernanda was still amazed how quickly she’d recognised Gino’s old love.
Stella must be nearly sixty now. She looked it too, her forehead lined, her jaw a little droopy.
Stella’s hair was a deep brown, she must dye it, no one that age had so little grey.
But despite all that she was an attractive woman, her hazel eyes had kept their flecks of colour.
Stella still had that certain something that had turned Gino’s head.
Unforgettable, that was the word, in any language.
Fernanda put the dictionary back, she couldn’t bear anything untidy or out of place.
But her orderly kitchen didn’t put her mind at ease.
She’d spent years convincing herself she’d done the right thing but the appearance of her son’s old girlfriend had flooded her mind with doubts as unstoppable as a landslip in the Alps.
If only she had kept quiet that day, contented herself with punishing Gino for taking the moped without permission.
Instead, she’d incurred Arturo’s wrath, wreaking havoc on his family and hers.
She’d tried to tell herself it was only natural that Gino would leave the village, move to a bigger place, find his own way.
Wasn’t it a mother’s job to protect her young but also help them fly the nest?
But Gino hadn’t flown, he’d hobbled away like a bird with a broken wing.
If she’d sat back and let Stella and Gino’s relationship fizzle out of its own accord, the wretched girl would have become a fuzzy memory instead of a first love put on a pedestal, the one that got away.
If Fernanda hadn’t destroyed their love affair, Gino might have stayed in the village and been close to his mother in her old age.
He and his wife Gaia might have taken over his grandparents’ land when the farmer renting it came to the end of his lease.
Her countryside-loving son could have grown his own olives, maybe even restored the old family rustico.
Instead, her precious boy was an infrequent visitor, a disembodied voice at the end of a phoneline.
Sometimes she allowed herself to believe she’d saved Gino from an inevitable heartbreak.
Arturo would never have allowed Stella to marry him.
Decades might have passed but the wound Fernanda’s family had inflicted on Domenico and Arturo had cut too deep.
But heartbreak was part of life. Gino would have survived.
She should have let things run according to God’s will.
Instead, she’d driven away her only child.