Chapter 26 ISABELLA #2
"I'm angry at you," I tell her, and my voice doesn't shake. Not yet. "I think I'll always be a little angry. You left me. You let me grieve you. You made choices I can't understand—choices I would never make."
I think of Elena, pressed warm against my side. Of the promise I made her on that island: I'll come back. I promise.
I would burn the world before I'd leave her. Before I'd let her spend thirteen years talking to an empty grave.
"I don't know how to forgive that. I'm not sure I ever will."
The wind picks up, ruffling my hair, carrying the smell of salt and something sweeter underneath. Jasmine, maybe. Impossible out here, but I smell it anyway.
"But I'm also grateful. For teaching me to dance.
For the hospital, during the cancer—I know you were there.
The nurse told me, after. A woman who sat by my bed during the worst nights, who wouldn't give her name, who left before dawn.
" My throat tightens. "It was you, wasn't it?
You were there when I thought I was dying, even though you couldn't stay. "
I tip the urn. The ashes pour out, caught by the wind, spreading across the water like a gray veil. Some float. Some sink. Some hang in the air for a moment before drifting down to meet the sea.
"For the key that got me out. For teaching me to fight. For loving me, even when that love got tangled up in fear and lies." The tears come now. I let them. "For loving me, Mom. Even when it came out wrong."
Elena tugs my sleeve. "Is she in the water now?"
"Yes, baby. She's in the water."
"Can she swim?"
I almost laugh. Almost sob. "She loved to swim. A long time ago, when she was young."
"Good." Elena nods firmly. "Then she won't be scared."
The water doesn't judge. It just holds you.
"No," I whisper. "She won't be scared."
I watch the last of the ashes disappear—some sinking into the depths, some carried by the current toward shores I'll never see. She's everywhere now. And nowhere. Part of the sea that connects every coast, every country, every place she ever ran from or ran to.
Maybe that's fitting. She never could stay in one place. Never could stop moving, stop hiding, stop looking over her shoulder. Now she doesn't have to. Now she can drift wherever the current takes her, no plans, no secrets, no fear.
"I hope you find peace," I tell the water. "I hope wherever you are, you're not scared anymore. And I hope—"
My voice breaks. I let it break.
"I hope you're proud of me. I hope you can see that I turned out okay. That everything you gave me—the dancing, the stubbornness, the way I refuse to stay down—it was enough." I wipe my face with the back of my hand. "It was enough, Mom. You could have been enough."
The sun is sinking lower, turning the sea to gold. We stay until the last light fades, until the first stars appear, until the water has smoothed over the place where she disappeared like she was never there at all.
Then Antonio starts the engine, and we head back toward shore.
Toward home.
Elena falls asleep on the ride back, exhausted by the emotion of a day she only half understood. But when we reach the dock, when Antonio lifts her gently from the boat, she stirs.
"Wait." Her voice is foggy with sleep. "I forgot."
She twists in Antonio's arms, reaching for me, the crumpled drawing still clutched in her hand.
"For you, Bella-ballina." She presses it into my hands, blinking awake with the determination of a child who will not be denied. "So you don't forget what your mama looks like in heaven."
I look at the picture. Crayon stars scattered across a purple sky. Wobbly clouds that might be cotton balls or might be dreams. And two figures standing together, holding hands.
My mother, in a yellow dress with yellow wings, because Elena decided grandmothers become angels and angels have wings.
And next to her—another woman. Smaller. Dark hair. Pink wings and a pink dress and a smile that takes up half her face.
"That's my mom," Elena says, pointing. "She's with your mom now. So neither of them has to be alone."
My throat closes completely.
Giuliana. Elena's mother. The woman who died at a wedding she never should have attended, who left behind a daughter too young to remember her face, whose absence shaped the little girl blinking up at me with sleepy, certain eyes.
Elena doesn't remember her mother. She has photographs, stories, the love of a father who keeps her memory alive. But she doesn't remember—not the sound of her voice, not the feel of her arms, not the way she laughed.
And still, she drew her in heaven. Still, she gave her pink wings to match my mother's yellow ones. Still, she decided that two women who never met should keep each other company in whatever comes after.
"They're friends now," Elena continues, rubbing her eyes. "I decided. Your mom can teach my mom to dance, and my mom can teach your mom how to love you better. From heaven. Where it's easier because there's no bad guys."
I can't speak. Can't do anything but take this drawing like it's made of gold, like it's the most precious thing anyone has ever given me.
Because it is.
"Thank you, baby." My voice is wrecked. "It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I'll keep it forever."
"Forever is a long time," Elena says.
"That's the point."
She nods, satisfied, then squirms in Antonio's arms. "Can we go home now? I'm hungry and also tired and also Giuseppe probably misses me."
"Giuseppe is a goat," Antonio says dryly. "He doesn't miss anyone." I don't point out that he had the goat come from the vineyard when Elena cried that she missed him.
"He misses ME. I'm his favorite person. He told me."
"Goats don't talk, piccola."
"Giuseppe does. He says maaaaaah and that means 'where is Elena, I love her so much, she is the best girl.'" She looks at me for confirmation. "Right, Bella-ballina?"
"That's exactly what it means," I say, and she beams like I've given her the sun.
"See, Papa? Bella-ballina knows goat language."
Antonio catches my eye over her head, the corner of his mouth twitching. For a moment, the grief lifts. Not gone, but lighter. Carried by a little girl who believes goats speak in declarations of love and mothers become angels with colored wings.
"You're everyone's favorite person," I tell her. "Even Giuseppe's."
"I KNOW," she says, with the absolute confidence of a child who has never been given reason to doubt she is loved. "Can we go now? I want to tell Giuseppe about the boat."
We walk up from the dock together, Elena chattering about everything she's going to tell the goat—the water, the stars, the way Bella-ballina's mama can swim now—while Antonio carries her and I carry the drawing and Franco limps along behind us, trying to hide how tired he is.
The fortress rises above us, lights glowing warm in the windows. Manuel's somewhere on patrol, quiet and watchful as always. Cerberus will be sprawled across the kitchen floor, taking up as much space as physically possible, ready to greet Elena like she's been gone for years instead of hours.
Home.
Not the home I was born into. Not the home I expected. But home nonetheless—built from wreckage and choice and the stubborn refusal to break.
In my pocket, Elena's drawing crinkles against my hip. Two mothers in heaven, holding hands. Yellow wings and pink wings. Keeping each other company so neither has to be alone.
The grief settles into something I can carry.
Something that becomes part of me instead of consuming me.
I'll always miss her—my mother, complicated and flawed and finally, finally at rest. But missing her doesn't mean breaking.
It can mean remembering. Honoring. Carrying forward the parts of her that made me who I am.
Just like the cancer. Just like the scars. Just like every other thing that tried to break me and failed.
I am made of the things I've survived.
And I am still standing.