44. Nico
NICO
She's the whole room the second the doors open.
I've stood in this exact spot before, at the end of an aisle, waiting for her to walk toward me, and it was nothing like this.
That day she came barefoot and blank-eyed, and I told myself it counted because the priest said the words and because I needed it to count.
It didn't count. I know that now, plain and certain, no doubt left in it anywhere.
This counts.
She's crying before she's halfway down the aisle, and so am I. Neither of us bothers pretending otherwise. Bianca walks beside her, steady, gives her arm one last press at the end, and puts Lydia's hand in mine slow and sure, trusting me with it completely, because she does.
"Take care of her," she says, low, just for me.
"Always."
Lydia's hand is warm in mine. Her belly is round under the dress, our kid in there kicking at something, and I put my free hand flat against the curve of her for one second before the officiant clears his throat. I can't help it. I need the proof of it under my palm.
"I know," she says, quiet, answering something I never said out loud.
I don't hear a word of the readings. I'm watching her face, the mole at the back of her neck, the curl Giorgia pinned back that's already come loose again.
I'm thinking about every version of her I've loved, the scared one, the furious one, the one who looked at me across a courtroom wanting nothing but her own freedom from me.
None of them prepared me for this one, standing here choosing me on purpose.
Then it's vows.
"Nico," the officiant says, "your vows."
I take both her hands.
"I'm not good with speeches," I say, and a few people laugh, quiet, kind. "So I'll just tell you the truth."
Her thumb moves over my knuckles.
"I hurt you," I say. "I know it. You know it.
I'm not going to stand here and pretend the first time we did this meant what today means, because it didn't, and you deserve the truth on the one day I get to tell it in front of everyone I love.
" My voice catches and I let it. "I love you because I want to, not because anyone's making me.
Because you stayed when you didn't have to.
You forgave things I'm not sure I'd have forgiven.
You're carrying our child. And you still looked at me this morning like I'm the good part of your day.
I choose you. Every day, for the rest of it. That's the vow. That's all of it."
She's shaking when I finish, quiet and steady, tears sliding straight down without any noise behind them.
"Lydia," the officiant says. "Your vows."
She holds onto my hands like they're the only solid thing in the room.
"The first time I married you, I thought I was walking into my own funeral," she says, and I feel the whole room go still around that sentence, feel my own hands tighten around hers without meaning to.
"I want you to know I remember that. I'm not pretending it didn't happen.
But I'm standing here today in a dress that actually fits, on my own two feet, because I want to be here, and that's not nothing.
That's everything." Her voice wobbles and she pushes through it.
"You didn't just become a better man for me.
You let me watch you become one. You let me see it happen, every ugly part of it, and you never once asked me to pretend the ugly parts weren't there.
" She glances down, one hand leaving mine to rest against her stomach, and I cover it with my own before she even asks.
"I'm choosing you with my eyes open. I know exactly who you are and exactly what it cost to get here, and I'd choose it again. I love you. I do."
Neither of us hears the officiant finish.
Somewhere in there is you may kiss, and I don't wait for the rest of the sentence, hand at her jaw, mouth on hers, careful of her mascara, careless of everything else.
The room erupts around us. Bella's laugh-crying loud enough to carry.
Anastasio hooting near the aisle. Bianca's hand pressed flat to her chest.
When we pull apart I keep my forehead against hers for one more second.
"Hi, wife," I say.
"Hi, husband."
Later, at the reception, Giorgia catches Lydia's hand between courses and squeezes it once, hard, saying nothing at all.
From her, that's its own kind of speech.
Anastasio's toast starts as a joke about my driving and ends with him wiping his face on his sleeve.
Bella dances with Lydia barefoot on the terrace once her feet give out, both of them laughing too hard to talk, Lydia's hand resting on the curve where our baby turns over slow and lazy.
There's a chair that stayed empty all night. I think of Capri once, briefly, a woman sitting on a balcony somewhere far from here, and I let the thought pass through me soft instead of sharp.
Today isn't about who's missing.
It's about who stayed.
I find her near midnight, jacket gone, sleeves rolled, and pull her in slow against me, one hand splayed low over where our child sleeps inside her.
"You told me you'd never love me," I say.
"And you told me this was never about love," she says.
"Look at us, piccola." My mouth curves. "Never didn't last very long."
We stand there swaying to music neither of us is really following, and for the first time in longer than I can count, the day asks nothing more of me than to be exactly where I am.