36. Anthony
— ? —
Anthony
Now - Tuscany
I don’t tell her where we’re going.
She’s spent three days trying to get it out of me. Wine first. Then the smile she knows I can’t say no to. Then, when both of those failed, threatening to ask Simon directly, which turned him so pale over dinner that Euridice had to kick him under the table.
I lead her down through the village at dusk, pulling her by the hand through narrow streets that smell like jasmine and old stone.
Euridice drew me a map on a napkin two nights ago and made me walk it after dark until I stopped taking wrong turns, and I’m grateful for every humiliating minute of that rehearsal now, because I don’t hesitate once.
“Where are we going?” she asks for the third time.
“You’ll see.”
“Anthony-”
“Trust me.”
The words come out harder than I mean them to. Trust me. She’s asked me to do that more times than either of us can count, and she’s still trying. This is the least I can give her back - one thing to trust me about that isn’t an apology.
So she follows me through the village square, past the fountain where we sat and ate gelato the summer we were sixteen, past the old mill where she used to play as a child.
The light is fading, painting everything gold and rose, and my heart is pounding for reasons I’ve had three weeks to get used to and still haven’t.
I stop in front of a rusted iron gate.
I’ve been coming back to this place for three weeks, learning the crumbling stone wall covered in ivy, the jasmine that’s swallowed half the entrance, the way the evening light falls through the olive tree in the center of the garden.
Her mother’s garden. Behind the old church.
I push open the gate and pull her through.
The garden is lit with candles in jars all along the crumbling wall. Dozens of them, maybe hundreds, their flames flickering in the evening breeze. The jasmine is in full bloom, filling the air with sweetness so thick I can taste it.
And standing under the olive tree, waiting for us, are Euridice in her gold dress and Simon, with his hands still wrecked from the sorting table, grinning like a man who’s kept a secret for exactly as long as he promised and not one day longer.
Between them, the village priest is in his vestments, looking nervous, clutching a worn book in his weathered hands.
At their feet, half-hidden in the grass, is a small white stone.
Her mother’s grave.
Alessia stops walking.
I watch her take it in, one piece at a time - Euridice, Simon, the priest, the small white stone half-hidden in the grass - and I watch the exact moment she understands what she’s looking at. I take both her hands in mine before she can find the breath to ask me anything.
“You’ve been planning this for three weeks,” she says. “Simon nearly told me twice.”
“I know. I was there for one of them.”
“Euridice drew you a map.”
“On a napkin. I’ve been practicing the walk in the dark like an idiot.
” I have to stop and breathe, because my chest has gone tight and my voice isn’t going to hold if I don’t.
“I needed you to not know. Just this once, I needed to be the one holding something you couldn’t see coming.
It’s the first secret I’ve ever kept from you that felt like a gift instead of a theft. ”
Her eyes are already too bright to be trusted.
“Alessia Sartori.” My voice cracks straight down the middle of her name. “Will you marry me again?”
She says yes before I’ve finished the sentence.
She laughs until she cries, this beautiful broken sound that fills the garden and echoes off the old stone walls. Because that’s exactly what she did to me once - said yes before I could finish asking, in the dirt at the end of the long row. Some things about her were never going to change.
“We’re already married,” she manages, when she can talk.
“Legally.” I hold her hands tighter. “This time I want us married honestly.”
The priest, who has clearly been told several times that this is a renewal and still looks confused about the whole arrangement, clears his throat. He glances at his book, then at Simon, then at me.
“You may begin,” he says, nodding at me.
I take a breath. I’ve been thinking about what I would say if I ever got this chance - the words I would use, the promises I would make. But standing here in the candlelight with jasmine in my face and my wife’s hands in mine, all the prepared speeches fall away.
“I promise to tell you the truth,” I say. “Even when it’s hard. Even when it costs me. Even when I’m terrified of losing you.” My voice breaks, but I keep going. “Because you deserve to make your own choices, and I’m done making them for you.”
Alessia’s hands tighten around mine.
“I promise to listen,” she says. “Even when I’m angry. Even when it would be easier to run.”
“I promise to choose you.” I have to stop and breathe, have to force the words past the tightness in my chest. “Over revenge. Over pride. Over anything that asks me to hurt you.”
I think about my uncle. I think about the files, the years of watching and waiting, the way I told myself it was justice when it was really just grief with a plan.
“And I promise to never again go after anything - not justice, not anything - by lying to the people I love.”
Alessia lifts my hands to her lips and kisses my knuckles.
“I promise to let you try,” she says, and her voice finally breaks. “Even when I’m not sure it’ll work. Even when the fear is bigger than the love. I’ll let you try, and I’ll try with you.”
The priest clears his throat again. He’s clearly moved, blinking rapidly behind his glasses.
“Do you…” He consults his book. “Take each other?”
“We do,” we say together.
Simon has given up on composure entirely. Euridice is pretending she isn’t crying, dabbing at her eyes with the back of her hand and glaring at anyone who notices.
I kiss my wife in her mother’s garden with jasmine in my face, and it feels like the first time. It feels like every time. It feels like coming home after years of being lost.
When I pull back, she rises up on her toes and puts her mouth against my ear.
What she whispers makes my face go hot in front of a priest.
“Take me to the shed.”