29. Cielo
— ? —
Cielo
He proposes on a Sunday.
I’m in the garden, watching Gio attempt to teach Beppe the names of all the moons of Jupiter, when Giovanni appears in the doorway with an expression I can’t quite read.
“Cielo. Can I borrow you for a minute?”
“Is something wrong?”
“No. Nothing’s wrong.” He holds out his hand. “Just come with me.”
I follow him through the house and out to the terrace, where the afternoon sun is painting everything gold. He leads me to the spot where we stood on our first night here, all those weeks ago, when everything was uncertain and afraid.
“Giovanni, what-”
“Let me talk.” He takes both my hands in his. “Please. Just let me get through this.”
I nod, my heart suddenly pounding.
“Eight years ago, I proposed to you in a restaurant,” he says. “It was rushed, and impulsive, and I didn’t have a ring because I hadn’t planned it - I just looked at you across the table and knew I couldn’t spend another day without knowing you’d be mine forever.”
“I remember.”
“You said yes before I even finished the question. And then we got married a month later, in a ceremony so small that half of our friends didn’t believe it happened.
” He squeezes my hands. “I always meant to give you a proper wedding. A real proposal. Something that matched what you deserved instead of what I could manage in the moment.”
“Giovanni-”
“But then Sicily happened. And then five years happened. And I told myself that if I ever found you again, I’d do it right.” His eyes meet mine, dark and serious. “I found you. And now I want to do it right.”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out - nothing.
No ring. No box. Just his empty hand.
“I don’t have a new ring for you,” he says. “Because you already have the only ring that ever mattered.”
My hand goes to my throat, to the chain I’ve worn for five years, the chain that holds his mother’s ring against my heart.
“That ring survived everything,” he continues. “The raid, the running, the years of hiding. You could have thrown it away a thousand times, and you didn’t. You kept it. You wore it against your skin like a secret, like a promise you couldn’t quite let go of.”
“I couldn’t.” My voice is thick. “I tried. I could never-”
“I know.” He reaches out and gently unhooks the chain from around my neck, letting the ring fall into his palm. “This was my mother’s. She gave it to me before she died, and I gave it to you when we married, because I wanted you to carry something of my family with you always.”
“And I did. Even when I hated you. Even when I thought-”
“I know.” He holds the ring up, and it catches the light, simple gold worn smooth by years of being pressed against my skin.
“Cielo Rossi-Salvatore. We’re already married.
But I’m asking you to marry me again. Not because we have to.
Because I want you to know, with absolute certainty, that I choose this.
That I choose you. That if I could go back and do everything differently, the only thing I’d do the same is love you. ”
The tears are streaming down my face now, but I don’t care.
“Yes.”
“Wait.” He holds up his other hand. “I need to say one more thing.”
“Giovanni-”
“Our first wedding was something that happened to us. This one is something we’re choosing.
Every vow I make today, I’m making with my eyes open.
I know what I’m promising. I know what it costs.
” He slides the ring onto my finger - my finger, where it belongs - and looks at me with an intensity that steals my breath.
“I promise to be there. Not just when it’s easy.
Not just when it’s convenient. Always. Every day.
Even when I fail, even when I mess up, I promise to keep trying. ”
“You don’t have to-”
“I do. I have to say it, because you need to hear it.” He cups my face in his hands.
“I was a ghost for the first half of our marriage. I was there but I wasn’t present.
I let my work and my wars and my need for control come between us, and you paid the price for my failures. That’s never going to happen again.”
“I believe you.”
“Do you? Really?”
I reach up and cover his hands with mine. “I heard you. The other night. When you thought I was asleep.”
His face goes still. “You-”
“Every word.” I smile through my tears. “About not knowing how to do this. About loving me since the gallery. About choosing me until they put you in the ground and probably after.”
“Cielo-”
“I’m choosing you too.” I kiss him, soft and certain. “Eyes open. Knowing everything. Choosing you anyway.”
* * *
The ceremony happens a week later, in the garden, with an audience of exactly five people: Delphine, Beppe, Rino, the artist who painted our portrait, and one small space-obsessed boy who takes his role as ring bearer extremely seriously.
“I’m also the best man,” Gio informs the officiant - a family friend of Delphine’s who doesn’t ask too many questions. “Papa said I could be both.”
“That’s highly irregular,” the officiant says mildly.
“I’m an irregular person.”
“He really is,” I confirm, and Delphine snorts from her seat in the front row.
The ceremony itself is simple - the words we needed to say, we’ve already said in private. This is just the formal part, the official choosing, the moment we stand in front of witnesses and declare that we belong to each other.
When Giovanni slides the ring back onto my finger - the same ring, always the same ring - I feel something settle in my chest. Something that’s been unmoored for five years finally finding its anchor.
“I now pronounce you married,” the officiant says, “again.”
“Can I throw the rice now?” Gio demands.
“Yes, piccolo. You can throw the rice.”
He throws it with more enthusiasm than aim, and half of it ends up in Giovanni’s hair, and the other half ends up in mine, and we’re both laughing as we kiss for the first time as a family that chose each other.
For the first time since a cliffside house in Sicily, I’m not afraid of tomorrow.