Chapter 30 Fon
Fon
She looked like an angel, standing at the entrance to the dimly lit church with her father. The late afternoon sun was still blazing, sending a heat shimmer off the cars and throwing a nimbus around her dramatic silhouette.
A murmur of appreciation swept through the congregation as the organ played and she slowly came down the aisle.
Chiesa di San Nicola was a humble church, little more than a chapel, with peach-painted arches, whitewashed walls, and a fresco of the Assumption of Mary in lieu of an east window.
No gilding or high Catholic crucifixes, no life-sized saints standing watch in niches.
She could have been married in the cathedral in Tricase town – or anywhere she had wanted – but this was her home and Father Tommaso was her priest.
Fon felt awash with pride as his bride passed by the familiar sunburnt, windswept, weather-whipped faces of their neighbours.
No one was used to beauty for beauty’s sake here but toothless grins beamed, rough, calloused fingers automatically fluttering for a touch of her skirt as she passed, looking like a princess.
Father Tommaso was standing just behind him, waiting too as she reached the end of the aisle and her father pulled back her veil, kissing her lightly on the cheek.
‘I love you, Papa,’ she whispered, clutching his fingers for a moment as tears stood poised in her father’s eyes.
For a moment, Emilio Parisi’s gaze swept over him, and Fon felt the chill in his look before he stepped away, unable to do anything else.
Fon stepped closer then, his breathing shallow as he realized the dream – the promise – was coming true. She was his at last.
‘You look so beautiful.’ He held out his arm chivalrously, and she took it as together they walked up the couple of steps to the altar.
Father Tommaso made the sign of the cross, the altar boys standing either side of him, holding large crucifixes almost as big as themselves.
The Mass server had his back turned, making final preparations for communion.
They knelt to pray as Father Tommaso began reciting the Collect.
Fon was aware of Rafaella clasping her hands tightly, as if praying for fortitude – as if marrying him was a prison sentence, but they both knew it was because of him that Cosimo wasn’t behind bars.
He had saved his old foe in his darkest hour; he had been Atlas on bended knee, holding the world aloft as everything threatened to fall.
Two lives had been lost that day, but in the midst of all the blood and wine and reckless sex, he had saved his own. He had stared into the abyss, and from the midnight void he had understood what he needed to do.
He had taken all the risk. Now he got to take the reward.