“I had no idea how much she had affected Incantellaria.”
“She was beautiful and mysterious and died young. This is a small town, a superstitious town. Her story was a romantic and tragic one. There’s nothing quite like the combination of romance and tragedy to touch people. Look at Romeo and Juliet. Then your father took Valentina’s baby overseas. It’s the stuff of novels.” Alba thought of Viv getting her hands on it and immortalizing it in words.
“And twenty-six years later she comes back,” Alba added.
Toto nodded. “And the whole damn thing is opened up again.”
“Your father is very sad, isn’t he?” she said.
“He’s never gotten over her death. Neither has Immacolata. But Immacolata’s sorrow is the natural sorrow of a mother bereft of her child. With my father it’s like a torment.”
“Why?” she asked, recalling with a strange sense of déjà vu the inconsolable expression on her father’s face the evening she had given him the portrait.
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
22
T here was much excitement as Alba helped Cosima into the first of her three new dresses. Immacolata sat at the head of the table with the rest of her family, speculating about the nature of the surprise.
“They’re going to be amazed,” said Alba, tying the bow neatly at the back. “You look like an angel.” She felt the urge to mention the girl’s mother. Since she had arrived no one had uttered her name. Cosima acted as if she didn’t exist, but Alba knew the truth because she recognized herself in the child’s silence. There were questions that simmered inside that would one day boil over and cause everyone pain unless they were answered now, with honesty and sensitivity. “Now go and show them all how beautiful you look.”
Cosima skipped out into the sunlight, dancing with the light feet of a garden fairy. Her entrance was welcomed with exuberant applause and cries of “There’s more…” from Cosima as she dived back into the house to slip into the next dress.
Alba shared Cosima’s happiness. She watched the expressions of the child’s family; none was more indulgent and delighted than her father’s. Alba sighed heavily and cast her thoughts back to her own father. She didn’t often dwell on memories; the present was more agreeable. However, she recalled with some surprise the time her father had taken her into the woods behind the house at Beechfield to shoot rabbits. They had walked up the hill hand in hand, his gun slung over his shoulder, his strides long and purposeful, then lain down on their stomachs, the damp grass tickling their chins. The scent of the recently harvested cornfields reached her now from the misty past and caused her head to swim with nostalgia. Her father had shot a rabbit, skinned it, gutted it, and they had built a fire and cooked it, while the sun flooded the countryside and turned it pink. Just the two of them. She remembered it now.
Cosima skipped in again for her third change and Alba was shaken from her thoughts. She helped her wriggle into the last dress. Alba found herself picking up the clothes that the child had left in a heap on the floor and folding them neatly over the back of the chair. She noticed her uncharacteristic tidiness, the almost motherly fussiness, and was surprised at how normal it felt. At the end of the show she came out of the shadows and joined in the applause. Toto thanked her and she knew what was contained within the pauses between his words; he felt his wife’s absence ever more acutely now that she was there.
After lunch Immacolata disappeared inside for a nap. Falco offered to take Alba to Valentina’s grave. Cosima leaped off her chair, wanting to go too. She looked up at Alba forlornly. But Alba wanted to talk to Falco alone. She suggested that they take a picnic somewhere nice later on in the day, just the two of them. This appeased the child, who watched them walk off through the olive grove, then turned on her heel to play with the donkey.
“She’s adorable,” said Alba, hoping to distract him from thoughts of his dead sister.
Falco nodded. “She’s delightful. My son is a good father. It hasn’t been easy.”
“He’s a tremendous father. He gives her everything she needs.”
“He can’t give her everything,” he said gruffly. “He must remarry and give the child a mother.”
“No one can replace Cosima’s mother,” she said a little too quickly, thinking of herself.
“No, of course not,” he replied, looking at her long and hard for a moment. “But see how she has flourished since you arrived.”
“I’ve only bought her a few dresses,” she said with a shrug.