“Don’t feel guilty, my love. No child comes into the world by accident. God wouldn’t be so careless. Every child is precious however he is conceived. Our son is more precious than most, because he was conceived with love.”
Dante couldn’t help but smile at her idealism. He wondered whether she’d be so carefree once the child was born and crying through the night. “I love you, Floriana.”
“And I love you, too, Dante.”
“Do you remember that day on the bench, when I took your hand and asked you your name?”
“Of course. I’ll never forget it.”
“I sensed then that you were going to be a part of my life. I didn’t know how, but I just knew we’d somehow be connected.”
“I sensed it, too.”
“You were lost, and I wanted to look after you.”
“I’m not lost anymore.”
“As long as I live, my piccolina, you’ll never be lost.”
Elio watched his daughter like a lion watches an unsuspecting gazelle. He watched her come in humming to herself, and he watched her leave with a skip in her step. Then he sat down and wrote a letter: the letter that was going to transform his fortunes forever.
The sacristan had poured all Elio’s bottles down the toilet. There wasn’t a drop of alcohol left in the apartment, but Elio didn’t care; his thoughts were on a higher goal, and for that he needed to be focused and alert. For the first time in years he had woken with a sense of purpose. A tingling sensation rippled over his body as he considered his daughter’s predicament and what use could be made of it.
Beppe Bonfanti was one of the richest men in the country. There was simply no way that he would allow his son and heir to marry a local girl from an obscure little town in Tuscany. She might have deluded herself otherwise, and Dante might have convinced himself that they could run away together and live happily ever after, but the reality was blatant to anyone who had lived as long as he had. It wasn’t going to happen. So, if his daughter wasn’t going to become the wife of a millionaire, he had to take what he could from the situation.
He chuckled as he wrote his letter to Beppe. He’d never been within sights of such easy cash in all his life. He had been a terrible father, but now he had the chance to make it up to his daughter. He couldn’t demand that Dante make an honest woman of her, but he could demand money to support her and their bastard child—with a little extra for good measure.
Floriana decided that she wasn’t going to tell anyone but Signora Bruno that she was leaving. She would simply go. Signora Bruno could inform her father that she had moved away to start a new life somewhere else, and he could tell Aunt Zita. However, she was deeply indebted to Father Ascanio, and it was right that she should go and thank him for his kindness.
The day before she was due to leave, she skipped over the cobbles with a light heart. Her future didn’t frighten her at all. In fact, she looked forward to moving to a new town and starting over. There, no one would pity her for the mother who had left her and the father who got drunk every night and cheated at cards. No one would know anything about her. She’d reinvent herself as a mother with a small child and a handsome young husband who worked in Milan—no one would have to know that they weren’t married. No one would have to know anything at all. She’d create a whole new identity.
That cold November morning Father Ascanio was giving Mass. Floriana sidled into the back of the church and waited until it was over. The usual party ensued in the square, and it was another half hour before the last stragglers dispersed. Father Ascanio smiled warmly at the sight of her. She stood a little apart, a coat wrapped tightly around her shoulders, arms folded against the autumn chill. Her hair blew about her face, which was pale and thin, and more beautiful than he had ever seen it. She no longer looked like a child.
“Floriana,” he said, taking her hands.
“I’ve come to thank you.” She lowered her eyes and found to her surprise that they were welling with tears. Father Ascanio and his church had been home to her. Now she was leaving; she didn’t know when she would see them again.
“Don’t cry, my child. God will always be with you wherever you are in the world.”
“You have been so generous and understanding and wise. I realize only now how much I have depended on you.” Her voice thinned, and she couldn’t go on.
“Come, let’s go inside. It’s getting cold.”
“May I confess, Father?”
“If it would make you feel better.”
“It would. One last time.”
She sat in the dark confessional and opened her heart in a way she had never done before. She spoke about her mother and the desperate sense of abandonment she had suffered as a consequence of her leaving. She spoke about her brother, the sorrow of his sudden disappearance and the jealousy she had felt that he had been chosen over her. And she spoke of her father and her deep shame.