“Will you give Biscuit a kiss from me?”
“I’ll give him more than one. Come up and see him tomorrow. After all, he belongs to both of us.”
“I will.”
“I’ll call you in the morning to tell you how he is.”
“I hope he has a good night.”
“After the fright he had today, he’ll sleep like a baby.” He laughed. “And so will I.”
Clementine climbed into her father’s car, and they motored up the drive. She saw Rafa watching her in the mirror and waved out of the window. He waved back. She knitted her fingers and took a deep, satisfied breath.
Grey dropped her off outside Joe’s, but instead of going inside, she waited for her father to leave, then slunk off to find her Mini. She didn’t want to face Joe yet, she wanted to sit awhile and feel close to Rafa, so she drove to the house that God forgot.
The moon was big and bright, drenching the landscape with enough light for her to see her way down the field. She didn’t feel afraid on her own. It felt good to be out in the wind, blanketed by the night. It was too dark to enter the church, so she sat on the step at the entrance and leaned against the wall, listening to the rustling of leaves and the steady murmuring of the sea below. Moonlight caught the tips of waves as they rose and fell, splashing them with silver. Tonight, the beauty didn’t make her feel melancholy, but happy. Her heart felt full and warm as if it were a cupcake, just out of the oven. She knew now that there was such a thing as Big Love and that it could creep up on a person very suddenly, almost before she recognized it. Well, she recognized it, all right, and, with a shudder of anticipation, she yearned to let it in.
21.
Tuscany, 1971
Floriana lay on the beach, her gaze lost in eternity. She considered the stars, so bright and vibrant, and wondered how many of them had already burned themselves out long ago, leaving their light to shine on like memories. She imagined death like that. Her mother might just as well be dead, for she wasn’t ever coming back. Floriana accepted that now. Once there had been an afterglow of memory as bright as those stars, but now it, too, had run its course. She could barely remember what her mother looked like. She certainly had no recollection of her little brother. But she did often wonder where they were and if her mother ever thought of her. Those meanderings of her mind used to cause her pain, and in a strange way she had taken pleasure from the discomfort, like the tongue that seeks the hurting tooth. Now her heart had hardened and she felt nothing, not even resentment.
It had been almost five years since Dante had left, and she thought of him every day. She was almost sixteen, a young woman, yet inside she was still the little girl peering in through the gates of La Magdalena; and she still loved him.
After he left she believed her world had imploded, and her will to live had collapsed. Without Dante in her life, what was the point of going on? She had sought comfort in the Church, for no one else cared but Jesus, and He had reached out and touched her heart, whispering quietly in her ear so that no one else could hear. He had told her to wait, that the day would surely come when Dante would return and ask her to marry him. So, she had dried her tears and straightened her shoulders and resolved to do exactly as He commanded, for Jesus and His mother, Mary, loved her—and in case they got diverted by someone else’s troubles, she went to church every day to light a candle for Dante, and to remind Them that her prayers were a priority.
The following summer Costanza was invited up to La Magdalena to play with Giovanna, the youngest Bonfanti child. It transpired that Costanza’s mother had approached Signora Bonfanti at Mass and suggested getting the girls together. Signora Bonfanti had been delighted, embracing Costanza’s mother like a long-lost friend. Contessa Aldorisio had not mentioned Floriana. She was keen for her daughter to find girls of her own class to play with, now she was growing up. But Costanza had insisted. She was too frightened to go on her own, and well aware that it was Floriana who had captured their hearts, not her. The countess had relented on the condition that once she was comfortable with Giovanna she leave Floriana behind, and besides, now she and Signora Bonfanti were reacquainted, she would take her to La Magdalena personally, so she was not in need of an escort.
It wasn’t long before Costanza and Giovanna were firm friends. Like Costanza, Giovanna was timid and uncertain. She had none of her sister’s confidence nor her brother’s charm. Floriana hung around them, but she soon grew bored of their games. She longed for Dante to walk through the trees, but he had gone, and she didn’t know when he’d be coming back. So, Floriana played with Good-Night. The dog was the little bit of Dante she could hold on to. She taught him to retrieve, to sit when he was commanded, and to follow her as she weaved in and out of the trees. They played hide-and-seek and endless other games she devised for him, and sometimes she’d put on shows for Giovanna and Costanza, who would sit together in their fancy dresses and clap prettily as if they were at the theater.