I follow her through a white-plaster-and-exposed-stone reception, with huge vases of bright pink bougainvillea cascading out and trailing from tabletops to the stone floor.
“This way,” Antonia says again, as I move slowly, taking everything in; she’s leading me upstairs to room 13. She glances over her shoulder at me. “Shall I tell Leonardo you’re here? He was looking for you.”
“No, no. It’s okay,” I say quickly. “Maybe later.”
“Oh,” she says, looking slightly pleased. “A handsome man, no?”
I swallow a surprised smile. Antonia clearly finds Leofine.
“Yes,” I say, nodding as earnestly as I can, adding what I think she wants to hear. “Practically Dolce and Gabbana handsome.”
Antonia narrows her eyes a little, and I realize she’s trying to figure out if there is anything between Leo and me, romantically.
“If you like that kind of thing,” I add with a nonchalant sigh.
“Bene, bene,” she says merrily, pushing open the door.
The suite is beautiful. A sumptuously made-up bed dressed in soft white linen sits in a large white room with patchy exposed gray stone and a sky-blue ceiling with hand-painted clouds and a cherub with a bow and arrow in each corner. Thin white drapes frame the balcony doors, which are open, the afternoon breeze gently calling hotel guests out to the most darling view: stairs leading up to an ancient monastery in one direction, and a small, paved street lined with restaurants in the other.
I love the sounds of the city. There’s traditional Sicilian music jostling to be heard over the lively chatter of diners, their voices rising and falling between the intermittentbroooomand honk of scooters weaving between the cars. I watch a tour group follow a woman with a raised yellow umbrella speaking loudly in Spanish; a man in a white singlet unloads heavy polystyrene boxes, likely laden with seafood, from the back of a small van; a young couple walks arm in arm, lazily; and the smells of hot concrete and seafood waft in through the windows.
I drop the tote-bag-with-urn onto a midnight-blue velvet chair and look around, eased by the calming feeling of the room.
“Air-conditioning!” I exclaim.
“And a minibar, cotton waffle robes, a big bathtub, and of course... the city at your fingertips,” Antonia says proudly, clapping her hands in delight. “Your father always took this room these last years. We are sorry that we won’t see him again. But we are very happy to have you back, Olive.”
“It’s beautiful,” I say, turning around to face Antonia.
“Allora,” she says. “I will go. You will relax. And if you need anything, you call.”
Then I’m pulled in for another uninvited hug. “I’m sorry, Olive. It was never the same without you here,” she says into my ear, so soothingly I wonder if I’m going to cry. I am emotionally spent. It is difficult to know how to grieve for a father you felt estranged from. Whom you had decided to hate when you were a teenager and with whom you never really reconciled. A father who inspires so many regrets.
Antonia pulls back abruptly.
“Tesoro. You should have a shower.”
“I know, I know,” I say. “A nap. A wash. And then...”
“You eat!” she says enthusiastically. “Shall I book you and Leo a table for dinner? There are many—”
“Oh, no,” I say quickly. “Really. We can sort all that. But I’ll shout if we need some recommendations.”
“Perfetto,” she says, frowning a little. “Allora. I go.”
And then she is gone. I sit down on the edge of the bed and feel too small for it.
It’s strange. All of it. Not just the ghostwriting of my father’s cookbook, but also being on this trip he should have been on, staying in the place he would have stayed, on the working holiday he would have enjoyed. For the next few weeks, I will be surrounded by the memory of my father in the company of the one person who was there when he died.
Whom I’m putting out of a job.
God. I really don’t want to see him.
I feel alone.
I glance toward the urn.
Mostly alone.
