‘So am I,’ Georgia said, giving her friend a one-armed hug as she lifted her glass in her other hand. ‘I’m very grateful for your family, or should I sayourfamily.’
‘To family, then,’ Luca said.
‘To family,’ she repeated, clinking glasses with Sam before taking a long, slow sip of her champagne.
To family. To the one I lost, to the one I gained, and to the one I’m soon to be a part of. And maybe to the one I didn’t even know existed.
31
LAKE GENEVA, 1991
Delphine tried to lift her head, but everything hurt. One moment she’d been sitting looking at the lake, lost in her memories, and the next she’d woken up on the ground, unable to move. Her body felt as if it no longer belonged to her as sirens blared and people leaned over her, shining lights in her eyes and touching parts of her body. She did appreciate the warm blanket that was tucked over her, and if she hadn’t heard the sound of her daughter Isabella’s worried voice, she’d have closed her eyes and surrendered to the overwhelming sensation she had to sleep. If she closed her eyes, the pain might disappear, that’s all she could keep thinking.
‘Please, I need to get past. She’s my mother.’
Isabella. She’d always been a demanding child, and as an adult she never let anyone stand in her way. But what was Isabella doing here? How had she found her?
Delphine’s eyes came into focus when Isabella’s soft, warm hand touched her cheek. Her breath wheezed from between her lips as she leaned into her touch.
‘Mama? Can you hear me?’ Isabella asked. ‘I’m right here.’
Her daughter reached beneath the blanket to take her hand, and Delphine used all her energy to squeeze back, to tell her thatshe could hear every word. The pain was bearable if it meant seeing her daughter one last time. She’d known this day would come, but she hadn’t expected it to be so sudden, or marred with so much agony.
‘My mother has stage four stomach cancer,’ Isabella said. ‘She’s supposed to be in hospice care.’
Hospice care. The place she’d been sent to die, when all she’d wanted was to stay in her own home until the end. The doctor had told her the day before, when she’d said how full of energy she felt, that it was most likely the body’s last hurrah, almost like a surge of adrenaline, and she hadn’t believed him. But she certainly believed him now.
She heard her daughter sigh. ‘Mama, you’re not supposed to get out of bed. How did you even get down here on your own? What were you thinking?’
Delphine could hear the worry in her daughter’s voice, knew that if she was able to sit up and look at her, that her eyes would be filled with tears, that her face would be stricken with fear. Isabella was yet to come to terms with her mother’s diagnosis; that she was dying. Whether she’d got out of bed or not, nothing had changed. She may have turned weeks into days by exerting herself, but the outcome was still the same.
‘Isabella,’ she whispered, her voice barely a croak.
But Isabella heard her, leaning close to listen, holding her hand still. ‘What is it, Mama? Are you in pain? Do you need morphine?’
She tried to shake her head, but everything hurt and she was suddenly so very, very tired. She did need morphine, but she didn’t want her brain to be addled from the pain relief; she would rather have her last moments with her daughter lucid.
‘Something,’ she whispered, her breath rasping, ‘to tell you.’
Isabella leaned closer, and Delphine couldn’t help but wonder if her other daughter still looked like Isabella. They’dbeen so similar as babies, their features almost identical, with dark lashes and dark hair from birth, and perfect little pink Cupid’s bow mouths that had stolen her heart. She had a feeling that both girls would have been as forthright as each other, both feisty in their own ways. It warmed her heart, because she knew that she hadn’t been feisty enough; no one, not even her family, would have ever convinced Isabella into a marriage of convenience.
‘Daughter,’ Delphine murmured, trying to get the word out. But her mouth wasn’t working properly, her throat constricting as she tried to speak, as pain ricocheted through every inch of her body.
‘Yes, I’m your daughter,’ Isabella said. ‘I’m here, Mama. I promise I won’t leave you.’
‘Had,’ she whispered. ‘A daughter.’
Isabella’s face showed that she didn’t understand what she was trying to say, and Delphine knew she’d left it too late. All these years, all those decades when she could have said something, when she could have told Isabella the truth, but she’d been too afraid.
Afraid of what?Once her children were grown, once her husband had passed away and lost his power over her, she should have told them. She should have given her children,allher children, the chance to meet. She should have tried harder to find the daughter she’d lost, the daughter who’d occupied her thoughts from the second she was conceived. But now it was too late for anything. Now her daughter thought her mother was confused and didn’t even know who she was.
Delphine’s eyelids drooped then, and she tried hard to keep her eyes open, even though it was as if someone was standing over her and forcing her to shut them.
‘Mama?’ Isabella cried. ‘Mama, stay with me! We just need to get you to the hospital. You’re going to be fine.’
It’s too late for me, my darling. It’s time for me to be with the other love of my life. Florian is waiting for me, and I wished you’d had the chance to know him properly, as a stepfather. I wish he’d had the chance to be part of your life, so you could see what I was like with him, so you could have had an example of what it was for a man to truly love a woman, to see the way he seemed to light me up from the inside. I wish you could have seen the version of me when Florian was near, when his eyes found mine across a room.
You and Tommaso, you have given me so much joy. I always knew when I became a mother that I would do anything for my children, only I never knew I would have to choose between you, that my children would be parted.
