“He’s coming to dinner tonight, cara,” Nina says from beside me.
I turn to find her studying my expression.
“Who?” I ask, knowing there’s no use pretending.
She laughs and plucks the tomatoes from my hand and drops them into her basket.
“Maybe he could help you with whatever this pent up—”
“Nina!”
She widens her eyes, the picture of innocence. Terrifying woman.
“Cara, you should know that Gi is very cautious—particolarmente con il suo cuore,” she says softly, switching her basket to the other arm.
Cuore. Sounds like cor in Latin. Heart.
He’s cautious with his heart.
“Aren’t we all?” I ask the oregano beside the fence, remembering the flash of hurt I saw on his face when I pulled away from that kiss. Then the cold acknowledgment of what it meant. I can’t give him what he wants—what he deserves.
“Vero, the two of you share that. What it feels like to lose someone, buonanima.”
She places her free hand on my shoulder and I meet her gaze. Her eyes are the exact color of James’s, caramel centers with a layer of dark chocolate.
“My sister was many things, cara—but a good mother? No. She chose her dreams and left Italy, something that I admired at the time,” she says. “She was young and beautiful and brave. Urbino was too small for her spirit. But when James was born, she did the same to him as she did to our family. And that was—imperdonabile—unforgivable.”
She presses her lips together and looks out over the hills. I can see the pain etched into the set of her jaw, and I know it’s not just for James. She was abandoned by her sister, too.
“Ad un certo punto nella vita, sarai consapevole del fatto che alcune persone possono stare nel tuo cuore ma non nella tua vita,” she continues, and I’m mesmerized by the words. I do my best with the translation, but Latin isn’t helping this time.
I lift a brow and shake my head and Nina translates. “At some point in life, you will know that some people can stay in your heart but not in your life.”
Ah. I nod once and look out toward the hills.
“That point in my life has come and gone,” I tell her, my voice thick and dry.
I hear Nina let out a breath.
“Certo. It has,” she agrees. She lifts her wide-brimmed straw hat from the bench beside her and places it on top of her head. “Which means that you should understand more than most not to waste un momento with those who are still here.”
She wipes her hands together and then holds them up. Italian hand gesture forall done here. I watch her stroll back toward the villa, still reeling from the motherly verbal smackdown. I haven’t had one of those in a long while.
Just one of the many things I’ve been missing in my life.
I let out a slow breath and turn my face toward the sun. I’m not wasting time. I’m making sure that life doesn’t get any messier than it already is. It would be insane to get involved in anything with the timer ticking away in the back of my head. And in my defense, he seems to be perfectly fine avoiding me right now. Maybe he’s the one who needs the smackdown.
Soft fur rubs against my thigh and a wet nose finds my palm at my side.
“I’m not wasting time, right?” I ask the horse-dog.
Verga yawns loudly, then plops onto my bare feet like he’s been plowing the fields all day rather than lounging indulgently. I lie down beside him and rest my head on his flank and stare up at the sky. My wrist flicks an imaginary paintbrush around the edges of the clouds. My mother lay beneath this sky—painted it over and over.
“Where do I go from here, Mom? What should I do?”
Silence.
I shut my eyes, but the image of that Italian sky stays imprinted on the back of my lids.
