“That can’t be,” I say softly, but I can tell by the look on Alessandro’s face that it can be. That it is.
“It started with a simple pain in her lower back. She blamed painting. But then she could no longer ignore it, and I took her to my physician. Fortunamente, it was early,” he says. “She left for home two days after she received the news.”
My eyes return to her unfinished painting of St. Mark’s Square as my heart falls into my stomach.
Just like that, the buoyant pieces of wood that keep my memories afloat crack down the center, dumping the mirage of my childhood into the deep, murky water that lies beneath.
QUARANTANOVE
James
The moment we reach the alley that runs in front of Alessandro and David’s apartment, she drops her armor, pacing the edge of the canal back and forth like the pendulum in Nina’s grandfather clock. She was able to hold this back the entire hour we spent with Alessandro and David, but now she’s unleashing that frantic energy with a vengeance.
“How could they keep that from me? She knew.Theyknew that there was a chance of it coming back and they never told me. They could have prepared me. Instead of my world falling off the edge of a cliff. A cliff they knew was there!”
She’s not speaking to me. She’s flinging her pain out into the sky, and I know better than to voice anything that’s in my head.
They were trying to protect her—like good parents. Why would they want her to live in fear alongside them? To go to sleep every night with the thought that her mother could at any momenthave something toxic and deadly inside of her. But I get it. She’s hurt. Angry and hurt.
“They lied. My whole life. They lied.”
To protect you.
She stops and stares at me, her eyes so narrow I can barely make out the green. Did I say that aloud?
“Protect me? From what, James? She died. How could they protect me from that?”
I put my hands up in immediate surrender.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that,” I tell her.
“But you did say it. So you must believe it. And I get what you’re saying. I do. But I was twenty. That’s old enough to know. Old enough to be warned. I mean, she made me get my genome mapped for cancer genes! Said it ran in the family …”
She trails off and looks out over the water, hugging herself like she might crumble into the canal.
“If I had known, maybe I could have convinced her to take better care of herself—to see a better oncologist—anything,” she whispers as the tears let loose.
I wrap my arms around her and hold her steady as she sobs.
“You did everything you could. You were there, Ava. Every day,” I say into her hair. And she was. She gave up nearly two years of her life to be there—a sacrifice that no one should have to make that young. “That’s what matters. You were there.”
She leans back and looks up at me, her face open and raw. Four weeks ago I could barely see past the walls she put up between us. Now her pain runs through her and directly into my chest.
I run my thumb along her cheekbone.
“Can we go home?” she asks.
I nod. “Of course. I’ll get us a boat back to the apartment—”
“I mean to Urbino,” she says.
I bite back the smile that tugs at the corners of my mouth. Home? She called Urbino home.
“Yeah, we can,” I tell her, reminding myself it’s just a word.
Home.
I offer her my elbow and she slips her arm in mine as I lead her toward the vaporetto dock.
