“Thank you for going with me,” she says, leaning her head on my arm.
“Of course,” I tell her. “Anything.”
That word glides across the water around the dock and gets lost beneath the purr of the approaching boat’s motor. Ava looks up at me like she wants to say something, but then her lips press together and the boat knocks into the dock, forcing her to look away, grabbing the pole to her right for balance. She holds my hand tightly as we step aboard the vaporetto and squeeze between the people bunched together on deck, the words she might have said blowing out to sea with the salty spray that kicks up around us as we push away from land.
CINQUANTA
Ava
Being back in Nina’s kitchen is nearly as soothing as the sound of her and Leo’s chatter streaming in through the open window. Venice was amazing—and my time with James in Venice even more so, but I needed out. After Alessandro and David, everything around me became less magical surrealism and more dismal melancholia, like the tide had shifted and dragged in all of the terrible memories of her battle along with my mom’s secret.
The smell of the marinara bubbling around my spoon as I stir wafts up into my nostrils and tempts me to taste, but the risk of getting caught with my fingers in Nina’s sauce keeps me upright, stirring slowly and methodically while trying not to eavesdrop on the conversation that they are doing nothing to hide from me.
“You will tell him he’s here, no?” Nina says, hands flying in a way that if you stepped up behind her she might accidentally knock you out.
“I do not know,” Leo says.
“What do you mean you do not know? He needs to be prepared for this—”
“Sì. Sì. Lo so. Ma forse, if he does not know …”
I move the blowing curtain to the side and watch Leo’s bushy brows lift up into his hairline. What are these two up to?
“That is an ambush!” Nina says breathlessly. “He will not be happy if he knows you knew—”
My hand slips on the spoon and my wrist brushes against the lip of the pot.
“Shit!” I yell, pulling back from the heat.
Nina is inside within a breath, pulling me toward the sink, murmuring in Italian as she holds the burn under the cool running water.
“Are you okay, cara?” she asks me, surveying the angry red mark on the inside of my wrist.
“I’m fine. I swear.” I shut off the faucet and head back to the marinara, but she guides me away.
“I will take care of the sauce. Go wake James for dinner,” she tells me. “There is burn cream in the medicine cabinet in the upstairs bathroom.”
I nod and head up the stone stairs, staring at the pictures of young James and baby Maso. Baptism pictures of Maso with a full head of black hair, James standing beside his aunt as she holds him out to the priest. James in a blue suit with a crown of laurel leaves around his head, a tradition for graduation from the University of Urbino. The hallway is a family shrine—every picture filled with love and happiness.
“Are you crying?”
I turn to find James leaning against the wooden doorjamb of the bathroom in nothing but a white towel wrapped around his waist.
“No. I was cutting onions in the kitchen,” I lie.
“Tammy called again while I was asleep,” he tells me and I wave him off.
I’m not upset with her. I know that she told Olivia about Venice, setting off the emergency protocol for Ethan’s proposal. That’s why she was acting like such a spaz for our final hours together in the car. And I know she supports my happiness more than any family agenda. But the real reason I’m avoiding that call is because of everything that has happened in the past two days. I’m not ready to answer questions about James—or my mom for that matter. Not ready to lay it all out and dissect it the way Tammy will want to do.
James adjusts his towel then smiles, and between the memories of the last shower we took together and the sight of him half naked, I forget what the hell I’m even doing up here in the hallway.
Oh right. Wake-up call.
“I’m here to wake you up,” I tell him and he nods, but doesn’t move. “And to get some burn cream—”
“Are you okay?” He’s immediately hovering over me, inspecting me for damage. I hold out my wrist.
“It’s nothing. My wrist hit the pot,” I explain, but he’s already turned away and is rummaging through the medicine cabinet like I’ve lost a limb.
