Lilly straightened. She hadn’t been okay for a long time, even before her mother died. But she didn’t know how to express what was going on inside her—didn’t feel she’d ever been heard or understood—so she went with the answer she felt was expected. “Yes. I was just about to turn off the light,” she said even though the rest of her wanted to scream and rant and cry for no particular reason.
“Okay. If you need to talk or just be with someone, I’ll be sitting out on the deck for a few minutes. Feel free to come out and join me.”
Was Charlotte having trouble sleeping, too? If so, why? Was she trying to decide what to do with Lilly?
Her half sister seemed nice. But Luca had been nice, too,especially at first. That didn’t mean there was anything to it. It wasn’t as if he wanted to raise her. And Lilly knew that if her mother had ever been put in Charlotte’s shoes, she wouldn’t feel she should have to take on someone else’s child—not for more than a weekend. She’d made a big deal about “getting fixed” so she wouldn’t have any more kids and had always talked about how difficult it was to raise one, as if Lilly had beensucha burden. If her own mother hadn’t really wanted to take care of her, what were the chances someone else would?
“Thanks, but I’m okay.” She assumed she’d have a better chance of staying on Charlotte’s good side if she pretended not to need anything. That was what had always worked best with her mother. She couldn’t be a bother or she’d be left behind like all the men her mother had been with in the past. “Good night.”
“Good night,” Charlotte echoed, and her footsteps moved away from the door.
chapter 16
At ten the following morning, Luca texted Charlotte to let her know he had a taxi—he didn’t own a car; he drove one of his Vespas—waiting on the street below them. She’d been hoping Sloane and Julian would be awake and willing to help, but she hadn’t specifically asked them, hadn’t wanted to make them get up early if they preferred to stay in bed. They were all having difficulty adjusting to the time change. She hadn’t fallen asleep until it was nearly dawn.
But she was the only one up at the appropriate hour. She didn’t even have Lilly’s help. She’d knocked on her half sister’s door and been surprised when Lilly said she didn’t want to come.
Just before she was about to step outside to go to the meeting place on her own, however, she heard footsteps. She assumed it would be Lilly, relenting, but a second later, Julian came into the kitchen. He was unshaven and yawning—clearly, he’d just rolled out of bed, hadn’t even brushed his hair—but he was dressed.
“Is Luca at the meeting point?” he asked.
Charlotte felt her eyebrows slide up. “You remembered he was coming? You got up to help me?”
“Yeah. You mentioned it last night,” he said. “But where’s Lilly? Doesn’t she want to be part of this?”
“Apparently she doesn’t.”
“Why not?”
“It would be hard for a girl who’s just lost her mother to deal with the boxes we’ll be carrying back. And Luca was pretty eager to get rid of her. That had to hurt.” Charlotte didn’t get the impression that Luca and Lilly had been all that close, but it would be difficult, anyway. They were so different. Luca was flexible and carefree; Lilly was serious and cautious and probably a lot less flexible because she couldn’t seem to exert any control over her own situation. Because of those differences, Charlotte could see why Luca would think Lilly was difficult. She was completely closed off, wouldn’t let anyone in, and once she decided something, changing her mind was almost impossible.
But there were reasons for the way Lilly was behaving, and Luca didn’t seem to care enough to even try to understand. He just wanted to move on with his life.
“She’s been through a lot, so I didn’t push her,” she added and, stepping back into the main room, craned her neck to see as far as she could up the stairs. She’d been hoping Lilly would change her mind—that they could find some common ground in taking responsibility for all that was left of Sabrina—but her half sister’s door remained closed. “I guess she’s really not coming.”
“We can manage,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“Okay. Once we get the boxes here, she can go through them at her leisure. Or not at all. It’s up to her.”
They had to zigzag through several walkways with colorful ceramic sea creatures embedded in the cement walls on both sides and descend a flight of stairs before they came out onto the street where Luca was waiting. It was down near the seaand a hotel. As the road bent to follow the coastline, Charlotte could make out an even bigger hotel on the opposite side of the street, right on the water. This wasn’t the town center—with the cathedral and the square—that sat higher on the mountain. But it was the highway leading west to Positano and east to Amalfi, so it was busy.
Luca was leaning against the taxi, which had pulled into a little drive to get out of traffic. When he heard them coming, he glanced up, put his phone away and started handing boxes out of the back seat while the driver opened the trunk so they could get the rest.
They piled everything at the walkway entrance. Then Luca told the driver he’d call when they were done and helped carry load after load to the villa.
It took almost an hour and four separate trips. Charlotte could only imagine how much more difficult it would’ve been if Sabrina had owned as much stuff as most people her age. “We’re lucky this is all of it,” Charlotte muttered to Julian as they stacked the boxes in a storage room off to one side of the deck.
“You wouldn’t typically bring furniture or other big items across the ocean,” Julian pointed out. “She must’ve sold whatever she had before leaving the States.”
Except Sabrina seemed to have been a rolling stone. Charlotte had the impression she’d never accumulated much. “Whatever the reason, I’m glad.”
Luca came up behind them and heaved the final box on top of the rest. “There you go.”
“Grazie,” Charlotte said. “I appreciate your help.”
“Nessun problema.”He glanced up at the house. “How’s Lilly?”
Charlotte followed his gaze, but couldn’t see anything except a mirror image of the stunning view they had. “She’s going to be okay,” she said and hoped she was right.
