“Okay, coach,” she responded, and she kept repeating what he’d told her as she went back to her computer and started a story about a woman who had a near-death experience that changed everything about the way she wanted to live the rest of her life.
chapter 17
Sloane was beginning to get the feeling that something was bothering her brother, something much bigger than jet lag. Julian wasn’t quite present, not in the way he normally was. But Sloane couldn’t even begin to guess why. He smiled and joked like his usual self, and yet, when he didn’t think she was watching, the smile slid from his face and he seemed to get lost in his own thoughts.
She and Lilly sat on a stone bench at a right angle to the seat he’d taken a few feet from them while listening to two men, one on a flute and the other on a tuba, play classical music in the courtyard of the Convent of San Domenico—a concert they hadn’t known about but chanced upon when she and Lilly arrived to meet Julian. She watched him stare at the grass as the wind stirred it at his feet and got the impression he wasn’t even hearing the music.
Lilly leaned toward her. “Is something wrong?” she murmured, keeping her voice low so she wouldn’t bother a smattering of other tourists and locals who’d made the trek up the mountain to hear the concert—or just to see the area, like they’d done.
Sloane quickly masked her concern. “Nothing. I’m just tired. Aren’t you? We climbed so many stairs.”
“One thousand,” she said proudly.
Sloane shifted to get more comfortable on the hard surface. “Exactly a thousand?”
“I think so. I don’t know for sure. I’ve just heard that the convent is a thousand steps above Praiano. The locals say it all the time. But the climb’s worth it, don’t you think?” Lilly stretched tall to look out over the sea. The convent had a spectacular view of the deep blue water below them, Positano and even the Island of Capri, much farther away.
“For this view? Absolutely. Although…if we climb anymore, I might need a sherpa,” she said with a laugh. “How often did your mother bring you up here?”
As they were walking, Lilly had mentioned that she and Sabrina had done the same hike. “Only once. We brought a picnic.”
Sloane set the program a woman had given her listing the various pieces to be performed to one side. “Did Luca come with you?”
She shook her head. “He had to work.”
“Must’ve been a fun mother-daughter outing,” Sloane said, watching for her reaction. Lilly was obviously bottling up a lot of emotions, and if Sloane had her guess, most of them were negative. Sloane wished she could let them out, believed she’d be better off if she could, but she was far too wary—and, Sloan suspected, too loyal to her mother.
“We always had fun when it was just the two of us,” she said wistfully.
“How often did you get away alone together?”
Closing her eyes, she tilted her face up toward the sun. “Not very often once we came to Italy. She was with Luca most of the time. But we had a few months together after we left Steve and the farm in Iowa and moved to California.”
Was that what Lilly clung to? The memories of what her mother was like during the rare times Sabrina wasn’t with a man who took all of her time and attention?
Sloane wanted to put an arm around the girl’s shoulders, but she knew Lilly would only pull away. Lilly wasn’t comfortable with physical contact, dodged it whenever she could.
“Sometimes mothers are so busy trying to fulfill their own needs they can’t see beyond them,” Sloane said softly, hoping that by understanding, Lilly could also find forgiveness and healing.
“My mom didn’t do anything wrong,” she said. “I wasn’t saying that. She was a good mom.”
Lilly came to her mother’s defense so often. Sloane wanted to say, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” but she was fairly certain Lilly had never readHamletand wouldn’t understand such an allusion. “Of course she was,” she said instead. “But being a mother is a hard job, and no one’s perfect, right?”
Lilly seemed to relax. Then she leaned over to whisper again. “What’s Penny like?”
“The woman who raised Charlotte? She’s a very nice person—but also not perfect,” Sloane added with a grin.
Several people who’d paused to listen for a few minutes slipped away from the small gathering and continued the trek up Monte Sant’Angelo a Tre Pizzi, which was the name of the mountain. Before the concert started, Sloane had seen knots of people moving above them on the famous hike called Path of the Gods (Sentiero degli Dei). Julian wanted to try it, but Sloane wasn’t ready for that—not today. They’d gotten too late a start, for one. And they’d already climbed nearly four hundred feet.
“Is she upset that Charlotte had to come to Italy?” Lilly asked.
“Charlotte didn’thaveto come to Italy,” Sloane replied with a smile. “She came because she wanted to—to meet you.”
Julian left his camera on the bench near them as he got up and walked over to the two-foot stone wall enclosing the grounds, closer to the cliff. He’d bought coffee from the man who sat at the entrance with a sign listing prices, in euros, for a few limited refreshments, and carried his cup, sipping from it as he stood facing the sea.
“Excuse me for a moment,” Sloane said to Lilly and walked over to stand next to him.
When he noticed her presence, he turned slightly but didn’t react.
