“Can we play games?” asks Archie, Thor in hand.
“Of course,” I say. “We can organize them together and you can be our games master!”
“Woo-woo!”
“Can we invite Freya?” asks Mabel, her hair pulled back in a ponytail to show off her newly emerging cheekbones.
“Absolutely,” I reply.
“And Lina?” asks Callum, a little bashfully. Since last week, he and Lina have been messaging and have arranged to go for a walk later today, followed by pizza in the village.
“Yeah, it would be brill to see her,” I say. “So what do you think?”
Callum smiles. “I think it sounds mint.”
“Same,” chips in Mabel. “And I’ve just thought, I could create loads of content for our social media accounts. If we get all the guests to share and tag us in, we could start building up our following.”
“Fab!” I turn to Theo. “And what do you think,mio carissimo?”
Theo runs a hand over the hairs on his forearm. He breaks into a grin. “It’s a superb idea,mio tesoro.”
I grin back at him.
We decide to throw the party on our last night in Italy—a week on Saturday. And for the rest of the morning, the five of us launch ourselves into planning the guest list, designing a digital invitation, and sending it out. It’s almost enough to take my mind off the phone call I’ve arranged to make later.
But not quite.
Once the builders have left, Theo goes out for a run, Callum goes off to meet Lina—having changed out of his football shirt and asked for a spray of my aftershave—and Mabel goes to meet Freya to show her the kittens. Only Archie’s left and I set him up watching a Marvel series on Theo’s iPad. Then I go outside, over to the cluster of trees where we’ve set up the hammocks, where Iknow he won’t hear me. I climb into one of them and lie down, telling myself I need to be as relaxed as possible while I do this.
I call Auntie Julie.
I start by updating her on the holiday and my birthday celebrations, then check in on the Airbnb lettings in Manchester. “And there’s something else I want to talk to you about.”
I recognize the sound of Julie putting her feet up on the pouffe. “What’s that, chuck?”
I fix my eyes on a little cloud, slowly drifting across the sky. “I found Mum’s letters. To Uncle Wilf.”
There’s a pause. I keep my eyes fixed on the cloud.
When Julie eventually speaks, her voice is quieter, more faltering. “And what did they say?”
“They said she was having an affair,” I answer, almost shocked to hear the words coming out of my mouth. “With some bloke called Gary. And that she was going to leave Dad and wanted to come to Italy for a bit.”
There’s a taut silence.
“So you know,” Julie says. “I guess there’s no point protecting you any longer.”
“No.” One of my sliders falls over the side of the hammock. “I think you need to tell me everything.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Absolutely.”
Julie gives a long sigh, then swallows.
“In the last year of your mum’s life,” she begins, “I sensed something wasn’t right with her, but whenever I asked, she just denied it. Then I got a phone call from this girl Lauren I used to go to school with. Well, she was a woman by then, obviously, and working in a hotel in town. To be honest, I always thought she was a nasty gossip and I didn’t like her—I didn’t like her one bit. Anyway, she said there was this woman coming into the hotel who she was sure was my sister and did I know she was having an affair?”
I straighten out my legs. “And what did you say?”
