I let my head fall back against the wall. “Alright. But please don’t take too long.”
“So you’ve found out all that and been keeping it to yourself?” says Theo.
I swallow. “Yeah, I’m sorry.”
We’re lying in our temporary bedroom, in the room that used to belong to Wilf and Arnaldo, its walls replastered and waiting to be painted. I’m wrapped in Theo’s arms and my head’s resting on his chest.
“Ads, you don’t need to apologize,” he says. “I get why it was difficult. I get you had a lot to work out.”
I gaze up at the mosquito nets, one of the sides billowing gently as the fan rotates. “And I still am working it out. But now I know Mum didn’t take her own life, I feel much better about it.”
Theo lets out a breath and I feel it blowing through my hair. “I didn’t realize you’d thought that. I didn’t realize it had been causing you so much pain.”
“Yeah, but it isn’t anymore. And I can’t tell you how good it feels.” I keep my eyes trained on the mosquito net and watch it billow. “Although I still need to get my head around the fact she was going to run off with this Gary. I don’t know, I can’t believe she was going to make me move house and everything, to move in with some strange bloke. Without the slightest consideration for my feelings.”
I feel Theo shifting slightly. “Just a minute, you don’t know that. You don’t know she didn’t torture herself about it.”
“I suppose not.”
“Try and think about what it must have been like for your mum. It can’t have been much fun to be trapped in an unhappy marriage—I can vouch for that. And it sounds like she did her best to make things work.”
“Yeah, she stuck it out for a long time, I’ll give her that.” I reposition myself. “But I need to know what happened in those last few weeks. I need to know how she died.”
“Well, when the email comes through, we’ll work through it together. And we’ll work out a way forward—together.”
Happiness rings through me. “Really?”
“Absolutely. We’re partners, Ads. Your story is my story.”
And he pulls me closer.
Chapter 38
“What do you think, gang?”
We’ve just entered Pisa’s Piazza dei Miracoli and are standing with the Cathedral and Baptistry on our left, the Leaning Tower directly ahead. All the buildings are constructed from the same white marble; every inch of the lawn around them is almost impossibly green, the expanse of sky above uniformly blue. Together, the three elements form a spectacular sight. But the center of attention, drawing crowds of tourists from every direction, is undoubtedly the Tower. And it may be smaller than I expected, but it’s much prettier and its lean more pronounced.
“Oh my god,” says Mabel. “How does it not fall down?”
“I know,” coos Callum. “It’s sick.”
“So you’re glad you came?” Theo teases him.
Callum smiles. “Yeah, I’m glad I came.”
Initially, Callum had resisted the idea of spending the day sightseeing, possibly because last night’s date with Lina went well and he wanted to see her again. But Giuseppe and the builders told us they’d be fitting the new lights and plug sockets and would need to switch off the electricity. Theo suggested leaving the house and had the idea of visiting Pisa, as it’s the only city in the area we haven’t seen—and went online to book us tickets for the Leaning Tower.
Walking towards it, we have to weave in and out of tourists chattering away in countless languages, some of them holding up umbrellas to shield their faces from the sun. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen so many people packed so tightly together, and everyone seems so loud, with little awareness of the others around them. I take hold of Archie’s hand.
“Let’s stick together,” I say. “Callum, Mabel, stay close to your dad.”
All along the edge of the lawn, tourists are pointing phones and directing friends and family members to interact with the Tower so they can take pictures of them pretending to prop it up, or licking it like an ice cream.
“Can we stop for a minute?” asks Mabel. “I want to take some pics.”
“We should probably go inside first,” answers Theo. “Our slot’s in ten minutes. But don’t worry, we’ll have plenty of time to do that later.”
As we get closer, I notice a group of young men sitting on a section of the marble walkway that curves around the cathedral, so that the Tower rises up like a hard penis between their legs. I remember my sisters joking about Dom’s Leaning Tower and think that if they were here, that’s exactly what they’d be doing. Although I miss them, it no longer makes my insides drag.
