Lucia pressed her eyes closed and exhaled slowly. ‘I’ve done nothing but think about Jacopo for weeks now.’
Miro’s hand found the crest of her shoulder. ‘There was nothing we could have done to help Jacopo, Lucia. The man was as stubborn as theacqua alta. Coming and going despite all the warnings. Those knees of his—’
Lucia’s green eyes flicked open. ‘He should never have taken that fall. I . . . I should have helped him more.’ She shrugged herself free from Miro’s grasp. ‘I could have—’
‘Done nothing!’ Miro’s voice found a distinct sharpness. ‘He would never have accepted more help. It was bound to happen sooner or later.’
Lucia gave in to the grief which had kept her company since she had found Jacopo lifeless at the bottom of the stairs of his palazzo just two months earlier. The unsettling way his large arthritic limbs had bundled together from the fall. The way she had clawed at his dead weight, trying to rouse him. The rush of panic and dread. The cold lifeless hands, just like her mother’s. It was all still very raw.
With welling eyes she said, ‘I couldn’t save him either, Miro. My parents, and now Jacopo.’
Miro paused for a moment, and Lucia noted afresh the bustle of themercatoand the cawing of the gulls overhead. ‘Perhaps,’ he eventually started, planting himself directly in front of her, ‘this is the time to saveyourself, Lucia.’
She frowned. ‘I don’t need saving.’
He couldn’t withhold the sarcastic guffaw which erupted from his mouth. ‘Lucia, I was there the day your belovedmammaandpapàbrought you home from the hospital. It wasIwho pinned the pink roses andfiocco nascitato the door of La Scuola Rosa, announcing your arrival to Venice. You can’t fool me.’
She wanted to escape his all-knowing eyes, but was unable to. Instead, she caved. ‘I know I deserve my own life, Miro. But the path my parents paved for me, our school, the community . . . I need to be there to continue that legacy for them. Iwantto be there.’
‘Yes, but you, Lucia, need nourishing too.’ His chin dropped as his eyes narrowed. ‘Yourheart deserves to be cared for.’
‘I have you. Francesco. Mariella . . .’ And just when she realised she could no longer include Jacopo in her list of nearest and dearest, her eyes again locked with his. She took a quick look over her shoulder and noted a few nosy stares from across themercato. ‘I can’t cry here. Please, no more.’ She squeezed his hand to convey her resolve.
Miro nodded his understanding and said bracingly, ‘We had a successful catch this morning.Vieni, Giorgio and Pietro are unloading the crates.’ He led Lucia and Foscari to the embankment where his sons were unravelling nets and emptying troughs of seafood into buckets of ice. The smell was that of the open waters of the lagoon – salty, yet sweet and invigorating.
Lucia cleared her throat and steeled herself. ‘Buongiorno.’ At the landing’s edge she gathered the hem of her coat and bent down to inspect their catch, Foscari at her heels.
‘Buongiorno,’ the two young men replied in perfect unison, the symphony of which only heightened their similarity.
‘We caught somemoeche,’ said Miro, pointing to a red bucket at the top of the dinghy. ‘Pass it here, Giorgio.’
Clambering his way to the bow, mousy brown–haired Giorgio collected the bucket and dropped it on thefondamentabefore waddling his way back to the stern. He watched quietly as Lucia and his father picked through the fiendish crabs, which were snapping their pincers defensively.
‘It’s still a little early in the season, so they are quite small.’ Miro gave the bucket a gentle flick to move the soft-shelled creatures about.
Foscari growled, and Lucia reassured him with a pat on his crown.
‘Grazie, but they’re not what I had in mind for lunch,’ she said.
‘Branzin?Schie?Orada?’ Pietro asked, pointing to other water-filled buckets.
Peering into one crate, Lucia pointed. ‘This one.’
‘Ah,il rombo. Our only one today. He is yours,’ Miro announced, shooing Lucia out of the way. ‘Shall I clean it for you?’
‘Sì, grazie. I’ll take the bones, too, please.’
Miro stepped back into the dinghy where he made himself comfortable. Pietro handed him a small sharp knife, a wooden chopping block, which Miro rested across his lap, and a shallow green enamel dish, soon to hold the turbot’s entrails. Working with the confidence of decades of practise, Miro gutted and filleted the fish in a matter of moments. He continued to direct his sons in their unloading of their catch as he worked.
‘Carta, va bene?’ he asked Lucia, wrapping the opaque fillets in waxy white paper, followed by the bones and head.
‘Certo.’ She leaned over to collect the parcels, placing them securely in her basket. Lucia peered through her handbag in search of her wallet.
‘No, no, Lucia. Enjoy it, a gift from our table to yours.’ He smiled up at her as she rifled through her banknotes.
‘Miro. Please let me pay for once.’
He tutted his refusal, shaking his head. ‘You’re like a daughter to me, Lucia. You can pay me with the return of your smile.’
