Despite how the air had thickened around them, Francesca knew that if she lingered too long it would only make things worse. Her path was now set, and she had committed to seeing it through.
As they walked towards the security gate, Francesca felt Alessio pull them to a stop. He twirled her around on the spot, as if she were a ballerina performing a pirouette.
‘I don’t know how I am going to cope with missing you.’ That was the first thing her clouded, emotional mind could muster.
He pulled her close and pressed a slow and tender kiss to her forehead. ‘Things will get easier. With time. You just never know what lies around the corner.’
Francesca rose on her toes to catch him in one more kiss, but she felt their parting rushing inexorably towards her.
Why couldn’t this summer just last . . . forever?
Francesca felt her cheeks warm and the skin under her eyes sting. ‘You do it, please. I can’t . . .’ Her teary gaze scanned his. She had nothing more to give.
He nodded then whispered, ‘Ciao, Francesca.’
‘Ciao, Ale . . .’
Turning, he walked back towards the check-in desks, pulling his suitcase behind him.
Francesca waited until he was out of sight before she let the tears fall. She felt hollow. Delicate. As if the gentlest breeze might reduce her to dust.
Eventually a uniformed member of the cleaning staff pulled Francesca back to the present. ‘Miss, are you ok?’ The woman was watching her with concern.
In the movies the line to follow would always be, ‘Yes.’ But Francesca had no desire to play along. There was no romanticising the moment. The summer she’d wished could be rendered endless, and not just in her heart, had come to a close.
She turned and said, ‘Thank you, but no, I’m not,’ before continuing through the double doors marked Partenze.
* * *
An hour into the flight, Francesca found herself fighting three things: her hair, which sprang from her head defiantly, refusing to surrender to the headrest; sleep, in which she might have found some respite; and her emotions, which threatened to overwhelm her every time her mind flicked back to Alessio.
But eventually, the white noise of the cabin, coloured by the mechanical clanking of the plane’s engine, recycled air spurting from the overhead outlets and the intermittent grumbling of an infant further up the cabin, lulled her into a doze. She felt completely drained, as if her entire being had been sapped of its brightness and energy.
She couldn’t tell how long had passed when a gentle hand tapped her shoulder. ‘Miss, would you like some morning tea?’
Francesca blinked her eyes open to find a petite red-headed woman with a refined British accent smiling down at her. ‘Uhm . . .’ Francesca’s voice cracked. ‘No, thank you.’
But just as she was about to close her eyes again, the flight attendant pressed, ‘Are you sure? I make a tremendous cuppa. One I feel you might find hard to resist.’
This was odd. Her curiosity piqued, Francesca glanced at the woman again, who was now proffering a steaming-hot drink. ‘Really, I—’ But the gleam in the flight attendant’s beaming smile had suddenly changed. It was joyous, brighter than before.
Francesca’s groggy eyes suddenly narrowed in on the cup she was holding.
What?!
She squinted then opened her eyes as wide as she could.
Her cup!
The tazza della pasta!
With shaking hands she accepted the cup and studied it. The same decorative trim. The chip on the handle. The chip on the lip’s edge. It was perhaps the most familiar object in her life. And the most precious.
A delicious calming relief washed through Francesca’s limbs, spreading out from her heart. It trickled through her legs, along her arms, down to the tips of her fingers which cradled that warm little cup.
Francesca pivoted to face the flight attendant. ‘Where is he?’
The woman’s smile now reached the corners of her eyes, and she winked before continuing nonchalantly down the cabin’s corridor with her tea trolley.
