My heartbeat floods my ears, drowning the music, drowning everything.
And at the end of the aisle: a man in a dark suit, standing still as stone, watching the door like his life depends on what walks through it.
Dante.
My counting stutters. Fractures. He’s there and he’s waiting and every number I’ve ever used to hold myself together scatters like the jasmine petals in the bath.
My father squeezes my arm. “Ready?”
The music shifts. The cue.
I don’t count. I don’t need to.
“Ready,” I say.
And I walk toward him.
35
DANTE
The garden looks like my mother’s photographs.
Nonna Rosa outdid herself. Jasmine climbs the iron arch where my parents stood three decades ago, white roses cascading down the sides like frozen waterfalls. The chairs are arranged in the same spot where my father promised my mother forever, where she said yes without knowing how short forever would be.
But today isn’t about grief. Today is about beginnings.
Renzo stands beside me, solid as stone, silent as always. His hand found my shoulder ten minutes ago, squeezed once, then dropped. For him, that’s a speech.
Across the aisle, Marco fidgets with his cufflinks, unable to stand still. I catch his eye. Hold it. Nod. The tension drains from my youngest brother’s shoulders. A small acknowledgment. Not much. But more than I’ve given him in years, and we both know it.
Nico is in the second row, watching everything with those assessing eyes that never turn off. He showed up. After everything, after the distance he keeps, he showed up. That’s his gift. His presence is the only promise he knows how to make.
Gia is in the front row, already crying. She’s got tissues clutched in one hand, her other hand linked with Mrs.Neri’s. The two of them are a mess, and the ceremony hasn’t even started.
Nonna Rosa sits beside them, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief embroidered with magnolias. She’s wearing the dress she wore to my parents’ wedding. She told me this morning, voice thick. “Lucia would’ve wanted me to.”
The music shifts.
Every nerve in my body fires at once.
She appears at the end of the aisle.
Cristo.
The dress catches the afternoon light and holds it, turns her luminous. I’ve never seen her like this. The fabric moves when she moves, liquid and alive, pooling around her feet with each step. Beading catches the sun, scattering tiny fragments of light across her collarbone, her throat, the soft curve of her shoulders.
Her hair is swept up, a few dark tendrils escaping to frame her face.
Her face.
Dio.
She’s looking at me like I’m the only thing in the garden. Like the fifty people gathered to witness this have disappeared. Like the world has narrowed to just us, just this, just now.
My lungs lock. I don’t fight it.
Umberto walks beside her, his arm linked through hers, and I should be watching the formal approach, should be aware of protocol and tradition and ceremony.
