Gazing at the date on the computer screen, Jade felt vaguely depressed. Monday 17th August. Just over eight weeks Gran had been gone, and no amount of strict instructions to the contrary were preventing Jade from missing her as she would a limb.
She turned to the staff roster. Vittoria had yet to take her summer break. As her children were past school age she liked to book a holiday in late September, which was helpful, because high season at Three Sisters was mid-June to mid-September. Yara had booked two separate weeks – next week and one at the beginning of October – but she’d also be going home to Switzerland for Christmas and New Year, despite it being another busy time. Jade wondered about taking on another staff member, even if part time, but Como’s winter tourism wasn’t as busy as the summer months and she’d hate to lay that person off again.
Pulling Gran’s tall stool from under the desk, Jade perched on it to take the pressure off her burning feet. It had been a long morning, and she knew it wasn’t only Gran and Three Sisters and half-sisters weighing her down.
It was Leo. Last night she’d been so hyper-aware of him, even while she’d forced herself to keep her attention on others around the table while she calmed her body’s response at sitting close to him. And the moment she’d turned to him, she’d almost burst into flames at the hunger in his eyes.
And then he’d spoilt it. He hadn’t actually said, ‘I’m leaving again soon, but I’m going to ask you on a date as I’d like to dally with you while I’m waiting for things to happen,’ but he might as well have. His face had been a picture when she’d turned him down flat. Did she regret that? For her own sanity and self-respect, she couldn’t. It would be madness to go into something that existed on borrowed time, his attention inexorably shifting to Riva as he slowly detached himself from her and Como. Eventually she’d have all those hurt feelings to deal with all over again, and long months nursing the hollow, sinking sensation of loss.
She turned to her inbox. An invitation to a charity event in Bellagio, the town even more affluent than Como, that stoodwhere the west and east legs of Lake Como met. The ticket price raised her brow. Two hundred and fifty euros was steep for a dinner, however worthy the cause.Delete.Special offers on stationery.Delete.An enquiry from potential guests who didn’t trust the online-booking facility.Answer.Despite the lack of a lift, many visitors to the pensione were older. They liked its centrality and pretty appearance inside and out. She typed rapidly, happy to help potential guests. Next came a reminder that the buildings insurance was due for renewal. She designated itaction requiredand added obtaining quotes to her afternoon admin tasks.
When a woman entered Reception from the street, her mules slapping on the tiles, Jade looked up. The woman’s rippling hair was loose and messy, an interesting pewter colour that looked fab against her Mediterranean skin. Her inexpensive summer dress was splashed with red and blue flowers.
‘Buongiorno.’ Jade smiled.
The woman halted and regarded Jade uncertainly.
‘Posso aiutarla?’ Jade asked. And then, in case the woman wasn’t an Italian speaker despite her Italian appearance, said in English, ‘Can I help you?’
The woman took several slow paces forward. She licked her lips. ‘I am Geneva Gallo.’
It was so incredible, so unexpected, that Jade took a second to register the name. But when it turned the key to the correct segment of her memory bank, her jaw dropped. The woman wasn’t as tall as Jade, and she was skinnier, but the shape of her mouth and the spiralling of her hair...
Jade’s voice emerged as a croak. ‘You’re my...?’ She halted, her mouth unwilling to frame the word ‘mother’. Jade had never had a mother. So, she changed it to, ‘You’re the woman whogave birth to me?’
Geneva Gallo nodded. Her eyebrows knitted together. Her pupils seemed to expand until her eyes looked black, then her gaze darted away before returning to Jade.
The muffled rumble of a bus and the voices of passersby filtered in through the open door from the street, and somebody went off into a peal of laughter. But silence seized Reception. The entire building, in fact. Jade was frozen, but her thoughts ricocheted about her brain. Since Gran had died, she’d been forced to pay attention to the existence of her father and half-sisters, but her birth mother had only entered her mind briefly, and only because Erin and Rosalie had asked about her, an inescapable part of Jade’s story of birth and abandonment, but less real to her even than Joey.
Yet Jade had no trouble in believing that this woman was who she said she was. The resemblance was too close.
‘I’m tired of this,’ she said abruptly, and was pleased to sound calm, even bored, though her words made Geneva take an uneasy step back. ‘Sick of people coming into my life who I’ve managed without.’ Wanting only to get away from this fresh hell, Jade turned and strode through the door and into the apartment. In the tiny hall she stood still, heart drumming, blood thrumming, and rested her head against the cool wall.Jeez.Gran had been right when she’d told Jade to write her plans for the future in pencil.I am Geneva Gallo.And not a word of why she’d appeared like a street dog, at once fearless and wary. And no doubt after something.
Abruptly, Jade straightened. Snatching open the door, she catapulted back into the airy reception area.
Geneva stood exactly where Jade had left her. Her expression didn’t flicker.
‘You’d better come in here.’ Jade sailed past her and into the front office, holding the door open for the other woman to enter. Neither of them sat down, though office chairs waited oneither side of the desk. The furniture was basic, from an office-supplies company, unlike most of Pensione Three Sisters, but Geneva’s gaze travelled slowly over the computer, printer, even the paintings on the wall, as if cataloguing the contents of the room.
Then her gaze returned to Jade. ‘I was very sorry to learn of your grandmother’s passing.’
‘Really?’ Jade heard disbelief harsh in her voice. ‘Is that why you’re here?’
Geneva gave a slight shake of her head. ‘I wanted to see you. I live in Como again now. That’s the way life blew me.’ When Jade didn’t react, she went on. ‘After I left Como, I stayed married for five more years. The marriage was no good. When he’d gone, I lived in Milan, then in Tuscany. I worked as a nanny. I didn’t remarry and I didn’t have children.’
‘So, you looked afterother people’skids?’ Jade’s heart had begun to beat normally, perhaps at the news that no more half-siblings were about to appear.
A faint smile touched Geneva’s lips, as if she didn’t need the irony pointing out. She nodded. ‘Sometimes. More often I worked in cafés or restaurants. That work was easier to find.’
Jade folded her arms. ‘Did you keep in touch with Joey?’
‘Giovanni?’ Geneva grinned, as if she found Jade calling him ‘Joey’ funny. ‘No. Nor with your grandmother or my family.’
Jade didn’t point out that Geneva’s ‘family’ did, in blood terms, include Jade, who she very definitely hadn’t been in touch with. ‘You went along in your own merry way, responsibility free.’ The high-pitched scream of an infant reached them through the window. Jade felt as frustrated as the baby sounded. ‘How long have you been back?’ Had Jade passed her birth mother in the street or sat near her at a café?
Geneva checked her nails and frowned, then turned her gaze to the ceiling, as if calculating. ‘A year or two.’
‘Or longer?’ Jade snorted. ‘Judging by the way your eyes are not meeting mine.’
