Page 260

“Yeah.”

She doesn't say anything else, just slips her phone into her pocket and turns towards the house.

For a while, we stand together, looking at the place where Damiano spent the first years of his life. The front door is closed, the shutters hanging slightly crooked, and I wonder how many times he ran up those steps, how often his mother called him inside for dinner or how many scraped knees he brought home after another adventure with Matteo.

“He grew up with this view,” I whisper.

“Yeah.”

Chiara wraps an arm around my shoulders, and we look out past the olive trees towards the sea.

“I can feel him here,” she says quietly.

I turn towards her.

She's blinking quickly, her lips pressed together in that familiar way she has when she's trying not to cry.

And suddenly I realise how often I've seen her do that over the past sixteen months.

Holding herself together. Making sure I'm eating, checking on me, calling when she knows I've had a bad day. Coming all the way to Sicily because I asked her to, helping me bring his ashes home.

As though she didn't lose him too.

I pull her into my arms, and she holds on so tightly that I feel her breath catch against my shoulder.

“He'd be giving Matteo the big brother talk right now,” I whisper.

A laugh escapes her.

“Oh God.”

I start laughing too, because Damiano was almost two years younger than Chiara, and somehow that never stopped him from acting like he had authority over her dating life.

“He would hate this,” she says.

“He'd interrogate him.”

“He'd threaten him.”

“He'd probably ask Jude to help him hide the body.”

That does it. Chiara bursts out laughing, and a second later we're both standing there crying and laughing like idiots, clinging to each other in front of the house where he grew up.

“This trip is turning out to be the best and, at the same time, the most heart-wrenching holiday I've ever had,” she says eventually, wiping beneath her eyes.

“I know.”

“Look at me. I'm supposed to be here helping you, and I'm crying.”

I pull back just enough to look at her.

“He was your brother.”

Her face crumples for a second before she manages a small smile.

“Yeah,” she whispers, glancing towards the house. “He was.”

I squeeze her once more before we finally make our way back towards the others.