An Inheritance of Shame(18)

She’d thought—for a single moment, she’d believed—that he cared about Angelica, if not about her. She’d thought, when his back had been turned, he’d been grappling with grief but when he’d turned around again he had looked only blank, as if he’d accepted and absorbed the news in the space of a few minutes, and was now moving on.

Always moving on.

She needed to move on too, Lucia knew, in so many ways. She showered and dressed, plaited her hair and drank a cup of strong coffee. She’d thought she had moved on years ago, had told herself she had. She’d stopped thinking about Angelo, had tried to remember only the good things about their time together as children. She’d thought she’d accepted Angelica’s death, had even told herself that it could be better this way. She hadn’t really had the resources to care for a child, a baby who would be labelled another Corretti bastard from the moment she’d taken her first breath.

A breath she’d never been able to take.

Firmly Lucia pushed all these thoughts out of her mind. She was done with this. Done with grief, with sorrow, with Angelo. She wished he’d never returned to rake up all these feelings inside her, even as she acknowledged with stark honesty that she was still—still—glad he had returned.

She took the bus into Palermo, watched the dust billow into brown clouds along the road and resolutely did not think of Angelo. Of Angelica. Of any of it.

She worked all morning, cleaning bedrooms on the second and third floors, happy to be occupied with hard work. During her break she chatted with Maria, who proudly showed her a letter her son had written from Naples.

‘Will you…Will you read it to me?’ she asked hesitantly, for like many of the housekeeping staff Maria was not a fluent reader.

Lucia nodded and took the thin piece of paper. She’d finished with school at sixteen, but she’d studied hard and she liked to read. The letter was short enough, just a few pithy paragraphs describing his rented accommodation, the job he had in a canning factory. Lucia read it aloud before folding it back into the envelope and handing it to Maria.

‘He sounds like he’s doing well.’

‘Yes. Yes.’ Maria dabbed at her eyes with the corner of her apron. ‘I’m a foolish woman, I know, to carry on so. But he’s a good boy. And he did write. That’s something, yes?’

‘Of course it is,’ Lucia told her, but inside she felt leaden. Angelo had written her one letter, just as short and matter-of-fact as Maria’s son’s, yet she’d treasured it. She’d read it so many times the paper had worn thin in places, and her mother had clucked her tongue and told her not to be stupid, not like she was.

Yet she had been. She’d been so incredibly, utterly stupid about Angelo.

How could she be so again, to think of him? Want him? She’d exhausted herself all morning trying not to think of him, a pointless endeavour since her brain and body insisted on remembering everything she’d loved about him. Still did. The silvery green of his eyes, the colour of dew drops on grass. The sudden quirk of his smile, so rare, so precious. The sure feel of his hands on her, reaching for her, needing her.

‘Do you think he’ll write again?’ Maria asked, and Lucia blinked, focused on the older woman instead of her agonising thoughts.

Swallowing hard, she smiled at Maria. ‘I’m sure he will write.’

Maria nodded and put the letter into the pocket of her apron. ‘I’ll wait,’ she said, and Lucia just nodded, unable to keep herself from thinking, That’s what I did. And even though I don’t want to be, I still am.

By six o’clock she was bone-tired, and outside the air was hot, still and dusty. Her feet throbbed as she walked to the street corner to wait for the bus that would take her back to Caltarione.

Traffic flowed by her in an indifferent stream, cars honking and mopeds weaving around dusty taxi cabs. Lucia was just about to sink onto a bench when a Porsche glided up to the kerb and the window slid down.

‘Lucia.’

‘What do you want, Angelo?’ she asked tiredly. She couldn’t see him very well in the dark interior of the car, no more than the hard line of his cheek and jaw, the silvery-green glint of his eyes. ‘I looked for you at the hotel but you’d already gone. I need to speak with you.’

She shook her head. Surely they had no more to say each other. ‘About what?’

‘About Angelica.’ And just like that her assumptions scattered and her throat went tight. ‘Please,’ he said quietly. ‘I need to know.’ Wordlessly she rose from the bench and slid into the sumptuous leather interior of the car.