The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany(72)

“Wahoo! You’ve got this, Em.”

From a hundred yards ahead, a car rounds the curve. It’s heading straight at us.

“Holy fuck! We’re gonna die!” Lucy covers her head, screaming as she slides down the seat.

My heart’s in full-blown tachycardia. I grip the steering wheel. Please, God! Help me! I punch the gas. The approaching car grows nearer. The RV stretches beside me, an endless box of aluminum. “Let me in, asshole!”

With seconds to spare, I crank the wheel and dart back into the lane. The car whizzes past.

I let out a half cry, half groan. “Oh, my god!”

I turn to Lucy. She’s crouched on the floor of the car, clutching her head.

“You can sit up,” I tell her.

She eases her way back onto her seat. “Jesus, Em, you almost killed us!”

I give a nervous chortle. “I warned you.”

She grins. “I’d prepared myself for the missing nose, not the urn of ashes.”

In that dark place inside of me where fear has festered, a door opens. Light spills in. I let out a laugh, softly at first. Lucy joins in. Soon, it’s full-on hysteria, an intoxicating release of fear and shock and frayed nerves. Lucy pounds the dashboard, tears running down her cheeks. “The look on your face when that car appeared out of fucking nowhere!”

A little chuckle rises behind us.

“Sorry, Aunt Poppy,” I say, glancing in my rearview mirror. “We’ll be quiet. Go back to sleep.”

“And miss all the fun? Never!”





Chapter 35




Poppy

1960

Ravello, Amalfi Coast

The massive cathedral door groaned, that evening of my twenty-first birthday. We dipped our fingers into a basin of holy water and crossed ourselves. The shadowed church was empty and smelled of incense and musty carpets. Tiered candles glowed in the prayer booth, white-capped flames in a sea of silence.

Rico led me down the center aisle until we reached the altar. He turned to me then, his eyes bright, and took my hands in his.

“I, Erich Joseph Krause, do take thee, Paolina Maria Fontana, to be my wedded wife. I promise to love you and cherish you all the days of my life, until death do us part.”

I put a hand to my quivering chin and said my vows, my throat so tight I could hardly get the words out. “. . . Until death do us part.”

“May I kiss the bride?”

He took my face in his hands. Just as his lips touched mine, footsteps startled us. Out of the darkness, a priest emerged, not Father Pietro but a youthful man with dark hair and a long, thin nose.

He climbed the three steps to where we stood on the altar. “Bow your heads,” he said, and he placed his hands upon us.

“May God bless and protect you. May he smooth the path that lies before you, and give you the grace and humility to accept both fortune and sorrow. May you be strong as the redwood when troubles arise, and bend like the willow when forgiveness beckons. Above all, may you love joyfully, gratefully, faithfully, in Christ’s name. Amen.”

“Amen,” we repeated, stunned by this unexpected prayer, awed by this mysterious holy man who appeared out of nowhere. We thanked the young priest and left the church, a married couple if ever there was one.

We barely made it outside the cathedral before Rico drew me into his arms. With his lips at my ear, he whispered, “My wife. My life.”

“How do you say ‘my husband’ in German?”

“Mein Ehemann,” Rico replied and stroked my cheek. “And one day, when your parents come to accept me, we will come back here for a real ceremony, and I will truly be your husband.”

“Real ceremony? Real husband?” I shook my head. “Mein Ehemann, we are married. It could not be more real.”

“I feel it, too.” He squeezed my hand.

Something shiny caught my eye. I bent down and plucked it from the concrete step. “A lucky coin,” I said, showing it to Rico.

Together, we gazed at the coin, as if it held some magic power. Rico put his hand over mine. “May we be here, in this very spot, on your next birthday, as in love as we are today.”

A chill came over me. Despite the day’s joy, I believe we both sensed, in some secret place in our hearts, that darkness lay ahead.

“Next year?” I said, trying to lighten the sudden weight of our futures. “That is too easy.”

“Okay,” he said, rubbing his chin. “We will be back here on your thirtieth birthday.”

“Nine years from now? Still too easy.” I clutched the coin and searched the sky for my favorite star, wondering how we might guarantee our future. “We will be here, together on the steps of the Ravello Cathedral, on my eightieth birthday. Promise me this, mein Ehemann.”

He smiled, but his eyes glistened. “Yes. On your eightieth birthday,” he said. “It is a promise.”





Chapter 36




Emilia

Day Seven

Ravello, Amalfi Coast

I’ve heard of people who enter a place—a big city or small town, an old castle or a lakeside cabin—and feel as if they’d returned home, following a long and lonely journey. Poppy called it hiraeth, a yearning for a place, a home, one you might never have realized you were missing. I steer the car into the hilltop village of Ravello, and I think I understand.