Page 110 of Sinful Promises

A young girl dressed in a simple yellow dress with white flowers dotted along the hem stood at the front, and without any announcement she began singing.

Her voice was so beautiful and soulful. I imagined an angel would sing like her. Although I couldn’t understand a single word she sang, the melody had tears prickling my eyes. Before I knew it, tears were streaming down my cheeks, and I was trying my best to discreetly flick them away.

When Roman’s sister reached for my other hand and squeezed my palm to hers, my tears truly flowed. Closing my eyes, my thoughts shifted to my mother, but I didn’t see the gaunt figure who was bedbound in the hospital. I saw a beautiful smiling young girl with her baby sister. I pictured them in their colorful dresses, holding hands and running through a grassy field dotted with white flowers.

I sighed, long and deep, knowing that Mother had finally found peace with Lily, her little sister.

A huge weight lifted from my heart as I realized that not only had my mother found peace, but I was at peace with her too.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Day after day, Roman showed me different areas of his hometown and the surrounding region. We went to the vineyards and wineries. We hiked trails that I thought would kill me. We ate fish that had been caught from the ocean just hours before. We had breakfast and dinner with his parents, and his sisters came and went like it was Grand Central Station. And we drank copious amounts of wine and ate so much food I could no longer do up the button on my jeans.

Every night I went to bed in Roman’s arms and with a song in my heart.

Everything was perfect.

Except each time I tried to broach the subject about my ticking time bomb, Roman dodged the question like the plague.

Leading up to Christmas were some of the best days of my life. One evening, he took me out on his boat just as the sun was setting. But he insisted I wear a blindfold. Giggling, I was hardly able to contain my excitement as he rowed the boat, rather than starting the engine. I clutched a blanket around my shoulders, and we silently glided out on the ocean where the only sound was the whoosh of his oars in the water.

A few minutes later, he stopped, and after easing in beside me, he removed my blindfold.

My breath caught at the view before me. The dark hillside was lit with hundreds of nativity scene lights. “Oh, Roman. It’s beautiful.”

“In 1961, a vineyard owner built a simple cross in the middle of his yard and lit it up. It was to recreate an ancient pilgrim’s cross. Each year he added to the cross, and now there are more than two hundred and fifty figures. It was entered into the Guinness World Records as the world’s largest nativity scene.”

I curled the blanket around Roman’s shoulder cocooning us together, and as we bobbed gently in the water, clutching our hands and looking out at the magnificent display, I had the strange feeling that this was some kind of sign—maybe telling me that little by little, things do come together, and before I knew it, everything would be perfect.

I hoped so.

Yet the damn ticking clock in my head was now a sonic boom, loud enough to set off avalanches.

In the following days, his mamma let me help her cook some amazing meals, and even better than that was Roman teaching me how to make pasta. We giggled as we cooked and spread flour from one side of the room to the other. I was adding so many new firsts to my little book that come the new year, I would need a new, much bigger book.

Roman’s mamma was fifty-seven years old. She had the stamina of a twenty-year-old, the wisdom of an eighty-year-old, and the cheekiness of a teenager. I loved her from the very first moment we met. It was both weird and wonderful being welcomed into a family that barely knew me, but it was like I was always destined to be there.

I felt so at home.

I had never felt so complete.

Christmas lunch was an event that had been a whole week in the planning, and I was as excited as a kid in a candy shop when the day finally arrived.

After they’d removed all the other furniture between the lounge room and kitchen, they set up a table that was huge—at least forty feet long.

Roman made me sit at the middle setting. “It’s tradition,” he said. Although he didn’t elaborate on exactly what tradition it was.

His entire family was there. And not just his sisters and brothers-in-law and their kids. There was also Roman’s grandparents, Mario and Maria, and six of Roman’s uncles and aunties. And there were a few other people who I had no idea how they fitted into the family. At one point, I tried to count but gave up.

At first, it was loud and so mind-boggling, my eyes and ears hurt. But when I convinced myself to relax and just take it all in, I sat back and observed all the smiling faces and jovial banter, and I lost myself to a family spirit that I’d never known existed.

Roman curled his hand over my leg. “You okay?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

He rolled his eyes. “My family can be overwhelming.”

“Not overwhelming. Amazing.”

---