Page 75 of My Lemon Grove Summer
‘I’ll follow,’ he tells me.
I stumble and splash my way over to the tunnel entrance. Something inside me tells me that this is where I’ll find her. I stumble again and steady myself. My palms are sweating, my head throbbing as I remember all those feelings that came crashing in on me the day I got locked in the cupboard. I couldn’t escape. I couldn’t get out. I thought I was running out of air. But I have to find Sophia!
I look around for Luca. He’s nowhere to be seen. The rain is falling in stair rods. The tunnel must be filling; I can’t wait. Legs like jelly, I climb down into the dark opening. He’ll come! I tell myself. He will! I hold up my phone as a light and start to make my way through the tunnel, ankle deep in water and getting deeper. My breath shortens. I’m hot, despite the cold rainwater. I turn around towards the exit, but something inside me tugs at me. If I’m scared, how must a little girl be feeling? Call it impetuous, impulsive, whatever anyone has ever said about me, but as much as I hate small spaces, I have to do this.
‘Sophia! Sophie!’ I call, my voice shaking, one hand on the rough wall, the other shakily holding the phone as I pick my way over the uneven ground until suddenly there in front of me is a pile of stone, a landslide, with water building either side of it.
‘Sophia!’ I shout loudly, peering through into the blackness beyond. My heart is banging so loudly it’s deafening. And then, above the din, I hear it.
‘Zelda! I’m here!’ cries a little voice.
‘Coming, lovely. I’m coming. Hang on!’ And this time I don’t give the dark or my fear of small spaces a second thought. Sophia needs me! I plough on over the pile of rubble to the dark beyond.
She has some cuts and bruises that I can see by the light of the phone. She’s perched on a narrow ledge. The water is nearly knee high here. She has a small dog sitting next to her. I put out my hand to Sophia and it snarls protectively.
‘Shh, shh,’ I soothe them both. ‘Hold on, honey. I’ve got you.’ And for once, I don’t feel I’m crashing around in total chaos, but taking control of the situation very firmly and not letting go. I pick her up off the ledge.
‘And the dog. I’ve called him Harry, after the English prince.’
‘Of course, and Harry.’
I scoop him up and shove him inside my jacket. He seems to understand that they are both safe now, and stays quiet.
Sophia clings on to me, and I wade through the rising water with the child on one hip and the little dog in my jacket, carefully negotiating the fallen rocks. Sophia is still wrapped tightly around me, nearly strangling me, as I carry her out of the tunnel, both of us shaking with cold.
‘Sophia! Zelda!’ Luca calls out, and he’s running towards me. ‘You found her!’
He goes to take her from me, but she buries her head in my neck and sobs.
‘Shh, shh . . .’ I murmur again, and the rain seems to ease a little with my soothing.
‘Come on, let’s get her home!’ Luca says, and puts his arm around us both.
‘But what if Mamma and Il Nonno are cross with me?’
‘They will just be happy to have you back. Everyone has been very worried about you, Sophia. The whole town has been out looking.’
‘The whole town?’ She looks at me.
‘Uh huh,’ I confirm.
She says nothing, but finally loosens her grip and lets herself slide from my hip, then walks beside me, holding firmly onto my hand. Luca rings Giuseppe to call off the search, and Lennie too.
‘You leave Il Nonno to me,’ he says. ‘I don’t think he’ll be giving anyone a hard time any time soon,’ and I know he’s thinking about his father’s fake heart flutter and that he has a lot to consider.
Chapter Thirty-nine
On our way to the big villa, we pass many of the locals, all of whom wave and call, ‘Thank God she’s safe!’ It is only when Luca raises his free hand in response that I realise the other is still resting around my shoulder as if it were the most natural thing in the world, with Sophia tucked in between us, clearly feeling safe there, holding my hand.
‘It was Zelda,’ he tells them all, but I don’t hear their replies. I just keep thinking about what might have happened if the water had risen any higher, if I hadn’t got there in time. What might have happened, over and over in my head. My teeth are chattering and I’m shivering, as is Sophia. I wish I had something dry to put round her, but instead Luca and I just draw closer together around her to keep her warm.
As we approach the big gates, I feel our pace slow, all of us reluctant to walk up the drive. We’re like Dorothy and her friends arriving at the Emerald City, not knowing what kind of a reaction they’re going to get when they come face to face with the Great and Powerful Oz. But I know, and Luca knows, that just like the Wizard, Romano is a fake. We haven’t had time to talk about what happened, but we both saw him try to pretend that he had a heart problem. We both saw him and I’m wondering how Luca feels, being lied to all this time.
The gates are wide open, and we’re now holding hands with Sophia, a hand each. Luca is looking up at the villa as if he’s seeing it for the first time, as if the scales are falling from his eyes. If it wasn’t bad enough that his father has commandeered his lemon grove, he’s now realising that he’s been kept here all these years on some false guilt trip. An elaborate ploy to make him do exactly what Romano tells him.
‘Sophia!’ Romano and Carina are running down the steps, arms flung wide open to welcome her home. Sophia looks up at me. I nod, smile and let go of her hand, and she runs forward, throwing herself into her mother’s waiting embrace. Romano wraps his arms around both of them, resting his chin on his great-niece’s bent head, as if enveloping them in a protective blanket. Whatever his faults, he does genuinely love his family, I think.
‘It was Zelda who worked out where she was and saved her,’ Luca says directly. Finally Romano straightens up and looks straight at me.
