Page 80 of My Lemon Grove Summer
Chapter Forty-three
I love Lennie! I do! I keep repeating it to myself, and then an image of Luca smiling and saying ‘I think Zelda will do just fine’ keeps popping up and replaying over and over in my mind. On the one hand, a man who cares about me and worries; and on the other, one who seems to get me and isn’t worried, because he knows I’ll be fine. One who helps me breathe; the other who takes my breath away.
But I know I can’t have two men in my life. There can only be one, and I know which one that has to be. There can’t be any other way, can there?
Chapter Forty-four
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have accused you of taking the verdello,’ I say, lifting my chin and staring Romano right in the eye as I stand in front of him at the top of the steps to the villa.
He nods, and I’m wondering if that will be that and he’ll turn and shut the door on me, as before. But instead, he stands aside and holds his hand out.
‘Prego.Come in,’ he says, and I suddenly feel nervous and try to line up my thoughts, which keep jumbling up like abandoned knitting.
I step into the hallway. Big dark furniture, huge silver lamps and shades, tall green ferns and a sweeping marble staircase to the balcony above.
I find myself looking up and around. Compared to the other properties I’ve seen in the town, this is . . . well, certainly very different. Not rural and rustic at all. The house is a bizarre mix of old and new.
He leads me across the marble floor to a large veranda. The view is incredible, so much so that I practically catch my breath as I step forward and lean on the mottled light-cream stone wall. I stand taking it all in. The town hall and church below, the main square with its palm trees and pale-salmon-coloured houses and green wrought iron, and in the distance, the brilliant blue sea. In the other direction is Etna, looming over the town, the centrepiece of every picture, her slowly smoking top like low-hanging cloud.
Running riot over the top of the veranda is a beautiful-smelling cascading wisteria. It all feels a lot like paradise. The only thing to ruin the view is the part-built gymnasium in the far corner of the garden, and suddenly I’m reminded of everything this man has done to try and get us out of this town, and to keep his son in a place he doesn’t want to be. I feel my hackles rise.
‘Coffee,’ he says, and I turn to see him lifting a cafetière from the table behind me.
‘Grazie,’ I reply. I’m surprised how quickly I’ve slipped into Sicilian mannerisms. I couldn’t imagine going back home now.
As I sip my coffee, I lean against the stone balustrade and look out again at the amazing view, and then remember the balcony that fell the night of the rain and step away from it.
‘Please sit.’ Romano gestures to a rattan chair.
I’d rather be standing – frankly, I like to pace when I’m thinking and talking – but I know it would be bad manners to refuse, so I sit and let the Sicilian sun on my shoulders take away some of the tension there. Romano sits opposite me.
‘I haven’t had the chance to thank you properly for saving my great-niece. She is like a granddaughter to me, as I explained. The only child in the family. I . . . It’s important I don’t lose any more of my family. It’s why I work to keep them, and to keep them safe.’
I look around and spot CCTV cameras in the corners of the veranda and dotted around the garden. I try my hardest not to quip back that he’s created a prison rather than a safe haven. One that at least one member of his family is desperate to leave.
‘I should have come to see you earlier. I’m sorry. I still haven’t repaid you,’ Romano says.
‘You’ve allowed the building work to start on the houses,’ I reply, sipping. ‘Thank you for that. It’s me that should be sorry. Like I said, I shouldn’t have accused you of taking the verdello. It wasn’t you.’
‘We all make mistakes,’ he says, and it’s not the first time I’ve heard those words today. ‘Finding the words to say sorry is the hardest part of all. Thank you.’
‘Forgiveness is hard too,’ I say without thinking, remembering what Luca told me about how Romano hadn’t been able to forgive his wife. Immediately I wish I hadn’t. I wish I had some sort of an edit button. He looks at me and I glance down and sip my coffee in order to stop my mouth saying anything else it might regret.
‘I brought you this, by way of apology.’ I pull the bottle from my bag, realising that getting down to business is the best way out of the hole I’m digging for myself.
He takes the bottle and looks at it, studying the hand-inked label that Ralph has made and stuck on.
‘This looks good. Did you do it?’
I shake my head. ‘I couldn’t have done it,’ I say. ‘I’m dyslexic. Dyslexic and impulsive – it was never going to be a winning combination.’
‘Maybe those are the very things that have made you who you are,’ he says evenly.
I remember Luca’s look again, and think about all the things I’ve beaten myself up over throughout my life, all the mistakes I’ve made. Maybe they have actually made me who I am. I am impetuous, but then I wouldn’t be here now if I wasn’t, and I wouldn’t still be fighting to keep this idea of staying here alive. I’m dyslexic, but that meant I did more practical things, like buying furniture and clothes for the shop, shifting it all myself, getting stuck in. But it’s also why I couldn’t hold down a job. Other people always telling me what to do just rattled me, confused me. That’s why working for myself was so great and why I can’t let this chance slip through my fingers now. My heart is banging so loudly in my chest, I worry Romano can hear it.
He holds the bottle up to the light and looks at the colour.
‘But you made this, right?’
