I laugh, and Bianca hands me the tissue back.
Bianca takesmy arm at the top of the aisle. Her grip is sure, no tremor in it at all, and something in my chest goes loose and warm at the simple fact of that.
"Ready?" she asks.
"Yes."
No hesitation. I check for it, out of old habit, some leftover instinct that expects to find a knot of dread waiting under the word. There's nothing there. Just yes.
The doors open onto a room full of people who came because they wanted to, not because refusal wasn't an option. Bella in the second row, already pressing a knuckle under her eye. Anastasio beside her, phone held sideways, grinning, saying something to Bella that makes her swat his arm without taking her eyes off me. Giorgia near the back, hands folded, dressed nicer than I've ever seen her, watching with the plain, steady attention of someone who chose to be here.
There's a gap in the second row where a chair sits empty. Nobody filled it. Nobody needed to. I feel it for exactly one breath, the shape of a woman still in Capri, a thousand miles from this room. Then Bianca's hand tightens on my arm, and I let the thought go where it belongs, which is somewhere quiet and not today.
Nico stands at the end of the aisle in a dark suit, no tie, top button open. His scar catches the light when he turns his head. His eyes are already wet.
I walk toward him on my mother's arm, and it takes every count of the music not to rush.
44
NICO
She'sthe whole room the second the doors open.
I've stood in this exact spot before, at the end of an aisle, waiting for her to walk toward me, and it was nothing like this. That day she came barefoot and blank-eyed, and I told myself it counted because the priest said the words and because I needed it to count. It didn't count. I know that now, plain and certain, no doubt left in it anywhere.
This counts.
She's crying before she's halfway down the aisle, and so am I. Neither of us bothers pretending otherwise. Bianca walks beside her, steady, gives her arm one last press at the end, and puts Lydia's hand in mine slow and sure, trusting me with it completely, because she does.
"Take care of her," she says, low, just for me.
"Always."
Lydia's hand is warm in mine. Her belly is round under the dress, our kid in there kicking at something, and I put my freehand flat against the curve of her for one second before the officiant clears his throat. I can't help it. I need the proof of it under my palm.
"I know," she says, quiet, answering something I never said out loud.
I don't hear a word of the readings. I'm watching her face, the mole at the back of her neck, the curl Giorgia pinned back that's already come loose again. I'm thinking about every version of her I've loved, the scared one, the furious one, the one who looked at me across a courtroom wanting nothing but her own freedom from me. None of them prepared me for this one, standing here choosing me on purpose.
Then it's vows.
"Nico," the officiant says, "your vows."
I take both her hands.
"I'm not good with speeches," I say, and a few people laugh, quiet, kind. "So I'll just tell you the truth."
Her thumb moves over my knuckles.
"I hurt you," I say. "I know it. You know it. I'm not going to stand here and pretend the first time we did this meant what today means, because it didn't, and you deserve the truth on the one day I get to tell it in front of everyone I love." My voice catches and I let it. "I love you because I want to, not because anyone's making me. Because you stayed when you didn't have to. You forgave things I'm not sure I'd have forgiven. You're carrying our child. And you still looked at me this morning like I'm the good part of your day. I choose you. Every day, for the rest of it. That's the vow. That's all of it."
She's shaking when I finish, quiet and steady, tears sliding straight down without any noise behind them.
"Lydia," the officiant says. "Your vows."
She holds onto my hands like they're the only solid thing in the room.
"The first time I married you, I thought I was walking into my own funeral," she says, and I feel the whole room go still around that sentence, feel my own hands tighten around hers without meaning to. "I want you to know I remember that. I'm not pretending it didn't happen. But I'm standing here today in a dress that actually fits, on my own two feet, because I want to be here, and that's not nothing. That's everything." Her voice wobbles and she pushes through it. "You didn't just become a better man for me. You let me watch you become one. You let me see it happen, every ugly part of it, and you never once asked me to pretend the ugly parts weren't there." She glances down, one hand leaving mine to rest against her stomach, and I cover it with my own before she even asks. "I'm choosing you with my eyes open. I know exactly who you are and exactly what it cost to get here, and I'd choose it again. I love you. I do."
