Neither of us hears the officiant finish. Somewhere in there is you may kiss, and I don't wait for the rest of the sentence, hand at her jaw, mouth on hers, careful of her mascara, careless of everything else. The room erupts around us. Bella's laugh-crying loud enough to carry. Anastasio hooting near the aisle. Bianca's hand pressed flat to her chest.
When we pull apart I keep my forehead against hers for one more second.
"Hi, wife," I say.
"Hi, husband."
Later, at the reception, Giorgia catches Lydia's hand between courses and squeezes it once, hard, saying nothing at all. From her, that's its own kind of speech. Anastasio's toast starts as a joke about my driving and ends with him wiping his face on his sleeve. Bella dances with Lydia barefoot on the terrace once her feet give out, both of them laughing too hard to talk, Lydia's hand resting on the curve where our baby turns over slow and lazy.
There's a chair that stayed empty all night. I think of Capri once, briefly, a woman sitting on a balcony somewhere far from here, and I let the thought pass through me soft instead of sharp.
Today isn't about who's missing.
It's about who stayed.
I find her near midnight, jacket gone, sleeves rolled, and pull her in slow against me, one hand splayed low over where our child sleeps inside her.
"You told me you'd never love me," I say.
"And you told me this was never about love," she says.
"Look at us,piccola." My mouth curves. "Never didn't last very long."
We stand there swaying to music neither of us is really following, and for the first time in longer than I can count, the day asks nothing more of me than to be exactly where I am.
45
LYDIA
The cemetery gateis open already when we get there, propped with a brick somebody left behind years ago and never came back for.
Nico parks on the gravel shoulder and comes around to my side before I've even got my seatbelt off. He doesn't say anything about it. He just opens the door and holds out his hand, and I take it because my balance isn't what it used to be, not with this belly leading the way into every room I walk into now.
"You good?" he says.
"I'm good."
We start up the path together. It's a long walk from the car to my father's row, longer than I remember it being the first time I came back here, and neither of us rushes it. The grass is cut short and a little damp under my shoes. Somewhere off to the left a sprinkler ticks on and off in a slow rhythm, and a crow watches us from the top of a maple tree like it's got somewhere better to be but hasn't decided yet.
Nico carries the bucket. I carry the bag with the rags and the brush and the small paper sack I haven't told him what's in yet.
Neither of us talks much on the way up. That's fine. Some of this doesn't need words yet.
When we get to the headstone, I stand in front of it for a second before I do anything else. HARRY MITCHELL. The dates. A line underneath that somebody, a groundskeeper probably, chose for him a long time before I had any say in it. The moss has crept up one side since the last time I was here, soft and green in the grooves of the letters.
I crouch down slow, one hand on Nico's arm for balance, and I put my palm flat against the stone.
"Hey, Dad," I say. "Sorry it's been a while."
Nico stands back a step, close enough to be near, far enough to let this be mine.
"So," I say. I laugh a little at myself because I don't know where to start. Then I just start. "I got married. You'd have hated the tux he picked out, I think, too sharp for your taste, but he cleans up good. You'd have had opinions about him at the start. I know you would have. He knows it too."
I glance back at Nico. He isn't smiling, but something in his face has gone soft, softer than I've ever seen it go for anyone else.
"I'm having a baby," I tell the stone. "A girl, they think. Due in the spring. You'd have spoiled her rotten. I know you would've. You spoiled me plenty and I was already grown by the time you had to stop."
My throat goes tight on that last part, so I let it sit there a second before I keep going.
