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Sabina couldn’t imagine it either, and she had no intention of being the one to tell her. She shook her head.
Ava opened her eyes again, though they focused on the bag in her hands. “For hours, I just sat there in the nursery with you, watching you sleep. Wishing I had some part of this side of Manny’s life, that I had some claim to family, real family. That I had someone bright and innocent to love.”
Her gaze lifted, tangled with Sabina’s, and tears glistened there in her eyes. “I know I didn’t—that I don’t. I know I’m just the other woman. But to me, Sabina—his family is all I have. You, your brother. Even your mother. She may hate me, but the way he talks about her, the love in his voice…the heaviness of it when she was sick.” She shook her head. “I prayed for her then, the first I’d prayed since I was twelve years old. I didn’t know where to go to church for it, so I came here. I thought, if this is where Manny prays, where Rosa prays, then this is a place where God will hear my prayers for them. For you.”
That must have been when she started seeing her here, back when Mama was in the sanatorium. She couldn’t really remember when her face started appearing in the park or these pews. She certainly never would have thought that it appeared because of them. For them.
A few weeks ago, she had found it strange, even frightening, to think of this woman encroaching on her family. Today, it made her blink back more tears of her own. She couldn’t hate a woman who loved them. She couldn’t hate a woman who had prayed for them in their darkest hours. “He did hear you. He always hears you, wherever you pray.”
They sounded like Enzo’s words, or Isadora’s. But they felt like candlelight on Sabina’s lips.
Ava smiled a little. “I watched you grow, from a distance. Watched how you cared for your brother and sister. You made your father so proud—he was always talking about you, telling me what a good girl you were. The light of his life. His principessa.”
It was Sabina’s turn to squeeze her eyes shut. She’d always known he loved her. She’d never doubted that. Even so.
Even so.
Ava sniffed, and the soft click of a metal clasp made Sabina open her eyes again to see her opening her little handbag and pulling out a handkerchief. She didn’t touch it to her face, though. She unfolded it, revealing something nestled inside that shone silver and white in the church’s dim lights.
“And now here you are. Grown, ready to start a family of your own. I know I have no part in that. I know that. But…” She paused, drew in a long breath, rolled back her shoulders before she raised her eyes to Sabina’s again. “You’re the closest thing I will ever have to a daughter.”
She reached into the cup of her palm and pulled up the delicate length of silver and pearls and crystals, a backward stream, until the only part touching her hand was the large pearl drop of the pendant. “This was my mother’s. My father pawned it, of course, but I knew it the moment I saw it, years later. Her father had made it for her himself. Her name was Pearl, you see. She…”
Ava paused, shook her head. “I had a bit of cash by then, thanks to your father. I bought it. I reclaimed that much, at least, of who I’d once been.” She offered a shaky smile. “It would mean the world to me if you would take it. You don’t have to wear it,” she rushed to add. “But if you just take it, then I can pretend you’re wearing it on your wedding day. Or carrying it somewhere, or—I don’t need to know the truth. It’s selfish of me to even hope you’ll accept it. But if you would, if you’d let me give you this one thing…”
Where she expected a tumult inside her, Sabina found only that strange peace of the night before. Where she expected outrage, there was only love. Where she expected resentment, there was only the light of a dozen candles shining like prayer onto silver and pearl.
She cupped her hand under the necklace and let Ava drip it into her palm. She didn’t know how to say that she forgave her. That she didn’t hate her. That, a little at least, she understood. All she could figure out how to say was a “Thank you” so quiet it barely moved the air. But from the way Ava’s eyes filled with grateful tears, it was as if Sabina had said all those other things too.
The door at the back opened again, and a few old ladies came whispering their way inside. That was Sabina’s cue to leave. She still hadn’t lit a candle or prayed, but…she felt like she had. She found the courage to press a hand to Ava’s shoulder as she stood, to nod to the guard as she exited. And to march straight home to Mama’s house, to Mama’s bedroom, where Mama still sat fussing with Fran’s broken string of pearls.
She let the necklace dangle, the alternating crystals and pearls on the chain, the larger single pearl with its pretty fitting, twirling in the light. “How about this, Mama?”
Her mother looked from the necklace to her. “Pretty. And I think it will match the dress perfectly. But where did you find it?”
Sabina moved to the mirror, fastened it around her neck, and smiled. “It was a gift from a friend.”
The deep gold sunlight of early evening slanted through the windows by the time Sabina finished helping Mama with her veil and made her way back downstairs. She heard Fran and Aunt Luccia in the kitchen, bickering with Cook about something, so she did an about-face at the bottom of the stairs and aimed herself toward the other side of the house instead. She bypassed the mounds of packages that had arrived that day—wedding gifts, she was sure, but she’d wait until Enzo came over to open them. Besides, she’d had enough wedding preparation for one day. Her big plan for the evening was to walk out the front door, sit on the stoop, and hope Enzo found the time to stop by.
Papa’s voice drew her to a halt, though the name he spoke wasn’t hers. Still, it froze her in her tracks beside the small, rarely used drawing room adjoining the preferred parlor.
“O’Reilly again?”
“Yeah.” The second voice was unfamiliar, male, and uncultured. “Stopped by the precinct again today. Still doesn’t have so much that Bannigan’s willing to make an arrest, but he thinks he will after he talks to Tim Baker.”
Papa spat out a harsh Sicilian expletive. “Baker! He’s a slimy swine, he’ll say anything to anyone if he thinks it’ll profit him. No honor, and certainly no loyalty to anyone with Sicilian blood. He would say anything to see me put away.”
Squeaking sounded within, the kind the stately, uncomfortable couch made whenever someone dared to sit on it. “There’s more. I’ve had Kelly trailing him, like you asked, and he says O’Reilly’s getting real agitated as the wedding date approaches. He’s started planning something stupid to try to stop it.”
Sabina’s blood ran cold with dread. Papa cursed again. “How stupid?”
“Try to steal away the bride stupid.”
She heard the drumming of Papa’s fingers on something wooden. “She wouldn’t go with him.”
No. No she definitely would not. And why would Roman think she would? Hadn’t she made herself clear that day in the park?
“Manny…I don’t think he really cares what she wants at this point. Sounded to Kelly like he planned to snatch her away whether she wanted to go or not.”
