AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yes.”
“It is beautiful. Quaint and perfect, everything just as it always has been. Or perhaps it just felt that way because I was spending a holiday with your grandfather.” She shook her head wistfully. Nico concentrated on unfolding the fine tissue paper from around the star. “These decorations are made by artisan craftsmen. Each generation is trained with these skills. You cannot get them elsewhere. Look.” She ran her finger over the glass. Shaped like a star with a cylinder at the bottom for it to sit on top of a tree, the star itself had been painstakingly etched with nativity scenes. The craftsmanship was unparalleled.
“When I was growing up, we didn’t celebrate Christmas with a tree nor gifts. We couldn’t afford to. So naturally, Gianfelice wanted to spoil me. He wanted everything to be perfect, and this star was the most perfect thing I’d ever seen. He gave it to my on Christmas eve, the first year we were married. I didn’t even know he’d bought it.” She shook her head affectionately. “He was good at surprises, eh?”
Nico smiled, because it was true. He handled the star with reverence.
“Life without him is unbearable, Nico.” Yaya’s voice was raw and Nico wondered why he hadn’t realised the truth earlier. He’d thought Yaya had muted herself for Gianfelice but the truth was, during their marriage, she’d simply surrendered to blissful happiness. She’d simply loved him with all that she was. “I wasn’t prepared for this. He was so alive, so strong, I never thought…”
“None of us did.” The words were thick, heavy with the weight of his heart.
“But even feeling this pain,” she put her hand in the crook of his arm, and took a step towards the door, her intent to install the star obvious. “Even now, lonely as I am, and feeling like more than half of me is missing, I wouldn’t do a thing differently.” Nico’s heart twisted. His gut tightened. “There is no life without love, and no love that comes without loss, eventually.” She lifted her shoulders. “It’s the cost of living well.”
Nico nodded, but he wasn’t sure he could speak. Hadn’t Maddie said words that effect, the last morning in Italy? She’d insisted he was choosing not to love, that he was living a half-life without being open to even the idea of love. And then she’d left and he’d felt as though a part of him had died.
At first, he’d clung to anger. Why hadn’t she stayed? What was the big deal? One more week together might have solved everything. Maybe she would have got over her infatuation. Maybe he would have as well.
But that was a fool’s hope. Maddie was inside of him. Without his knowledge, she’d breathed her way into his soul and not seeing her, not speaking to her, was now an obscure form of daily torture.
Something was moving through him. Something heavy and accusatory. Something that almost made him stop walking and groan. And then, finally, there was a feeling he couldn’t fight that perhaps he’d made the worst mistake of his life – one he had no idea if he could ever fix.
Chapter 14
“THREE SERVINGS OF PORK?” Maddie smiled at her dad, and for once, it felt completely unforced. She’d had a glass of cider and half a bottle of prosecco over lunch, so it was no wonder. She’d temporarily anaesthetised herself to the pain of anything. It had been at least eleven minutes since she’d even thought of Nico, and that was something.
“It’s so good,” across the table, Graeme shrugged his shoulders so his suspenders lifted a little and that same feeling of affection and nostalgia bunched inside her. He always wore the red suspenders at Christmas time. “Have some.” He pushed his plate towards her but she laughed, clutching her stomach.
“One serve was more than enough.”
“No wonder you’re wasting away.”
“I am not.” She reached for her prosecco. It was empty. “When’s mum home?”
“End of January, I believe. Though you –,”
“Never know,” Maddie finished for him, remembering how often that phrase was said in her childhood.
Graeme offered what could have been a smile or a grimace. “Come up for the weekend?”
“Next weekend?”
“Well, I meant when your mother’s back, but you could come up next weekend too.” He put his fork down, leaning back in his chair, his eyes appraising Maddie. “How’s Michael?”
She was very still, but inside, her heart had begun to tremble, her blood heavy inside of her. And there was too much of it, so somehow she was drowning in her own arterial tides.
“I…we broke up.” She didn’t look at her
dad. A waiter appeared and topped up her prosecco. She smiled at him far too brightly – the poor man had no idea how badly she needed the lifeline in that moment.
“I see.”
“It was a while ago,” she offered. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything.”
Maddie chanced a look at her father, saw him nod and rub his chin.
“I suppose that could explain it.”
“Explain what?”
