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CHAPTER NINE
‘CONDOGLIANZE…’
One by one they took his hand and kissed his cheeks, but all Nico wanted was for this day to be over and then never to have to return to the place that had brought him so much grief.
As the last member of his family, Nico stood alone. There was just this line-up to get through, he told himself. And then his duty would be almost done.
There was to be a small gathering back at the house and then he could return to Rome.
‘Le mie più sentite condoglianze,’Pino said.
‘Thank you for all you did for him,’ Nico said.
Aurora was just a couple of people down the line. Soon her hand would find his.
‘Condoglianze,’Francesca said. ‘Nico, he is at peace.’
‘I know—thank you.’
Where was his own peace, though? Nico thought, for his head felt like a warzone.
‘Nico…’ Aurora said.
Therewas his peace.
A small moment of it in the chaos of a turbulent day.
Her hand took his and he closed his fingers around hers, causing her to look down at their hands rather than up at his face.
‘Condoglianze,’she said.
‘Grazie,’he responded, but he did not let her hand go.
She leant forward and kissed his cheek and it was as cool as marble against hers. She kissed the other and then looked at his beautiful mouth, now so pale.
‘He thought a lot of you,’ Nico told her.
I did it all for you, Nico. I know what Geo did, and I did not respect him for that. But he is…was…your father. Though it was hard at times, I always tried to respect that. I took care of Geo as I would have had you been my husband.
She did not say that, of course. ‘I thought a lot of him too,’ was her gentle response.
‘Thanks for all your help with the arrangements.’
‘Of course,’ Aurora said.
It was, for Aurora, as simple as that. Of course she would be there for him.
Marianna, who had thought she knew everything there was to know about Nico’s life, did not quite know how things were done down here.
Aurora had sat in the house during the vigil, as the villagers came, stayed and went.
That was not the role of a PA.
And Aurora had sat with Nico when he had asked the priest not to speak too much of a Geo having had a loving marriage to Maria, or to go on about his loving son.
‘You did love him, though, Nico,’ she had said.
And that was not the role of a PA.
