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For the procession around the grounds and through the winding road to the church, Mia took some motion sickness medication and then made herself eat breakfast, recalling how dizzy she had become at her parents’ service from both emotion and lack of food. She was grimly determined that no such thing would be happening today.
Of course, today’s events were very different from when her parents had died, but with her black clothes all laid out, and sadness permeating the air, she could not help but reflect on that awful time.
It had been March and she had been due to start a new job, but before she did so there had been a family holiday to New York City with her parents and brother. It had been wonderful, taking in a show on Broadway and enjoying the delicious sights. On their final day, her father had hired a car to go a little farther afield, even though Mia had advised against it, reminding her father of the dreadful time they’d once had in France when he’d attempted to drive on the opposite side of the road.
Paul Hamilton hadn’t listened, though, and her mother, Corinne, had laughed off Mia’s concerns.
They’d had a wonderful day, but it had been early spring; the clocks hadn’t yet gone forward and dusk had descended as they’d headed back to the hotel. Her father had become confused by some headlights, had drifted across the road and a crash had ensued.
Her parents had been killed instantly, her brother seriously injured, and Mia had felt as if she’d been trapped for hours when really it had been only thirty minutes until she’d been freed.
Mia knew that it had been thirty minutes because she had read the reports, many times.
As well as poring over and over the horrendous medical bills.
She’d had travel insurance, thank God. Meticulous and organised Mia had bought it at the same time as her flight.
Her parents had had annual coverage and so they had been taken care of and their bodies repatriated.
But it had soon transpired that Michael, her brother, had not taken out insurance.
It had been more than horrendous. As well as losing her parents, the family home had had to be sold. But even that hadn’t covered the massive bills, starting with a trauma team callout, followed by three months on a spinal unit—where he had been billed right down to the last dressing—and then there had been the cost of a care flight home for her brother, who had been left paralysed from the waist down.
They had been in debt up to their eyeballs and of course Michael had become severely depressed. The job she had been due to start had been lost long ago, and so Mia had applied for and taken a job at Romano’s in London. Though it had paid well and had been a fast-paced, busy role. As well as that, she had been working on improving her Italian in the hope of a promotion, while visiting her brother and dealing with the issue of housing for him.
It had all got too much.
Mia had been grieving, scared andangry.
Angry at her father for not listening to her concerns about him driving on the other side of the road, and angry with her mother too for not supporting her when she had voiced them.
And then there was her brother, who had been foolish and selfish enough to travel without insurance—though, of course, he had paid a terrible price, and it would be futile and mean to get angry with him.
So Mia had held it in, and held it in, and on an exceptionally busy day at work—Rafael Romano had been visiting the London office—when another debtor had called, and she had come close to a panic attack. Rafael had seen her distress, stopped and asked, ‘My dear, whatever is wrong?’
It still touched her that during his own very difficult time—Rafael had himself just been asked for a divorce while, unbeknownst to his wife, undergoing a health scare—he still had taken the time to ask her what was wrong.
Of course Mia hadn’t voiced her anger, just admitted to the hopeless position she was in.
And, because of that conversation, more than two years later, here she was, preparing for dear Rafael’s funeral.
But this morning, when surely it should be Rafael and his kindness and the help he had given to her family that should be consuming her, it was memories of being trapped in that car that had Mia literally shaking.
She could still hear her mother’s voice from the passenger seat, calling out to her. Telling her to hold on. That help would be here soon and that she loved her.
Except the report clearly stated that her mother had been killed on impact.
Yes, Mia had gone over that report a lot.
It scared her.
More than that, it terrified her.
At the age of twenty-four she was more petrified of the dark than she had been as a little girl, for she didn’t justbelievein ghosts, Mia knew that she had heard one speak.
‘Get a grip, Mia,’ she told herself, and with breakfast done she dressed for the funeral.
Her underwear was all black and new, and she had black tights that might be considered by some a little sheer for a widow, but she had bought them online. The soft wool dress she had bought in Florence, and from neck to hem it was adorned with little black pearl buttons. A stupid choice for a funeral, Mia decided, because her hands were so shaky, but finally every last button was done up.
