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‘I thought it was,’ Alicia said. ‘Straightforward.’
‘Well, she was far from that.’
‘And how about all the flowers?’ Alicia said, and saw his slight smile.
‘How about them?’ he agreed. ‘No wonder the florist offered me supper. She would have made a fortune today. All cash, I’ll bet...’ he said. ‘In blank envelopes...’
‘Really?’
‘For sure.’ He nodded. ‘There’ll be no names on any of the cards.’
‘Well, I put mine.’
‘Did you see the mimosa?’ he asked, and Alicia nodded. ‘It means secret love. There were a lot of bunches...’
‘I bought peonies,’ she said.
‘You didn’t have to do that...’
‘I wanted to. They mean discretion. You know, after you left she would send me a parcel every month.’
‘Did she?’
‘There was always a religious statue.’ Alicia smiled. ‘I think she knew it would appease the nuns if they asked me what was in them... The packaging never said who they were from, but I knew. It was the stuff she used to get you to give me. Sometimes there would be deodorant, or some skin lotion or nice scented soap...’ Alicia swallowed, unsure whether or not to tell him what had occurred. ‘A parcel came yesterday.’
He stared ahead.
‘She must have sent it before she...’ Her voice trailed off. ‘There was a present for my eighteenth. My only one... Well, there was cake but...’
‘She liked you.’
‘We never even spoke.’
‘I think she knew what it was like to be a girl growing up there...’
‘She was at the convent?’ Alicia checked, for that was something she hadn’t known.
‘Yes, she lived there like you. Her parents couldn’t handle her...’ He gave a thin smile. ‘Anyway, I doubt they have a plaque up for her—she was not exactly valedictorian of her class...’ He thought for a moment. ‘She could have been, though...she was incredibly clever. Unwise, but so clever.’
‘And beautiful,’ Alicia said, and she wasn’t being shallow—his mother really had had a rare old-fashioned beauty. Quite simply she’d been the most beautiful person Alicia had ever seen. Or had been until this day. For that title now went to her son.
She saw now that she had never fully seen the perfection in him. How had she once lain her head against him and laughed and chatted so easily? How had they sat holding hands? Because now she no longer knew how to look into his eyes.
‘She had it all,’ Dante said. ‘Or she could have. She just didn’t want it, though...’
‘A woman of mystery.’
‘Well, I don’t have to worry about her now.’
‘Did you worry a lot?’
‘Every day of my life.’
Dante closed his eyes, for he did not want to tell Alicia that he slept on cardboard, or couch-surfed. Sometimes in winter his friend Gino, a law student who did shifts at the bar where he worked, loaned him the back of his car.
Nor did he want her to know that the suit and shoes he wore today were Gino’s too. Or that every envelope he had sent his mother, every scrap of cash he had scraped together, he had found yesterday in a box. Some of his letters had been sliced open, some were still closed and unread. All the money he had sent was unspent...
Right now, Dante felt as if his head would explode, for he did not understand how or why his mother would rather dothatwork than use what he’d sent.
