AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘I’ll be okay.’
He nodded. ‘You’d better go or we might be seen.’
‘Yes.’
‘Ciao.’
He walked off and she kept waiting for him to look back, to change his mind, to do something... But he did nothing. Not once did he turn.
His standoffish farewell actually helped. The complete lack of romance at the end, the absolute removal of hope, drew a line so firmly that it proved a basis for her to stand upon and actually strengthened her.
She made her weary way to the convent, through the village that looked as if the apocalypse had hit. An occasional car passed with lights on and wipers going...red rivers were still running along the sides of the streets and forming puddles. There were trees down and the sound of sirens in the distance. And yet Alicia felt oddly calm—even when she found Sister Angelique waiting in the residence.
‘Where on earth...?’ She was almost shaking with suppressed fury. ‘I have been waiting for hours.’
‘I took shelter,’ Alicia said. ‘I honestly thought the world was ending.’
She lied so well—except both of them knew the storm had blown in long after the funeral.
‘I’ve never seen blood rain before.’
‘You’ve lost an earring, child,’ she said, and Alicia’s hands flew to her ears. Sure enough there was an empty space. ‘They were a gift from your parents, weren’t they?’
Had she lost an earring yesterday it would have hurt—unbearably so. Yet there had been a greater loss today.
But she had found something too.
Courage.
‘I’m going to change,’ Alicia said, and offered neither her feelings on the matter nor an explanation. ‘Thank you for your concern, Sister.’
Dante had infused her heart in a way that could not be easily explained, and their forbidden afternoon made her feel a little loved and a whole lot brave.
She had been told she could stay there in the residence for an extra year, but now she considered going to Milan to track down Beatrice. That night, though, she dreamt of heading to Rome. There was nothing to keep her here, apart from the fact that she loved Sicily so. At least her little slice of it.
But without her two friends it was lonely.
Nothing happened.
She worked in the produce shop and Guido started to drop by and the nuns would smile.
Alicia not so much.
She tried for jobs in the village, but to no avail, for there were locals who could read and do maths.
In winter it rained high in the mountains, which meant the river was full, and she would sit remembering when the water had briefly run red.
And then spring arrived, and time started to gallop. Alicia started to ask more frequently to use the phone, calling hotels and agencies in Milan, but the jobs were all casual.
Turn up and see.
‘How is your young man?’ Sister Angelique asked one day.
‘Who?’ Alicia frowned, but she knew she meant Guido.
Yes, she could see the writing on the wall—but, no, Alicia was determined to make her own way. And whenever her conviction as to how she might survive started to waver she reminded herself that Dante had left with no money or qualifications.
But then the bell rang on the baby door at the convent.
