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He watched her from a distance, wanting to call out to her with relief before she disappeared again, but he saw her kneel down and he knew why.
His son’s grave.
Something yawned open inside him, a chasm so big and empty he could not contemplate how it could ever be filled.
From his vantage point, he saw her lips move, saw her work something in her hands, saw the glint of sunlight on glass and felt the hiss of his breath through his teeth—heard the crunch of gravel underfoot as his feet moved forward of their own accord.
She heard it too, ignored it for a second and then glanced his way, glanced again, her eyes widening in shock, her face bleaching white when she realised who it was.
‘Hello, Valentina,’ he said, his voice thick with emotion. ‘I’ve come to meet my son.’
She didn’t reply, whether from the shock of his sudden appearance or because there was nothing to say. He looked down at the stone, at its simple words.
Leo Henderson Barbarigo, it read, together with a date and, beneath it, the words: Another angel in heaven.
And even though he’d known, even though it had made his job easier to find the grave, it still staggered him. ‘You gave him my name.’
‘He’s your son too.’
His son.
And he fell to his knees and felt the tears fall for all that had been lost.
She let him cry. She said nothing, did nothing, but when finally he looked up, he saw the tracks of her own tears down her cheeks.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ The words were anguished, wrenched from a place deep inside him, but still loaded with accusation. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
She didn’t flinch from his charges. ‘I was going to,’ she said, her voice tight, ‘when our child was born. I was going to let you know you were a father.’ Sadly she shook her head. ‘Then there didn’t seem any point.’ She shrugged helplessly and he could see her pain in the awkward movement. And in this moment, under the weight of his guilt, he felt just as awkward.
‘In Venice,’ he started, ‘I said some dreadful things. I accused you of dreadful deeds.’
‘It was a shock. You didn’t know.’
‘Please, Valentina, do not feel you must make excuses for me. I didn’t listen. You tried to tell me and I didn’t listen. I didn’t want to listen. It was unforgivable of me.’ He shook his head. ‘But now, knowing that he was stolen from us before his time, can you tell me the rest? Can you tell me what happened?’
She blinked and looked heavenwards, swiping at her cheek with the fingers of one hand. ‘There’s not a lot to tell. Everything was going to plan. Everything was as it should be. But at twenty weeks, the pains started. I thought that it must have been something I’d eaten, some kind of food poisoning, that it would go away. But it got worse and worse and then I started to bleed and I was so afraid. The doctors did everything they could, but our baby was coming and they couldn’t stop it.’ She squeezed her hands into balls in her lap, squeezed her eyes shut so hard he could feel her pain. ‘Nothing they did could stop it.’
‘Valentina...’
‘And it hurt so much, so much more than it should, for the doctors and midwives there too, because everyone knew there was nothing they could do to save him. He was too early. Too tiny, even though his heart was beating and he was breathing and his eyes blinked open and looked up at me.’
She smiled up at him then, her eyes spilling over with tears. ‘He was beautiful, Luca, you should have seen him. His skin was almost translucent, and his tiny hand wrapped around my little finger, trying to hold on.’
Her smile faded. ‘But he couldn’t hold on. Not for long. And all I could do was cuddle our baby while his breathing slowed and slowed until he took one final, brave little breath...’
Oh God, he thought. Their baby had died in her arms after he had been born.
Oh God.
‘Who was with you?’ he whispered, thinking it should have been him. ‘Your father? Lily? A friend?’
She shook her head and whispered, ‘No one.’
And through the rising bubble of injustice he felt at the thought that she had been alone, he thought of the man on the farm who had no idea why his daughter had suddenly rushed off to Sydney barely a moment after she’d arrived. ‘Your father didn’t know?’
‘I couldn’t bear to tell him. I was so ashamed when I found out I was pregnant. I couldn’t bear to admit that I, the product of a one-night stand, had turned around and made the same mistake my parents had. So I went back to university and hid and pretended it wasn’t happening. And afterwards...well, afterwards...I couldn’t bear to think about it, let alone tell anyone else.’ She looked up at him with plaintive eyes. ‘Do you understand? Can you try to understand?’
