Chapter 7 - The Lake at Lugano
The house sat on a hill above the water, three miles outside the village of Gandria, where the road turned into a stone path that only mules and small tractors could navigate.
It was built of grey granite and red tile, with thick cypress trees that stood like black candles against the cold blue of the lake.
It was March now. The snow had retreated to the high peaks across the Italian border, leaving the slopes covered in wild primroses and wet moss that smelled of melted snow and pine resin.
Ana sat on the stone terrace, a heavy wool shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Her belly was rounded now—a distinct, heavy weight beneath her linen smock that made her walk with her hands pressed against her lower back, just like the women in Bari.
Julian was sitting forty feet away on the grass, teaching a three-legged golden retriever how to catch a tennis ball without falling over. His cast was gone, replaced by a black leather brace that made him limp slightly when he turned too quickly, but his skin had recovered its color, and he had spent the last two weeks painting watercolors of the lake that he stacked against the wall in the pantry.
The gravel path crunched behind her.
She didn't turn around. She knew the tread now: heavy, slow, deliberate—the tread of a man who carried his history in his legs.
Nico set a wooden tray on the stone table beside her.
It held two small cups of dark espresso, a bowl of wild strawberries he had bought from the boy in the village, and a small glass of cold milk for her.
"The bank finished the audit this morning," he said, sitting down on the bench beside her. "The Bari accounts are cleared. The first pensions were paid out on Tuesday."
"Did they say anything?" she asked, her eyes fixed on the small white boat drifting across the middle of the lake.
"They said thank you," Nico said. He picked up his espresso cup, taking a small sip, his dark eyes watching her profile against the bright spring light. "The old woman—the one whose baby I held in eighty-nine—she sent this."
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small, folded piece of linen.
It was an apron—cheap, coarse white cotton—embroidered at the hem with tiny yellow lemons and three words in the Bari dialect: Pace a questa casa.
Peace to this house.
Ana took the linen in her hands. The embroidery was uneven, the thread thick and knotted at the back, the work of an old woman whose eyes were failing her in the late afternoon light.
She brought it to her face. It smelled of sea salt, olive oil, and laundry soap—the smell of her mother's kitchen before the night the lights went out.
A single tear fell onto the linen, darkening the yellow thread of the second lemon.
May you like
Nico reached out, his big hand covering hers on the table.
He didn't say anything. He didn't offer her a handkerchief or tell her it was going to be all right. He simply stayed there, his thumb resting against her knuckles, holding her steady against the weight of thirty years of memories that were finally beginning to settle like dust after a storm.
