Giancarlo lingered sheepishly by the entrance to the living room, keeping his distance. He tried to look Antonella in the face, but instead found himself staring down at the floor, until they heard the front door close and they knew that Carter had gone outside. Slowly, he lifted his gaze to hers.

“Let’s get something straight,” said Antonella, wasting no words and no time. “I don’t know what you have been thinking all these years, but whatever it is, I did not marry your brother because he inherited the house and you didn’t. I did not marry your brother because he got that little scrap of land at the bottom of the hill and you didn’t. I did not marry your brother because he had a job at the time and you didn’t. For all these years since you ran away, I have had to listen to the whispers going round and round behind my back all over the village, all because of a single kiss that never even happened between us. No one knows the truth, not even you, but I am going to tell it to you now, whether you want to hear it or not. Yes, I did love you then. Part of my heart belonged to you, but still I married your brother, and I did it for one simple reason. I loved him more.That’s all there was to it. Nothing more, nothing less. I’m sorry that it hurt you, but that is life.You can’t choose the people you love any more than you can choose the color of your eyes. It just happens. Can you comprehend that? Can you get it through that thick Abruzzese skull of yours once and for all, and let the past go?”

Giancarlo’s only reply was a nod of his head.

“Good,” she said, spent, it seemed, from her outburst. “Now, if you don’t mind, go, per piacere. Find my husband, if you can, wherever he is up in those mountains, and bring him back to me.”

“I will,” said Giancarlo, at last breaking his silence.With that he turned to go, for he knew that there was really nothing more for him to say that she would want to hear. All the same, he paused, and looked back around.

“It’s good to see you, Antonella,” he told her. “You’re looking well.”

“Eh,” said his sister-in-law with a weary shrug. “So are you. Now go.”

Then she waved him away, and collapsed back down onto the couch.

CHAPTER 48

CHAPTER 48

“Did you get everything together I asked for yesterday?” said Giancarlo.

They were in the kitchen, hurriedly looking over their equipment. By now it was growing late in the afternoon, and they both knew there were only a few precious hours of daytime left before they would start to lose the sun.