Durante took out his phone and perused it for several seconds. ‘So. The internet says first championship 1991.’ He returned the phone to his pocket. ‘When Tori returns with Zia-Lucia we are maintaining the hire cars and that programme always begin in the middle of November when most tourists are gone. Zia-Lucia was maybe one month old, so I believe her birth date to be the middle of October.’

‘I was born on the 17th of October 1991,’ Zia choked out.

Lucia turned the copy of Zia’s passport towards Durante so he could confirm it for himself. She turned back to Zia, ‘Tori lived in Exmouth in Devon, England.’

‘That’s where I was born.’ Zia’s throat had tightened so impossibly that she could hardly squeeze out the words.

Ursula slid an arm around Zia’s shoulders. ‘Sounds like you found your family, honey.’

Zia nodded. Then a sob burst out of her, an eruption of grief over the lies she’d been told, for ‘Mum’ being her grandmother and Gran and Pap being great-grandparents. For her mother being a teenager who behaved ‘crazy’ and died far too young – a mother whom Zia would never know. After a lifetime of having hardly anyone, she had a family … but most of them didn’t know she existed and might not want to.

And Gran and Pap must have known the truth and never told her.

She cried so hard her sinuses burned. Lucia murmured to Durante that perhaps they should leave for now. The kind words finally made her get a grip.

‘Per favore, resta,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I just—’

‘I can tell you more another time.’ Lucia sounded worried but also … what? Pleased? Excited? A smile even pulled at the corners of her mouth.

Zia gazed at the older woman through tear-swollen eyes. ‘I want to know everything. Anything. I’ve yearned to know all my life. It was just the shock.’ She drained her wine glass as if to demonstrate her willingness to fortify herself.