“I don’t want to rent another room. I don’t want to be in another room if you’re not in it. Would you—” Silvio stammered.
“Yes.”
“How do you know what I was going to ask?”
“I’m a strega,” Domenica joked before placing her head on Silvio’s chest. His heart was beating fast, which meant that she mattered to him. When Domenica had returned to Viareggio last fall with her daughter, it appeared that everything was broken, from the pier to the roads to her heart. She found herself tiptoeing around the pieces when she rediscovered the only thing that could make her whole. “I have to know if you love Matelda too. She is a good child, but the day will come when she will understand what she lost—and she may take it out on you.”
“I can’t be him. But I will love her as my own daughter. I will listen when she wants to talk about her father.”
“We won’t be the young couple who builds a family together,” Domenica said wistfully. “I’m sorry I can’t give you that.”
“You gave me a family. There is nothing else I want. And now that I have it, I will protect it for the rest of my life.” Silvio reached into his pocket and handed her a small box.
Domenica opened it and lifted out a ring. Silvio placed it on her finger.
“This ring is the symbol of our new life,” Silvio began. “The blue sapphire for Il Tirreno, the purple amethyst for the thistle of Scotland, the yellow citrine represents the Italian sunflower, and the diamond is the clean slate. We have one, you know, as we begin again. We can choose to be happy together. Will you marry me?”
“Yes.” She kissed him.
“I cut the stones just for you.”
“I will never take it off,” Domenica promised. “What can I give you?”
“It’s not customary for the bride to gift the groom. But there is something you can give me. Our family needs a real name, not one my mother chose from a list. A barrister in Firenze made up the surname Birtolini for a boy without a father to claim him. We will be a family when we’re married, and our family deserves a name worthy of it. I want to be a Cabrelli, if you’ll have me.”
Domenica was elated. She kissed him again. “We shall be Cabrelli.”
The newly engaged couple walked home arm in arm to share the news with Netta, Pietro, and Matelda. They were waiting with cold champagne and cake because Silvio had already sought their permission before he proposed. All that was left for Domenica Cabrelli to do was to be happy.
* * *
Matelda slept in her bed in the alcove. Domenica gently brushed powdered sugar off her daughter’s cheek before kissing her. Domenica hoped that Matelda was happy about the engagement and not just about having cake before bedtime.
Domenica reached into her closet and pulled out the hatbox where she kept important papers. She opened it and lifted out a stack of letters tied with a white satin ribbon. She tiptoed past her parents’ room and down the stairs. She pulled on her coat, tucked the letters inside her pocket, and walked to the beach.
The firepits of Carnevale had died down; all that remained were circles of blue flames scattered along the beach. Domenica stood in front of the black ocean, holding John’s letters. She held the only proof of their love. She had imagined, before Silvio came back into her life, that she would hold on to John’s letters and read them when she needed reassurance that he had loved her, married her, and given her Matelda. Otherwise, what had happened between them would fade entirely like a dream.
John McVicars had been a squall that blew through Domenica Cabrelli’s life. She learned that time could not be the measurement for the things that lasted. Sometimes what endured was that which changed us in a matter of moments, not years. John had not lived long enough to disappoint her, nor had they been married long enough for her to fail her husband. There had been no need for forgiveness; their time together had been brief.
John Lawrie McVicars had returned to the sea to live among the characters of myth, and the vagabonds, hustlers, and saints who found refuge in the deep. His spirit was protected by the granite waves that hemmed the rocky shores of northern Scotland. He no longer belonged to her.
Domenica threw his letters into one of the fires. A wind whipped up on the beach, igniting the paper. The letters soon burst into purple flames. The delicate paper formed tendrils of black ash, which floated out of the fire and into the air, where the wind carried them out to sea.
VIAREGGIO
Now
Matelda sat at the dining room table writing a letter. She folded it and placed it inside the stationery box.