Henry turned and saw his bride creeping nervously down the aisle and smiled. But there was no tenderness softening his face. It was the smile of a man taking delivery of a smart new car; not that of a groom melting at the sight of his beloved bride. As she arrived at his side and her father placed her hand in his, Henry looked smug; he approved. The vicar announced the hymn. As the congregation struggled through “Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer,” Lilia could feel the panic bubbling inside her like jam in a saucepan about to boil over.
Lilia always used the best china tea things on a Saturday, and the lemon-curd tarts always perched on a glass cake stand. The sandwiches were ready and the kettle had boiled, ready to warm the pot. It was their own little tea party and they had been doing it since her mother died. Today Lilia had a present for her.
A hush is a dangerous thing. Silence is solid and dependable, but a hush is expectant, like a pregnant pause; it invites mischief, like a loose thread begging to be pulled. The vicar started it, poor chap. He asked for it. When Lilia was a little girl during the war, they had a house in London. There was an Anderson shelter in the garden, but they didn’t always use it. Sometimes they just hid under the table; madness, she knew, but you had to be there to understand it. When the doodlebugs were raining down, the thing they all feared most was not the bangs and the crashes and the earsplitting explosions, but the hush. The hush meant that that bomb was for you.
“If any person here present knows of any reason why . . .”
The vicar launched the bomb. There was a hush, and Lilia dropped it.
As the bride swept back down the aisle alone, her face was lit by a beaming smile of relief. She looked truly radiant.
Eliza had given him back the ring. But the ruby had fallen out on the day of the wedding and they never found it. Henry was livid. Lilia imagined his face the color of the lost stone. They should be in Marbella now. Eliza would have preferred Sorrento, but it wasn’t smart enough for Henry. In the end, he took his mother with him instead. And Eliza was coming to tea with Lilia. On her seat was her present. Nestled in silver tissue paper and tied with a pale blue ribbon was the Schiaparelli. He never loved her anyway.
Anthony picked up the framed photograph from Therese’s dressing table and gazed at her image. It had been taken on the day of their engagement. Outside, lightning crazed the charcoal sky. From the window of her bedroom, he stared out at the rose garden, where the first plump raindrops were splashing onto velvet petals. He had never seen Therese wearing the dress, but over the long years without her he had often tried to picture their wedding day. Therese had been so excited. She had chosen flowers for the church and music for the ceremony. And, of course, she had bought the dress. The invitations had been sent. He imagined himself nervously waiting at the altar for her arrival. He would have been so happy and so proud of his beautiful bride. She would have been late, of that there was no doubt. She would have made quite an entrance in her cornflower silk chiffon gown; an unusual choice for a wedding dress, but then, she was an unusual woman. Extraordinary. She had said that it matched the color of her engagement ring. Now the dress was shrouded in tissue paper and buried in a box in the attic. He couldn’t bear to look at it, nor part with it. He sat down on the edge of the bed and buried his face in his hands. He had still been in church on the day that should have been their wedding day. It was the day of Therese’s funeral. And even now, he could almost hear her saying that at least his new suit had been put to good use.
Laura threw her keys onto the hall table and kicked off her shoes. Her flat was hot and stuffy and she opened the window in the poky sitting room before pouring herself a large glass of white wine, icy cold from the fridge. She hoped that the wine would soothe her disheveled mind. Anthony had told her so many things that she hadn’t known, and the knowledge had swept through her head like a wild wind through a field of barley, leaving it mussed and disarranged. She could picture him waiting there all those years ago, checking his watch and searching for Therese’s face in the crowd or a glimpse of her powder-blue coat. She could feel the sickening panic blooming in his stomach like a drop of ink in a bowl of water as the minutes ticked by and still she didn’t come. But she could never know the blood-freezing, gut-twisting, breath-choking anguish he must have felt when he followed the wailing ambulance and found her crumpled and dead on the pavement. He had remembered every detail; the girl in the bright blue hat who had smiled at him on the corner of Great Russell Street; 11:55 A.M. on his watch when he first heard the siren; the smell of burning from the bakery; and the rows of cakes and pastries in the window. He could remember the sound of the traffic, the hushed voices, the white blanket that covered her face, and that even as the greatest darkness fell on him, the merciless sun kept shining. The details of Therese’s death once shared, forged an intimacy between Anthony and Laura that both honored and unsettled her. But why now? Why, after almost six years, had he told her now? And there was something else, she was sure. Something that had been left unsaid. He had stopped before he had finished.
Anthony swung his legs onto the bed and lay back staring at the ceiling, remembering the cherished nights he had spent there with Therese. He turned onto his side and formed his arms in an empty embrace, willing himself to remember when the space was filled with her warm, living flesh. Outside, the thunder cracked and growled as the silent tears he so rarely allowed streamed down his cheeks. He was finally exhausted by a lifetime of guilt and grieving. But he could not regret his life without Therese. He would a thousand times rather have spent it with her, but to give up when she died would have been the greatest wrong; to throw away the gift that had been snatched from her would have been an act of appalling ingratitude and cowardice. And so he had found a way to carry on living and writing. The dull ache of dreadful loss had never left him, but at least his life had a purpose which gave him a precious, if precarious, hope for what might follow it. Death was certain. Reunion with Therese was not. But now, at last, he dared to hope.
He had spoken to Laura that afternoon, but he still hadn’t told her that he was leaving. He meant to, but one look at her worried face and the words had dissolved in his mouth. Instead, he had told her about Therese and she had wept for them both. He had never seen her cry before. It wasn’t at all what he had intended. He wasn’t looking for sympathy or, God forbid, pity. He was just trying to give her a reason for what he was about to do. But at least her tears were testament to the fact that he had made the right choice. She was able to feel the pain and joy of others and give them value. Contrary to the impression that she often gave, she wasn’t a mere spectator of other people’s lives; she had to engage. Her capacity to care was instinctive. It was her greatest asset and her greatest vulnerability; she had been burned and he knew it had left a mark. She had never told him, but he knew anyway. She had made a different life, grown a new skin, but somewhere there was a hidden patch, still red and tight and puckered, and sore to the touch. Anthony stared at the photograph that lay on the pillow next to him. There were no smudges on the glass or frame. Laura saw to that. She cared for every part and piece of the house with a pride and tenderness that could only be born from love. Anthony saw all of this in Laura and knew that he had chosen well. She understood that everything had a value far greater than money; it had a story, a memory, and most importantly a unique place in the life of Padua. For Padua was more than just a house; it was a safe place to heal. A sanctuary for licking wounds, drying tears, and rebuilding dreams—however long it took. However long it took a broken person to be strong enough to face the world again. And he hoped that by his choosing her to finish his task, it might set Laura free. For he knew she was in exile at Padua—comfortable and self-imposed, but an exile nonetheless.