Page 105 of Sunrise By the Sea

‘Course you are.’

And the girl bobbed on her way up the line, as Marisa remembered a bottle of water in her bag and, gratefully, took a long pull, then sagged against the wall.

The long queue of people had mostly disappeared, everyone had got onto the plane, and she was about the last to go, a few people hanging around. She stood up and looked at the queue, and made a decision.

Chapter Sixty-four

It was after midnight when the plane landed in Italy, but the air was still warm in the airport. Gino was standing in the arrivals hall looking worried. When he saw her his face widened into a huge relieved smile.

‘SIS! I didn’t think you would . . .’

‘I had help,’ said Marisa, thinking about it. ‘I had a lot of help. Really. A lot.’

‘And you did.’

Marisa thought back to the person locked inside her room at Caius’ like a cell.

‘Yes,’ she said. Then: ‘How is she?’

‘You can’t go in till morning,’ said Gino. ‘But . . . she had a stroke, Mars. It’s not looking good. You know, she’s really, really old.’

‘Yes, but she’s . . . she’s so . . .’

She had been about to say that Nonna was so young, but of course she wasn’t. Marisa found it hard to believe that she had ever been young.

‘She’s so . . . spirited.’

‘Is she?’ said Gino, who had a very strong memory of being sternly told off when he once put his fingers in a pudding. ‘I don’t know if I buy that whole “illness is a battle” thing,’ he said.

‘I know,’ said Marisa. ‘But sometimes it feels that way. How’s Mum?’ she added, as casually as she was able as they walked to the rental car.

Gino snorted. ‘Are you kidding? Desperate to have her girl home. Desperate.’

But she still felt very nervous.

The tiny house was just as she remembered it, with the same squeaky gate and weeds overgrowing the little crazy paving path. But the herbs were growing strong and, well, it was all Marisa could do not to stop and check for weeds and take them a little water; the tomatoes, she knew, would be pushing through the green stage in the suntrap back garden. In the warm night, everything was releasing the scents of hernonna’s beautiful garden into the world; deep lavender, herbs, rocket. It was a scent that went right to the very base of her brain, took Marisa back to being very small indeed, and she was constantly surprised to find things at shoulder height she had expected to have to reach up for.

Lucia was half-dozing in the little sitting room in front of the television showing, inevitably,Un posto al soleas Marisa came in.

Marisa felt once again the shame go through her; how she had rebuffed her mother’s concern, brushed off her need for her, ruined family meals and holidays and many other things her mother had had planned for them as a family after the tough times. She deserved to be rebuked, she knew; she had been ill, but illness had made her selfish and made things so hard between them.

One turn from her mother – looking very like her own mother, suddenly, her face relaxed from sleep – put paid to all of that.

‘Mia bambina,’ said her mother, still half-asleep, almost disbelieving, stirring in the chair. Tears sprang into her eyes immediately.

‘You came! You came home! You came!’

She stood up and pretended to poke Marisa firmly, even as she engulfed her in an embrace far larger than her petite height.

‘For me you don’t come. But for my mother?!’

Marisa understood, though, what she meant. It was forgiveness; it was a benediction. She draped herself over her mother’s familiar shoulders, let herself soften and be swept up in her embrace.

‘My darling girl,’ said her mother again. ‘We thought we’d lost you.’

‘I was lost,’ said Marisa.

Her mother sat them down and pulled back, looking into her daughter’s face.

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