As everyone gets up the following morning, we slowly gather in the garden. Someone has left pastries and coffee again, but it’s not Stefano because he and Alice have yet to appear.
‘Remember our first night here?’ Mum says, her eyes closed, sun shining on her face.
Mum was already up when I came downstairs, Elyse and Leonie joining us not long after.
‘It was a full moon and we made a wish?’ Mum says, opening her eyes and shielding them from the sun.
I nod.
‘What did you wish for?’ Mum asks me.
‘I wished for you to be happy again,’ I say.
Elyse groans. ‘I wished that Robbie was in love with me.’
‘You knew he wasn’t?’ Mum asks her.
Elyse nods, smiling a little. ‘I was pretty sure he wasn’t, yeah. And if I couldn’t just, you know, force him to be, I thought wishing might work.’
Mum gives Elyse a sad smile and drops an arm around her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s okay,’ Elyse says. ‘I mean, it feels shitty right now, but why would I want to be with someone who doesn’t want to be with me?’
‘I wished I could tell you about Gia,’ Leonie says, her voice small. ‘About Gia and about wanting to study medicine and about wanting to have a year off in Italy first.’ She laughs a little. ‘All my secrets.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Mum says again, reaching out and grasping Leonie’s hands. ‘And we can talk about all of that, okay? No more secrets.’
‘No more secrets,’ Leonie says, nodding.
‘What did you wish for?’ I ask Mum.
‘Same as you really,’ she says lightly.
‘To be happy again?’ I ask.
She shakes her head. ‘Not quite. But to be happy that I’m still here. Even without him.’
‘Fuck,’ Elyse says.
Mum pushes at her, half laughing, but my throat is burning with tears and I’m scared that if I start to cry I’ll end up sobbing.
‘At work … I don’t miss him,’ Mum says, reaching out and taking my hand, keeping hold of Leonie’s with her other hand. She takes a deep breath and Elyse leans against her shoulder. ‘Because he was never there, I suppose. And because I’m so busy. And people know me for me. I can go hours and hours without thinking about him at all. At home it’s … harder.’
Elyse nods. ‘I think … I think it’s sort of like what I wanted from Robbie. I wanted him to take me away from it.’ She almost laughs, shaking her head. ‘I mean, I know he couldn’t, not really. I can’t get away from it, I’ll never be able to get away from it. But when I was with him, I didn’t think about it so much. And I almost felt like … if I could start my own life, my own adult life, my own home … it wouldn’t hurt so much.’
‘At L’Angelo,’ I say, ‘I couldn’t think of a story about Dad that you didn’t already know.’
‘That’s okay,’ Mum says.
‘No, I’ve got one now,’ I tell her. ‘We used to play “Name That Tune” in the car – he’d hum a bit of music and I had to guess it and then we’d swap. Did you all do that too?’
Leonie shakes her head. ‘I never did that.’
‘I think that was just you,’ Elyse says.
I smile. ‘Oh, and also once we went to Morrisons and bought a box of Magnums and we ate them all on the way home. Dad made me hide the box in next door’s bin.’
Elyse laughs. ‘Oh, we did that too. But with Tunnock’s Teacakes.’
Leonie puts her hand up. ‘Bag of Babybel.’
‘Oh my god,’ Mum says, laughing. ‘He was terrible.’
‘The worst,’ I say, leaning my head against her shoulder.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you, any of you,’ Mum says. ‘I just didn’t know how.’
I curl my fingers around hers and it feels so familiar but, at the same time, I can’t remember the last time I did it. I can’t remember the last time I held her hand.
‘I felt at first like I needed to put on my own oxygen mask,’ she continues. ‘And then I’d be able to help you girls. But I just … I couldn’t seem to get to a point where I felt like I was breathing on my own. And so I just left you all …’
‘You didn’t leave,’ I say. Even though she hasn’t been home much. We always knew she was coming back.
‘I didn’t leave physically, no. But I wasn’t there for you. For any of you. And I regret it so much. I’m so, so sorry.’
All this time, I’ve felt like I had a rock inside me, like it was weighing me down and hollowing me out at the same time. And I finally feel like it’s starting to crack and to crumble.
‘That morning …’ Mum starts and I flinch, jerking back in my chair. She reaches for my hand with her other hand, so she’s holding one of mine with both of hers and she rubs my palm with her thumb. ‘I’m sorry –’
‘You don’t have to –’ I start, but she shakes her head, sadly.
‘I do. I need to tell you how sorry I am. That I didn’t help you. That I just left you to it. But I was … it was such a shock. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know where to start. I should have been stronger.’
I’m scared that if I try to speak I’ll sob, so instead I shake my head. I manage to whisper, ‘It’s okay.’
‘It’s not,’ Mum says. ‘And I’m sorry.’
‘I just miss him so much,’ I say, tears rolling down my face.
‘Me too,’ Mum says, letting go of my hand and wiping my face. ‘Me too, Milly.’
Leonie comes round from the other side of the table, and drapes herself over me and Mum, pressing her wet face into my neck. Elyse hugs Mum from the other side, grabbing a handful of my T-shirt.
‘We’ve still got each other,’ Mum says. ‘We’ll always have each other.’
Eventually, everyone joins us in the garden and there’s an odd atmosphere – it’s that in-between time when you know something is about to be over, but it’s not over yet. So you can’t quite let go, but you also can’t hold on too tight.
Luke comes outside and sits on the chair next to me, running his knuckles down the back of my hand. I let go of the chair and tangle my fingers with his. If I’m going to hold on to something, I’d rather it was him.
‘Can I call you when we get home?’ he says, his mouth close to my ear.
‘You’d better,’ I say, turning to press a quick kiss to the corner of his lips.
‘No PDAs, you two!’ Leonie shouts from the other side of the garden, where she’s talking to Alice and Stefano.
‘That’s a bit rich coming from the love-bite queen of Positano,’ Elyse calls back.
‘That’s a love bite?’ Mum says, scandalised. ‘Oh, Leonie!’
I take my phone out and Luke puts his number in before ringing himself so he’s got mine. When he hands me my phone back, I notice there’s a WhatsApp notification from Jules. My chest feels tight – what if she doesn’t want to be friends any more? What if I left it too long? What if she’s pissed off at me? But her message says, ‘I miss you too! So much. Are you at home?’ I blink away tears as I tell her that I’m in Rome and I add again that I’m sorry. I can see straight away that she’s replying and I hold my breath until her message appears: ‘Don’t worry. I understand. Love you. Come for Friday tea as soon as you’re home. We all miss you so much.’
I put my phone back in my pocket and run my fingers around the edge of the pot containing Dad’s ashes.
‘You okay?’ Luke says.
I nod. ‘I just … I want to do a thing and it’s a bit weird and I don’t know how to ask.’
Luke waggles his eyebrows at me. ‘Is it the hard hat thing, because I –’
‘Oh my god! No!’ I take the pot out of my pocket and hold it up.
‘Is that Dad?’ Elyse says, coming to sit down on the other side of me.
I nod. ‘I want to sprinkle him here.’
Leonie crosses the garden too, sitting down on Elyse’s other side. ‘I poured mine into the ocean in Positano.’
I lean forward to look at her. ‘Did you?’
She nods. ‘I felt like it was time. It was beautiful.’
I close my eyes and listen to the leaves whispering above me. Luke squeezes my hand.
‘I’m keeping mine,’ Elyse says. ‘For luck.’
I laugh. ‘Is it windy enough, do you think? I don’t want any, you know, blowback.’
Elyse licks her index finger and holds it up to the air. ‘I think as long as you get the direction right.’
‘Right,’ I say.
‘And maybe stand somewhere high,’ Leonie adds.
‘Okay.’
Luke drags one of the patio tables over into the garden and I step on a chair and then up onto the table. I look down at the faces of my family, all looking back up at me. I don’t have anything to hold on to, but Luke’s hand is wrapped around one of my ankles. I unscrew the top of the pot and put the lid in my pocket, then I hold the pot up over my head. For a few seconds nothing happens, but then the wind catches and the ashes start to swirl up into the air. They looked grey in the pot, but they’re silver in the early morning sunlight.
I close my eyes and tip my face up to the sun.