Page 100 of Promised to the Don of Naples
"Va bene, signora." And lower still: "Your mother would have loved to see you like this."
Tonio held the door of the black German car. White ribbons had been tied to the hood, level with the headlights. The nonna got in first with his help, and I got in after, gathering the eleven kilos of fabric in both hands.
The car pulled out down the Posillipo ramp.
I looked out the window, and across the bay, Vesuvius slept, dark against the morning sun.
The nonna, beside me, didn't speak. Neither did I.
The church appeared on the way down the street. White, low, old.
The guests' cars were already parked in a row along the sidewalk. Then Tonio stopped at the gate.
He got out first to come around and opened the nonna's door. She got out leaning on the cane and held her hand out to me over the seat.
"Vieni, signora."
I stepped onto the church stair.
Mamma, I thought, with Marta's ring tight on my right finger and my mother's emerald swaying at my left ear.
I'm not marrying in the dark. Thank you.
CHAPTER 31
"I always knew I'd marry, but I didn't know I'd walk in alone to meet two mothers at the altar."
Valentina ROSSI
The church smelled of incense burned for centuries.
It was a small church for such a large family. White marble on the floor, plaster angels in the corners of the ceiling, two silver candlesticks beside the altar. The priest stood on the left—Don Alessandro, eighty-two years old, a thick Neapolitan accent, spotted hands. He'd married Luca's parents in 1985.
I stopped at the back door, with Donna Beatrice adjusting the veil one last time, taking it all in from a distance.
Luca was to the right of the altar. Black three-piece suit, white shirt, black silk tie. His posture locked the way it locked when he didn't know what to do with his hands.
He'd combed his hair back. I'd never seen him with his hair combed.
He turned before he should have and looked at me.
My heart skipped a beat.
Francesca was on the altar step, on my side, in the midnight-blue dress she'd picked out herself in Palermo. A small black clutch at her waist, a cigarette tucked inside it, because Francesca couldn't go an hour without a cigarette, and I knew it.
When she saw me, she pressed her lips together, but she didn't cry. Almost.
The organ began. It wasn't the standard wedding march. It was Schubert—Ave Maria. Adelina had chosen it.
I walked.
I walked slowly, alone, no best man, no father, no brother—mine was in the south cellar of the Villa Moretti, with books and a pitcher of water, and I carried the nonna's words against my chest: he gave himself up to save your mother.
I walked the twenty-four steps of the church aisle with the two emeralds—one at my ear, the other on my right ring finger. I walked with eleven kilos of ivory fabric. I walked with Nonna Adelina in the first pew on the right, absolute black dress, cane against her knee, her black eyes fixed on me.
In the second pew on the left—empty. My father's place.
The Neapolitan society press would notice. The nonna had ordered it left empty anyway. Let them see, she'd said the night before. Let them see the dead man's place.
