“Like I said, I know the right thing.”
“Bruno is getting paperwork ready for me to remove my hold on her finances.”
Bastian nods. “Good.”
We fall silent, each of us lost in our thoughts.
In a way, I wish Tilbury’s treatment had been more thorough. That she wouldn’t ever remember that year of her life. But she has, and she’ll need to process. I have no doubt she can and will. If not for herself, then for Emma.
The patio door opens, and I turn, expecting one of the staff, but am surprised to find Vittoria walking toward us. She’s barefoot, wearing one of my T-shirts, her hair loose and wild down her back.
She’s fucking beautiful to watch. Like something not quite of this earth. Not quite human. Or maybe too human. She is self-assured. She knows she is damaged, but she doesn’t hide it or try to be something else. She is our Dandelion, a little strange, a little lonely maybe, a lot sad, but ours.
“Coffee?” I ask as she comes to settle on the grass at our feet.
She shakes her head and looks over her shoulder at the view. “It’s beautiful here.”
I’m not sure my brother or I can drag our eyes from her. “Emma’s on her way,” I tell her. They should be landing any minute now.
“Already?” She seems surprised.
I nod.
“Really?”
“Really.”
She smiles, but then her eyes darken. “Lucien,” she says.
“He’s dead.”
“Did he suffer?”
“He suffered.”
“Good.” She picks at the grass before turning her gaze to mine. “I want to ask you something,” she says, clearly anxious.
“What is it?”
She worries her lip with her teeth and doesn’t speak until I see a drop of crimson from where she bites through skin. “I want to bury my father properly.”
“Dandelion—”
She puts up a hand to stop me. “He made a lot of poor choices. A lot.” Bastian snorts and she gives him a look but turns back to me. “But when it came to me, I think he was trying.”
Bastian glances at me and I at him. She shifts her attention to the grass again.
“He was afraid of my grandfather. My grandfather thought him weak. And I think ultimately, he was afraid of Lucien,” she finally adds then turns her gaze up to us. “What he did was wrong. He shouldn’t have let Lucien hurt your sister. He should have done more then. But he was punished through me.”
“Dandelion,” Bastian starts when her eyes fill with tears.
She shakes her head. “You don’t have to forgive him. I’m not asking that. But he was my father, and he was capable of love, and I think he regretted a lot of things.” Her forehead furrows and she looks at each of us in turn. She’s not done yet, I think, she’s just trying to muster her courage to say what she needs to say. “He behaved like a coward and so many of us paid the price for that cowardice. You have every right to hate him. I know that and I know I’m asking a lot, but I want to rebury him. Do it properly. Give him some peace in death because I don’t think he had any in life.”
Bastian stands, takes a deep breath in and exhales slowly. She stands too, captures his hands in hers when she thinks he’s going to walk away.
“Stay,” she says. “Please.”
“You should get dressed. You’ll want to be ready when Emma gets here,” he tells her.
“Please,” she pleads, looking first up at him, then at me.
My cell phone buzzes with a text and get to my feet to dig it out of my pocket. Saved by the text. “Go get dressed, Vittoria. They’re in the car on their way.”
“But my father—”
“Later,” I say after a glance at my brother. “Get ready for Emma. We’ll talk later.”
34
VITTORIA
My reunion with Emma is more than I could have asked for and better than I imagined it could be. She walks toward the house cautiously at first, with her little pink schoolbag on her back, holding her stuffed pig in one hand and the other tucked safely into Nora’s. But the instant she sees me when I throw the door open, she stops, her eyes growing huge with surprise, then happiness. She drops Nora’s hand and charges toward me, hurling herself into my arms and nearly toppling me.
“Emma! Oh, Emma!” I cry into her hair, smelling a vanilla scented shampoo I don’t recognize, hugging her tiny body to mine as she hugs me with all her force for so long, it brings tears to my eyes to think of what this child, this five-year-old child has gone through, has seen. The evil she knows exists in the world she lives in.
I draw back, wiping my eyes and nose and look at her face, pushing her hair away. I look into her eyes and I’m so happy that I don’t see Lucien in them. I see nothing of him. Only Emma, my sweet little sister. And I hug her again, lifting her with me as I stand.
Nora joins us having picked up Emma’s discarded backpack. She smiles kindly.
“She’s such a good girl,” she says to me as she rubs Emma’s back. “Like Hannah was. So good.”
I look at the older woman for a moment and see her sadness. And I understand the brothers’ hesitation to grant me my wish to rebury my father. He destroyed their lives. Separate from what Lucien did, my father was just as guilty to cover it up, to try to bury it. He could have stopped it, but he chose a different path and his choices caused too much harm.
I reach one arm to Nora and pull her into our hug too and she so easily hugs me back. I think maybe, just maybe, we can start to heal now. All of us. I don’t think the damage will ever be repaired wholly. There will always be cracks. But Bastian is right. Those cracks make us strong and they can be beautiful in their own way.
“Vittoria,” I hear in my ear and blink away my tears because it’s Emma. It’s Emma’s sweet little voice that I haven’t heard in too long. So long that I’d forgotten it.
I draw back and set her down, crouching to be at eye level.
“Yes, sweetheart?” I ask, trying not to cry.
“Vittoria,” she says again. Then points behind me. “Bastian. Amadeo.” Then to Nora. “Nana.”
Nana.
I don’t correct her.
“You, little one, need to learn to put your shoes on the right feet,” Bastian says, coming to sweep her up. Amadeo ruffles her hair, and I watch them with her. My two dragons are so sweet to this child as Bastian slides one shoe off and makes a point of sniffing it, then pretending to pass out, only to have her giggling. The sound of her laughter grows as he tickles her and does it again with her other shoe, and it’s the most wonderful thing.
“Happy?” Amadeo asks, startling me. I didn’t realize he’d come to stand right behind me. He’s holding his mother’s hand in one of his and sets the other against my lower back.
I turn my face up to his, kiss his cheek. “Happy,” I say.
We spend the whole day swimming in the pool, then playing on the beach, then back to the pool until I put an exhausted Emma to bed at a little before eight at night. We've had dinner, and the brothers are upstairs with their mother. She’s exhausted, too, and I didn’t realize that the man and woman traveling with them were a doctor and nurse.