Sunrise By the Sea by Jenny Colgan

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 her nonna’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 sole as 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.

‘Who got to find you?’

‘She made it here, Ma,’ said Gino, who had a slightly keener understanding of what had gone on. ‘She made it all this way.’

‘She did.’

Her mother hugged her again.

‘Although you know you could cut your hair.’

And with that, Marisa knew all was well.

Gino opened a bottle of their grandfather’s excellent Barolo, and they sat up despite the late hour and caught up. Lucia wanted to hear all over again about the little pizza restaurant in the bakery at the end of the world, was alternately horrified and delighted by her baby setting up on her own, even if she had given up a very decent nine-to-five to do it and was now wearing an apron instead of a suit.

Gino, on the other hand, was still doing marvellous things in Switzerland and Marisa was perfectly happy to hear his funny stories about his job and his friends, and even contributed one or two of her own, although she could tell they both were glancing at each other whenever she mentioned her next-door neighbour, so she stopped doing so quite abruptly. Which her mother noticed, and finally, leaned over.

‘Tell me all about him,’ she said.

And oh, the bliss of doing so. Of talking about him. Even with how things were left. She found she wanted to talk and talk about him.

‘Well,’ said Marisa. ‘I don’t know. I mean, it’s a bit nuts that he’s just next door and the only man I’ve met in, like, a year.’

Her mother nodded.

‘I can see that would be a problem.’

‘And also he’s getting over a very painful love affair.’

‘Ah.’

‘With a ballerina.’

‘Oof.’

Both Gino and her mother looked very sorry for her.

‘And has he shown any interest in you?’

‘He made me dinner,’ said Marisa. ‘Well, he made toast.’

‘Had you cooked for him already about nine thousand times?’ said Gino.

‘Shut up,’ said Marisa.

‘Is he kind?’ said her mother.

Marisa thought of how he had refused to come with her.

But then she thought of everything else about him. His patience with his pupils. Playing at Denys’s wedding. The way he had taken on teaching the twins for nothing without a second thought.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He is kind.’

‘Handsome?’

‘In his own way.’

‘Oh my God, a moose,’ said Gino.

‘SHUT YOUR FACE!’

‘It’s all right,’ said Gino cheekily, whose last boyfriend had looked like a young Robert Redford. ‘Personality is what really matters.’

‘Shut up! I like the way he looks. He’s kind of big.’

‘Moose big,’ said Gino wisely, till she giggled.

‘. . . and half-Mongolian and he has these brown eyes that just look at you and well, I don’t really see the rest.’

‘Which is probably just as well?’

It was so strange. Despite the elephant in the room and the way they kept looking at their phones in case the hospital had been in contact, they had a lovely time, and Marisa was nearly half asleep by the time they called it a night and made their way to bed; Lucia in her mother’s room, Marisa and Gino sharing twin beds in a spare room.

On her way there, yawning with tiredness, Marisa passed the laptop. It was still plugged in – she realised suddenly; of course it was still plugged in.

She pressed a button so it jumped into life. Sure enough, there she was, peering into her own home, back in Cornwall.

It felt incredibly odd, as if she had passed into another realm, was looking to find herself back there, or staring through both sides of a telescope at once.

She noticed how neat and tidy the room was; how devoid of character. It looked cold, especially in the moonlight. She glanced around her nonna’s kitchen: ancient recipe books stained and lined up; vast old glass jars full of pasta and different types of beans; flour and sugar and polenta; a huge box of tomatoes; a straining bag for making mozzarella, something Polly had suggested in the bakery and Marisa had instantly backed away from. Photos everywhere of loved ones. The sweet scent of the garden, a tiny window always open for the night air. Her grandmother had made her home exactly as she liked it. There must be a way for her to do the same with her own.

Even with Gino breathing heavily in the bed next to her, she was still asleep as soon as she crawled in under the heavy starched cotton sheets and eiderdown. Her nonna had never quite got to grips with anything as new-fangled as a duvet. Outside, she could hear cicadas squawking in the warm air, a noise as comforting as a lullaby. She meant to have a think back over the day, be mindful as Anita would say, think about what she had been through and what she had done; be thankful for what she had managed and hopeful for the trials and days ahead, even find a way to forgive Alexei.

But she couldn’t. She was asleep.