his mother. He took her hands in his. ‘Hilde and I need to leave now.’
‘Are you taking her home?’
‘Yes. I will bring her back soon.’
‘Does Ignazio know?’ This time, as Silvia said the name, something clouded on her face. Her voice was confused as she asked, ‘Is he in prison?’
‘No.’
‘But soon,’ she said decisively. She placed a shaking hand to her son’s cheek. ‘He will go there soon, Gabriele. You promised me.’
He kissed the hand then kissed her on both cheeks and her forehead. ‘I promise you, Ignazio Ricci is paying for his sins.’
Silvia insisted on seeing them out. Leaning heavily on her nurse’s arm, she waved and said, ‘Goodbye, Veronica.’
She didn’t say goodbye to Gabriele.
Shaken to her core and feeling as if she’d just spent two hours on an emotional roller coaster with no brakes, Elena walked like a zombie with Gabriele back to his car, where his driver was waiting for them, leaning against the car smoking a cigarette.
Nothing was said until they crossed the county line and she quietly asked, ‘Who’s Veronica?’
‘My mother’s sister. She died ten years ago.’
‘Is she always like this?’
‘Yes. Some days are better than others but she rarely knows who I am any more.’ He gave a deep sigh. ‘She’s lost to me now. Sometimes I struggle to remember how she was before.’
Impulse made her take his hand and squeeze it. However difficult she’d found it, she could only imagine how hard it had been for him. This was his mother regarding the man she’d given birth to as a stranger. It had only been at the end of their visit that she’d been able to grasp who he was for a few fleeting moments. And their talk of prison...that had been about her father. Silvia, in her one lucid moment, had asked if Ignazio was in prison.
Gabriele’s eyes were dull but his lips curved a little as he said a quiet, ‘Thank you for being so kind to her.’
A lump formed in her throat. ‘I’m just so sorry that she is the way she is.’
His smile was rueful. ‘Until the dementia set in she was the liveliest woman you could meet. She had an opinion about everything.’
‘Do you see her much?’
‘As much as I can. When I was released from prison I wanted to bring her back to Italy to live with me there but the doctors said it would be too distressing for her.’ He shrugged a massive shoulder. ‘I visit every couple of weeks and make sure to stay a weekend every month.’
‘Don’t feel guilty,’ she said, picking up on his tone. ‘You’ve got a global business to run. It can’t be easy juggling it all.’
‘It would be easier if I had siblings—there would be more of us to pitch in and spend time with her. But she has Loretta who lives in during the week and a weekend nurse. And she has many friends who take it in turns to visit and keep her company. I’m lucky that I can afford to bring the help to her rather than put her in a home.’
‘And she’s very lucky to have you.’
Feeling a growing tightness in her chest, she carefully moved her hand away and placed it on her lap.
She didn’t want to feel empathy for him but how could she not? When all was said and done, Gabriele was human and this was his mother trapped in a past that had long gone.
But she shouldn’t feel that she wanted to wrap him in her arms and hold him close, to smooth his hair and stroke his skin.
‘It was good of you to pretend to be your mother. That couldn’t have been easy.’
She gave a jerk of her head. ‘When you said they’d been close friends... I hadn’t realised how close they were. And I had no idea I’d been to your family home—I didn’t know I’d even been to America. I thought the first time I came here was a few years ago.’
‘Before we moved to America our mothers were inseparable. Our two families were incredibly close.’ A smile tugged at his lips. ‘I remember your christening.’
‘You were there?’
‘I think I was nine or ten. It was shortly before we emigrated, which is probably why I remember it. Did you know your father is my godfather?’
‘No!’ The word came out as a gasp.
‘And my father is Marco’s godfather, and my mother godmother to Franco,’ he said, referring to Elena’s two eldest brothers. His eyes were curious. ‘Did you really not know this?’
She bit into her lip. ‘It seems there’s a lot I don’t know.’
Gabriele stared closely, certain he could see tears brimming in her eyes. ‘Are you feeling all right?’
She nodded then shook her head. ‘Your mother...her mistaking me for my mother... That’s the first time I’ve heard anyone refer to my mother as anything but an angel in heaven. In the Ricci world a woman is either a whore or a Madonna. To my father and my brothers, she’s a Madonna without flaws but she liked red wine!’
A tear rolled down her cheek. She wiped it away.
‘I didn’t know she liked red wine. I knew our fathers were friends but I didn’t know our families were such good friends too. We spent Christmas with you.’
Now it was his turn to take her hand and hold it tight. It felt cold. ‘Our two families were like a real family from before even I was born, but everything changed when your mother died.’
‘In what way?’
‘It all stopped. When we first moved to America you and your family made plenty of visits. Your father was establishing his business here and I know your parents seriously considered emigrating too. But then your mother died and all the closeness was lost. All talk of emigrating stopped. Your father still visited us when he was in the country but the coming together of the two families...it just didn’t happen anymore.’
‘You visited us,’ she said dully, shaking her head. ‘I remember you and your dad staying at our house a couple of times. But that was so long ago.’
‘Elena?’ he asked when she drifted into silence.
She blinked. ‘What you just said, I didn’t know any of it.’
He reached out to finger a lock of her hair. ‘Do you see why I loathe your father so much? We were family. I loved him. He didn’t just set up my father, his oldest and closest friend, but he set up the man who had been like a brother to him. He let me, his own godson, go to prison. He knew my father had a heart condition but he didn’t care. He let my father die.’
Her head shook slowly from side to side. ‘He didn’t,’ she whispered. ‘He wouldn’t.’
‘He did. And you know he did. You’ve
