A Legacy of Secrets

Still, if it was her mother’s dream wedding, it was going to be a small one. Teresa would be there, and her aunts, and she had two tiny nieces as flower girls, though it didn’t matter to Ella. As the church doors opened, all she wanted to see was her groom.

‘Oh!’ The church was packed, all heads turning and smiling.

‘Your soon-to-be husband has been sweet talking the locals. They are all happy to see me back and want to welcome, too, my daughter.’

And no doubt they were all delighted to have a Corretti just a little beholden to them, Ella thought as she walked towards her ex-reprobate and soon-to-be husband. He looked at her very pale green dress, which had once been her aunt’s, and he smiled.

‘I wondered how you would get around that!’ Santo said as he greeted his bride, but in English, which the priest did not speak.

‘It’s for fertility,’ Ella said, because in old Sicilian tradition, a green dress was sometimes worn and certain traditions worked best at times. They had known for all of three days that there was no trouble in the fertility department and they were brimming with excitement at their secret news.

It was the most wonderful service. He smiled as she made her vows in Italian. Santo was actually nervous for once as he made his, Ella knew, because his fingers moved to his neck as if to loosen his collar. But she knew when he gave them that they came from the heart.

And now they were married.

‘We stay here,’ Santo explained as they waited in a small house close to the church. ‘Now they set up for the party.’ He pulled her onto his knee. ‘And we behave.’

‘Of course.’

And he told her about the house he had seen in Palermo, but first they were going to go and lie on that beach as she should have done ages ago.

‘But then I wouldn’t have met you.’

The Sicilians did know how to throw a good party. The streets were lined with tables. There was food and more food, and speeches and then more food, but there was talking and laughter too. Ella looked over to her mother, chatting with Teresa, and she could never, even in her wildest, dreamt of this moment either.

‘We dance now,’ Santo said.

And she had thought the wedding would just be a formality, but being held in his arms, maybe Ella did have a few romantic bones in her body, for it was the best night of her life and she looked up at him and never wanted to change him.

‘I love you.’ She said it so easily now. ‘Never change.’

‘Only for good,’ Santo answered in all seriousness. ‘But not too good...’ he added. ‘I have chosen three scripts to take on our honeymoon.’ Ella frowned as they danced their first dance. She really didn’t want to talk about work.

‘One, a hostage situation,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘There is a lot of dialogue, they talk a lot....’ She was starting to smile.

‘One, a romance,’ Santo whispered. She smothered that smile in his chest, so grateful for the imagination that had saved her as a child, as she made a new movie in her mind. ‘God, I love our work so much,’ Santo said to her ear. ‘We are never going to be bored.’

No, with Santo, you could never, ever be bored. ‘And the third?’ Ella asked, her stomach folding over on itself in want as she gazed up to him.

‘A western.’ Santo’s face was deadpan as he looked down to her, watched her start to laugh in his arms as to the visions that conjured up.

And happiness was infectious.

The party smiled and starting tapping spoons on their glasses for the lovely bride and groom to seal it with a kiss.

‘It’s tradition,’ Santo said. ‘You have no choice but to kiss me.’

No, no choice at all, but it was for more than tradition when her lips met his then.

It was simply for love.