‘Hey, don’t get worked up about it. It’s obvious she feels the same way.’
‘You don’t...’
His raised brows cut me off.
‘Be careful, though.’ He turns all serious on me. ‘Dani is all for encouraging me to show her friend a good time off the back of her failed marriage, but I’m not so sure she’d take too kindly to it being you Faye has her rebound fun with.’
Wait, what? Rebound? Marriage?
‘You didn’t know,’ he says, spying my confusion. ‘She hasn’t mentioned it?’
I think over our conversations, but I know she hasn’t. I’d remember something as big as that.
‘No.’
‘Yeah, well, it seems Dani feels she needs a bit of fun before she finds “The One”.’ He rolls his eyes at the label. ‘Why does there have to be a “One”? Why can’t there just be many and many?’
My laugh is more of a grunt. ‘I think you’re missing the point if you have to ask.’
‘Not at all.’ He shudders. ‘I don’t ever plan on being all pazzo d’amore.’
Crazy in love... Diavolo, no.
‘You and me both.’
We join the guests just as the folk accordionist I hired as a surprise appears, his traditional music piping through the air, and Dani gives out an excited whoop, her beaming face finding me across the cobbled ground.
‘Thank you,’ she mouths, and I acknowledge it with a nod.
Tyler scoops her up into a jig on the spot and they laugh, carefree and happy.
‘I have to say, though,’ Dante murmurs around the wine glass he’s managed to bring with him, ‘being all pazzo d’amore sure suits them.’
Another nod. I can’t deny it. We watch as Tyler swings Dani in the air and places her down in the giant wooden container which houses the pressing floor, covered in grapes. She gives a squeal as her feet sink into the fruit and Tyler’s grin widens. His eyes are fixed on his wife-to-be, alive with his love for her. I feel a strange pang deep inside, a confused mass that I don’t understand or want to examine.
‘They’re happy enough,’ I murmur, ‘for now.’
I pick up my stride as the memories threaten, memories from before my father died and after. When my parents couldn’t live together, and couldn’t live without each other, and then the choice was taken away. His death changed everything. My mother...
I remember how she looked last night at dinner, talking of him for the first time in so long, and the chill sets in.
It’s not to say it will happen to Dani and Tyler, I try to reason. God willing, they’ll live a long and happy life together.
God willing? Now I sound like Nonna.
I watch the pleasure building through the group, watch Dani and Tyler and feel their happiness permeating the air, and it eases some of the chill.
Yes, I can be happy for my sister, for them both.
But I can never go there.
‘Come on, Dante, come and join in!’ Dani beckons as Tyler climbs in, his parents too.
Harry and Lisa scoot off to the sidelines as she pulls a face at the very idea of crushing grapes with her feet. Lorenzo and Sienna help their kids in and back away to join Nonna, who is happy watching with Marianna and Antonietta at her side, each with a glass of a wine in hand, content to drink and spectate. Giovanni too.
Dante shakes his head. ‘You’re all right! I prefer grapes in my glass, not between my toes.’
‘Spoil sport.’ Dani looks to Faye. ‘You’re going to come in, aren’t you?’