Our Kind of Love (11 page)

Sonia waved a hand. ‘I thought I’d try something different. It’s Chinese. A stir-fry.’

Paolo, Nonna, Luca, Grace and Anna peered suspiciously into the dish.

‘Is that brown rice?’ Grace asked sheepishly.

‘Yes, it’s brown rice,’ Sonia answered. ‘I read in a magazine that it’s much healthier for you. Your father could do to lose a few kilos. Since he retired he’s been getting fat.’

‘Hey,’ Paolo said with a grin, leaning back and patting his stomach. ‘I thought you liked something to hold on to.’

‘Dad!’ Grace and Anna shrieked in unison. Sonia passed a serving spoon to Luca and he lumped a great dollop of rice, meat and vegetables on his plate.

Anna stared despondently into the wok. She felt tears well up and tried to blink them away. If ever she’d needed comfort food and the familiarity of all that she knew, it was tonight.

She chugged down the last of her wine and without even asking, Paolo had the bottle in hand, filling it. First, her mother at the door. Now, her dad with the wine. She knew she was loved, felt it in the depths of her soul. She hoped it was safe to tell them. To hell with it. She placed her glass carefully at the top of her plate, picked up her fork and tinkled it against the glass, rather like people did at weddings when they wanted the bride and groom to kiss.

‘Everyone, I have some news.’ It took a few moments for the chatter and eating to stop and silence to descend over the table.

Her mother dropped her cutlery with a clatter and slapped her palms to her cheeks. ‘Oh my God.’ Sonia’s face was so expectant and she appeared to be on the verge of delirious tears. Oh no.

‘Mum wait—’

‘Are you pregnant?’

Anna felt a sharp pain behind her ribs and pressed her fingers there to stop it. This was going to be so much harder than she thought.

‘Well?’ Grace demanded, giving Anna a forceful nudge with her elbow. ‘Are you?’

Anna watched the steam rise from the wok. She grasped St Christopher and began turning it in her fingers. She’d just that second realised that their dreams of being great-grandparents, grandparents, aunt and uncle had been shattered, too. For all intents and purposes, Paolo and Sonia Morelli, once again, had three single children. Not a grandchild in sight in any of their futures.

‘No, I’m not pregnant.’

‘Oh.’ Sonia’s shoulders slumped and she dropped her eyes. She distractedly began fiddling with her cutlery. ‘It’s just that, you’re not getting any younger and you’ve been married so many years now and I thought that—’

‘Ma.’ Anna knew it had come out angry and she instantly regretted it. Wishing it wouldn’t make it true.

‘I was just saying that—’

Anna held her breath. ‘Please, let me say something. There’s something really important I have to tell you.’

‘Have you got cancer?’ Her mother asked in a shocked whisper, one hand clamped to her chest as if to stop her heart from leaping out of it.

‘What?’

‘Ma,’ Grace said, ‘She hasn’t got cancer.’ Then she looked at her sister. ‘Have you?’

‘For God’s sake. Stop everyone.’ If it wasn’t so ridiculous, Anna would have laughed herself into a giggling silence. At least now divorce might appear to be a softer blow than cancer.

‘I’m not pregnant. I’m not sick. I don’t have cancer.’

‘What is it then?’ her mother asked.

Anna tried to speak but the words stopped.
This it is
, she thought.
This moment could be the end of everything
. But she had to do it, had to tell them now.

‘What I have is a husband who wants a divorce.’

The only sound in the room was a muttered prayer from her mother. Anna found the strength from deep down inside to look at each of them in turn. Luca’s mouth, full of stir-fry, gaped open in shock and his eyes darted to his father. Tears welled in Grace’s eyes and she was wiping them away with the sleeve of her shirt. Their mother had turned white and was crossing herself. Nonna kept chewing but regarded her granddaughter with narrowed eyes. Anna felt the weight of her revelation like a cardiac arrest; the pounding of her heart in her temples and behind her eyes, in her fingertips and behind her breasts.

Then there were gasps from around the table, so loud that Anna was surprised there was any oxygen left in the room. At least that’s how it felt to her because she could barely breathe.

They all spoke at once.

‘He what?’ said Luca.

‘When did this happen?’ said Paolo.

‘I wondered why he wasn’t here tonight,’ said Sonia.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ said Grace.

Anna endured the onslaught with a tightness in her jaw and nausea swirling in her stomach. Five faces stared at her, the faces of the people she loved most in the world. She knew that telling them would break their hearts as it had done her own.

‘Anna,’ Nonna’s raspy voice held everyone’s attention. ‘A divorce?’ A supporting hand was on each of her shoulders. Her parents.

Anna lifted her wine glass and announced, with a quivering voice. ‘Yes. He says I’m not the kind of wife he wants and …’ She decided to tell them almost everything. ‘And he’s already been out there with plenty of other women trying to find a new one.’

There. She’d said it. It was done. The heartbreaking truth was out there and Anna felt the burden lift, as if a tumour had been excised from her skin.

‘No!’ Grace shouted.

‘The bastard!’ Luca growled.

‘I never liked him,’ Sonia murmured.

‘How could he do that to my daughter?’ Paolo said.

There wasn’t a dry eye around the table. It was real. There was to be no more keeping secrets from her family. Except one that involved a one-night stand and quite possible the best sex of her life.

She could finally breathe.

Looking around her, seeing the concern and love in their eyes, Anna wondered why she’d been so scared. Her fear had more to do with her than it did them. Up until now, she’d been the perfect first child, the daughter who sailed through school, blitzed university, married the perfect man and had the perfect job. Now she carried the scar of her first failure.

‘He’s a prick.’ Luca puffed up his chest and trained narrowed eyes on Anna. She knew he was upset if he was using language like that in front of Nonna. He looked like he might kill Alex if ever he ran into him again.

‘Well,’ Paolo announced with a fist firmly planted on the table. ‘He will never … ever … be welcome in this house again.’ Then there were some colourfully descriptive Italian swear words she recognised but barely ever heard from her father.

‘Thanks Dad. He’s not welcome in my house, either,’ Anna said.

Sonia hugged her daughter and Grace leapt up from the other side of the table and threw her arms around her big sister.

‘I wish you’d told me,’ Grace whispered. ‘I’ve been so worried about you.’

‘I’ll be all right. I will.’

‘Anna …’ was all her mother could manage, wiping the tears from her cheeks.

‘Thanks, Mum.’ Anna squeezed her hand. ‘I’m going to see about getting a divorce and making it final.’ Her family had stood by her. Of course they had. Why had she ever doubted their love? She didn’t know how she’d be able to cope if they hadn’t.

‘Get an Italian lawyer, Anna,’ her dad instructed. ‘Tony and Nita’s son, Vince. He’s a lawyer.’

‘Dad, he does insolvencies. I need a family lawyer.’

‘He’ll know someone. He’ll know someone Italian.’

‘Okay,’ Anna conceded. She didn’t have the energy to discuss it anymore. ‘So, let’s eat this Chinese, shall we? It smells delicious, Ma.’

Sonia stood abruptly, reached over and grabbed the handles of the wok. ‘No wonder you wanted pasta. What was I thinking? Give me ten minutes.’

CHAPTER
14

‘You could at least pretend you’re interested, grumpy guts.’ Lizzie whispered the admonition through narrowed lips as she elbowed her brother. He’d been trying really hard to summon up some enthusiasm for Ry and Julia’s honeymoon pictures.

With the mood Joe was in, he wanted to delete every bloody photo, so the best thing to do was simply to say nothing. Other people were entitled to their fun and their memories. He just didn’t want to think about honeymoons and weddings. Especially weddings.

‘Here, check out this shot of St Mark’s Square.’ Julia leaned over the coffee table and handed her iPad to Joe. He allowed a cursory glance before passing it right on to Lizzie, who was sitting next to him on the white leather sofa.

He had a grump on. So what if all the photos looked amazing. Julia and Ry had had an incredible month-long honeymoon. The problem was, Joe couldn’t let himself do any more thinking about anything Italian. Not its monuments. Its fashion. Its history. Its obsession with the world game. Its food. Because all of those things reminded him of one woman, one particularly sexy Italian-Australian woman.

One married Italian-Australian woman he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about.

Joe been doing his best to play the part of polite house-sitter since Ry and Julia had arrived home two hours before. He’d grown quite fond of his spot on Ry and Julia’s sofa. It was a place he’d become rather familiar with in the three weeks they’d been away and he was grateful for the favour they’d done him. He’d asked the obligatory questions one asked travellers, polite enquiries regarding the flight, the weather, the service, weren’t they glad to be home, blah blah blah. So, when Lizzie and Dan had walked through the door thirty minutes ago, he found it almost too much to bear to have to listen to the whole conversation over again. It was already old news. Yesterday’s chip wrappers.

‘Doesn’t Rome look incredible?’ Lizzie swiped her finger over the iPad screen to reveal the next stunning scenic shot.

Joe noticed Dan hovering behind her, a beer in his hand. He leaned over, placing a hand on Lizzie’s shoulder.

‘We could go to Italy if you want to,’ he said quietly.

Lizzie looked up at Dan. Joe could see the light in her eyes. He wondered if it was the sights of Italy or the sight of her man that was causing it. Yep, it was definitely Dan.

‘Maybe. I’ll add it to the list.’

Joe knew they were planning an overseas trip of their own in a few months’ time during the southern hemisphere winter, when things slowed down in Middle Point and hotted up north of the equator. He was glad for Lizzie. With Dan’s love, she’d been able to overcome the terrible trauma of what had happened to her in London when she was a teenager, and make the brave decision to go back and have the adventure she’d been denied. Something had changed in her since she’d been with Dan, in a good way. It wasn’t just that she seemed happier. By revealing her secret she seemed, somehow, to have blossomed. After so many years in which Middle Point was the centre of her world, she was about to expand her horizons in a way he’d never thought she would. In all the years he was in Sydney, he’d never managed to convince her to come to see him, so he was so happy for her that she’d overcome her demons.

He tried to tell himself that it was all this happy couples stuff that had him thinking so cynically. All around him, everyone else in it was ridiculously loved up and blissful. And he felt like a spare prick at a wedding. Irritable. Grumpy. Inexplicably thinking way too much about the woman who’d danced into his life one night and then disappeared. He needed to get laid, that’s what he needed. Another night of no-strings-attached sex. And he sure as hell knew he wasn’t going to get that in Middle Point.

He stood, left the lovebirds to their holiday stories, and paced over to the kitchen. Maybe a drink would help.

‘You should definitely go to Italy. You’d love it, Lizzie,’ Julia said. ‘Everywhere we turned there was another photo opportunity.’

‘And you clearly didn’t waste a single one,’ Dan said dryly.

Warm laughter echoed through the house but Joe felt detached from it, from the happiness that flowed around him. So he dawdled, pretending the contents of the fridge were a whole lot more interesting than they really were, before finally grabbing a beer and reluctantly rejoining the party.

‘Oh,’ Lizzie gasped, ‘Look at this food! Joe! Check this out!’ She flipped the device around. He tried not to look. The image filled the screen: three white plates, covered in crusty Italian bread, drizzled with glistening olive oil; strips of pink prosciutto and small green olives sat near pale yellow slices of cheese; a salad of shredded basil, snow-white mozzarella torn into shreds and lipstick-red tomatoes, juicy and shining. He’d always loved Italian food and suddenly he was hungry for it. Instead he averted his eyes and took a swig of his drink.

‘Don’t even say the word “food”,’ Julia groaned, flopping back onto the sofa and clutching her stomach. ‘I don’t think I need to eat for about three years. Every single morsel was spectacular, from breakfast to dinner and everything in between. Ry insisted on dragging me from one gourmet delight to the next. He was unstoppable.’

‘It was all in the name of research. I do own a pub, you know.’

Lizzie pointed to the photo. ‘Ry, please tell me we’re going to add this exact meal to the menu. I’m begging you.’

Ry laughed. ‘My first job Monday, as a matter of fact, is to show these photos to our chef. You should be in on that meeting, too.’

‘Try keeping me away,’ Lizzie grinned.

Julia nestled into the crook of Ry’s arm and yawned. ‘It’s not fair. My holiday is officially over. While you two will be discussing food, I have to drive up to Adelaide on Monday to meet a couple of potential clients. Apparently someone has a crisis that needs sorting. Lucky for me, huh? And sometime between now and then, I’ve got to unpack and get some sleep. Loads of sleep.’

Julia struggled to her feet and reached out for Ry’s hand. He stood and wrapped his new wife in his arms. His kiss to the top of her head was tender and loving. When he pulled back, he peered down into her eyes and a furrow creased his brow.

‘You actually do look exhausted, Jools.’

Julia yawned. ‘I wonder why that is. We’ve just flown from Rome to Adelaide and then spent an hour and a half in the car driving back to Middle Point. You’re lucky I can string two words together.’

Ry lifted his head to Joe and Lizzie. ‘We’ll see you tomorrow. Thanks for looking after the house, Joe. We appreciate it.’