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Morgan wasn’t about to sit around at home while his sweetheart was suffering such devastating heartbreak. ‘Please let Jess know I’m on my way there.’ He would carry whatever pain he could for her, no matter how crushing it was.
Please God, let Enzo and Julie be okay.
‘Why don’t you wait until we know more?’ Shanti’s tone was way too hopeful. ‘I mean, it might not be as bad as we think.’
‘No way, I can’t leave her to handle this without me.’ It was then he watched Roberto take a phone call that brought his solid-as-a-rock best mate falling to his knees. ‘I’ll bring Roberto with me.’ The clench in his heart stung, really damn bad.
Julie and Enzo Sabatini were nowhere near okay.
‘Of course, good idea, I’ll let Jessie know you’re both on your way over.’ Shanti sniffled again. ‘Let’s hope and pray for the best, see you soon.’
‘Yup, we’ll be there before you know it.’
Morgan ended the call and slumped against his father. And for all of thirty seconds, he allowed himself to be consoled by his rock, his confidant, his hero, then he straightened, took a breath, readied his shoulders to carry his loved one’s tears and anguish, and took determined strides across the verandah, where he took a crumbling Roberto into his arms and did what only a best mate could do at a time like this; he offered him solace before the storm that his instincts told him was about to change all of their lives forever.
* * *
It had been seven devastating days since the drunk driver had killed himself and cruelly taken her parents with him, and day by day, as Jess had come to accept this was a nightmare she’d never wake up from, her heartbreak had only intensified and become all-consuming, to the point where she could no longer feel anything else. Not even love for Morgan. Feeling oddly numb considering her nerves were on edge, she stared blankly out the window of the car. In the back seat, Shanti comforted Annie, although her older sister’s sobs weren’t subsiding. If anything, they were getting louder, shriller, more excruciating to hear. Jess wanted to cover her ears, squeeze her eyes shut, block it all out, but that would be childish. She needed to cope. She needed to handle this.
No!
She needed to get the hell out of Silverton Shores for a while.
Everything here felt way too surreal, as if she were watching a horrific movie from the inside out. She didn’t even notice they’d pulled to a stop at the cemetery until Roberto placed his hand on her bouncing leg, steadying it, but not steadying her.
She doubted she’d ever feel stable again.
The God her parents had taught her about didn’t exist.
How could he when he’d gone and done this?
Before stepping from the passenger side of her brother’s Holden Commodore, she made sure nobody was watching as she pressed another Valium from the foil packaging and quickly popped it into her mouth. Taking a glug from her water bottle, she swallowed down hard, wishing she was anywhere but here, about to say her final goodbye to the two people in the world who had mattered the most. Overhead, the bright blue sky she’d watched appear that morning was now darkening at an alarming pace as the shadows of the raging, ominous clouds chased the daylight away. Bearing witness to Mother Nature’s broodiness, she swore her broken heart was darker still. It had to be. What other explanation did she have, to have fallen out of love with the love of her life?
Raising her umbrella, Shanti stepped in beside Jess, Annie and Roberto, the four of them silently acknowledging one another’s heartbreak as they briefly locked tear-stained gazes.
When the church proceedings were over, Jess, Shanti and Annie followed the other mourners through the tall, wrought-iron gates of the Silverton Shores cemetery, then weaved their way along a narrow path shaded by weeping willows, towards what would be Julie and Enzo Sabatini’s final resting places. Her parents would be side by side forever. Jess watched as Roberto went in the opposite direction, towards the hearse parked up the rise, to fulfil his role as a pallbearer. Her broken heart split deeper, further, as she watched Morgan give her brother a supportive hug. If only she could feel something, anything, for the wonderful man who’d won her over. But in a single heartbeat, from one second to the next, everything, and everyone, had changed.
As she reached the cover provided by the outstretched branches of an old gum tree, she saw people paying their respects, congregating as they waited for the final part of the service to begin. Jess took her place at the front of the gathering, sandwiched between Annie and Shanti. Somewhere in the surrounding scrubland, a flock of screeching cockatoos momentarily concealed the sound of her raspy breath. And up the rise, the pallbearers took slow steady steps as they carried the two mahogany caskets towards the gaping, black holes. A week to the day after she’d heard the news, now dressed head to toe in black polyester instead of ivory silk and lace, all Jess could do in this heart-wrenching moment was imagine herself in another life, another time, far away from Silverton Shores, far away from the heartbreak and crushing grief, far away from those who loved her most. Somewhere she could pretend to be whole, happy, hopeful. To lose a parent was one thing, but to lose both was unthinkable, a child’s worst nightmare. And yet, here she was, with her reality a living nightmare.
The caskets arrived. She turned her cheek, unable to look directly at the boxes that held her lifeless parents. Time flickered between slow and steady and rapidly fast, all the while with her careening between the two. She watched the new young priest’s mouth moving, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying. The caskets were lowered. Sobs sounded. Then it was time to drop the two roses she wasn’t aware she’d been holding, and so very tightly the sharp thorns were digging into her flesh. As she placed one foot in front of the other, Shanti hooked her arm into hers and helped her to the first grave. Unclenching her fingers, she watched the velvety petals tumble then hit the top of her father’s coffin. Annie broke down beside her. Roberto came to her aid. Jess sucked in a shuddering breath. She couldn’t cry, because she was afraid she’d never stop. Taking a step to the left, her gaze met with her mother’s dirt tomb. Holding the rose out, she let go and watched it drop in slow motion, twisting and turning, until it hit the casket headfirst. Bouncing, it toppled and wedged down the side of it. The irrational part of her brain wanted her to climb down and straighten it, because her mother would have hated the untidiness. The rational part of her, her father’s deeply imbedded characteristic, told her to stand her ground, remain steady, be strong.
Turn to God, Enzo Sabatini would have said.
Like hell she’d be doing that.
Because the God she’d believed in wouldn’t take such wonderful people so soon.
Blinking through the rolling emotions, she stepped aside as people began to step forward, saying their final goodbyes then offering their condolences. As if on autopilot, she nodded and accepted their sympathy, as did Annie and Roberto. Finally moving to the edge of the crowd, she spotted Morgan, standing with his hands in his pockets and his head hung low. He looked so alone, so broken, so dejected. And she knew, without a doubt, that she’d done that to him. It was all her fault he was heartbroken. As much as she wished she could go to him, to both offer comfort and seek it, she couldn’t face the aftermath of her actions. So, she turned away, and step by step, put an agonising, irreparable distance between them.
CHAPTER
2
Florence, Italy, nine years after the funeral
For the entirety of her close-to-perfect childhood, Jess Sabatini couldn’t wait to grow up, but now she was a fully fledged thirty-one-year-old adult, she was experienced enough to acknowledge that adulting could really suck sometimes. Bad days. Good days. And then there were all the mediocre days in between. Groundhog Day had nothing on her life. With the awful state it was in, each day seemed to roll into one big continual uphill struggle. Her darling nine-year-old daughter, Chiara, was her only saving grace, the shining light in her sometimes-dark life. But the newest dilemma was tipping her over the edge and making her question her sanity.
How could she have lost something so crucial?
