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I heard Serafina softly gasp at my actions.
Turning my head to the side, I looked up at her and extending my hand towards her, I silently proposed that she should join me.
She lowered herself gently down next to me and I turned back towards the altar. Then I began to speak.
‘My name is Salvatore Diavolo De Luca. I’m not here to confess my sins. But I am here with my wife to remember our son.’
‘Salvatore.’ My name found me on a soft, painfilled whisper.
‘Our son would have been five years old today. Son…’
‘Gabriel… Gabriel Dante Salvatore De Luca.’ Serafina’s voice renewed in strength as she gave the boy we had created together a name, a family name. ‘Gabriel for the angel he is, named after his uncles and his father.’
My throat constricted with an almost unrecognisable emotion before I cleared my throat and spoke again.
‘That’s a fine name, little bird.’ Serafina squeezed my hand as I continued, ‘Gabriel Dante Salvatore De Luca, you are missed. You have been loved and thought of every day since we lost you. And you will be every day we live without you.’
‘And every single second, minute and hour,’ she added beside me.
‘I have done many wrongs in my life, Son… and I regret none of them. Not the ones in my past, nor the ones that I know I will without a doubt make in the future, all except those towards your mama.’
‘Salvatore.’
‘Let me say what I need to,’ I answered her, but continued to stare at the altar. ‘I placed your mama in the hands of her family because it was all I could do to keep her safe, and I would do so again. Even if it meant I lost her forever.’
‘No,’ she berated. In my peripheral view I saw her gently shake her head.
‘Family is integral in Italian life, but was something I hadn’t really experienced before. When you grow up alone, with only yourself to rely on, it’s hard to place the only thing that’s truly yours somewhere out of reach. But sometimes to protect someone, you must let them go. You have to let them grow without you.’
I stopped talking momentarily and turned my body towards the beautiful woman kneeling next to me, who had tears silently coursing down both cheeks. I took her other hand, and with her eyes watching my every movement I held them up to my mouth and kissed the inside of both of her wrists, before lowering our hands and carrying on. I was normally a man of few words and only said what was essential. But for her to understand, for us to carry on and for our lost son’s sake, I was saying what needed to be said.
‘At first. I was unsure if English families worked the same way, but your great uncle stepped up to the plate and I will forever be in his personal debt for taking care of your mama. On an agonising, but daily basis, reports and photographs taken from a distance were sent to me. They conveyed her trying to do the only job I wanted her to do, existing… existing until I could bring her home. From a personally enforced gap, I watched her navigate our pain of losing you by herself, and that is the only thing I will ever apologise for.’
I gripped her hands tightly and released what needed saying. ‘I’m sorry.’
She nodded her head quickly in acceptance and I carried on, this time talking to her and not our son.
‘With you away and protected, it made it possible for me to get on with what had to be done. While you were gone… in those first few months, I moved away from the supposedly peaceful role of consigliere and into the underboss role at my grandfather’s request. My pathetic excuse for a father became fatter by the week, which resulted in him developing gout in both legs. He operated and walked even more heavily than he did previously. He also showed his true colour of yellow and willingly stepped down to the consigliere role, after finding the things my grandfather and me were willing to do to protect us all, were too much for his delicate fucking hands.’
‘Oh,’ she spoke, acknowledging she had heard every word I’d spoken.
‘If I hadn’t hated the hell out of him before, that one move of his would have sealed the fucking deal. He showed us all that although his elderly father and his bastard son were willing to protect his wife and children, he wasn’t. I have watched the disrespect growing for him day by day in my siblings’ eyes, and for good fucking reason.’
‘For that he deserves their condemnation.’ She spoke with vehemence and strength in her tone.
Did her words shock me?
No. I had always known the girl I’d met and coerced, later the woman I’d trapped and married, had two sides to her.
Pride at who she was, surrounded me. She was fucking perfect, fucking perfect for me.
‘I pushed away the pain of losing our son and not having you by my side. All I could do was focus on the job at hand. The one I hoped would mean I could bring you back to me. Together me and my grandfather had waged war on those who were looking to take what was ours. The Ricolleti and Lombardi families were hit so hard by me and my men, we saw them reneging on the pact they’d made between themselves, and all too slowly they began to fall apart… I worked hard, I fought hard, but it took what seemed like an eternity to get back some normality in our lives. By the time I felt it was safe here for you to come home, you’d worked through your pain and grief alone, and I knew I needed to let you become what you’d always dreamt of becoming…’ I felt my brow crease as I asked what I needed to ask, ‘Serafina, my wife. Can you forgive me?’
I heard the begging tone in my voice and knew that as our son was my witness, I never had before, nor would I ever again, beg for anything else in my entire life, however long or short it was.
‘What are you asking forgiveness for?’ She straightened her back as she posed the question.
I inhaled deeply at her question and straightened my back as I forced myself to answer her.
