The charcoal gray skies rumbled, a storm ready to break in minutes. We followed Father Tomas. My family trailed behind, giving us a little space. The hundred men on guard—seventy-five between us and Castello Paratore, twenty-five on the other—notsomuch. Clearly their goal was to make sure we got in, got out, without incident. Marcello held his arm firm beneath mine, but one glance at him told me that tears were streaming down his cheeks. Fortino had been his last living family member. What would it feel like for me, if Mom and Dad were gone and I was burying Lia? Was I mean, making him come back here? I could not imagine it, trading places with him. I glanced back at them, Lia on Luca’s arm, Mom on Dad’s, just to reassure myself that they were truly all there, with me. I fought the urge to ditch the formality and come under Marcello’s arm, wrap my own about his waist, to support him in the way I knew I’d want it. But this had to go his way, for him, now. Still, I kept stealing glances at him to make certain.
