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I take a deep breath. I shut my eyes.
“Okay.”
20
MARCO
One good thing about Europe:it never takes long to find a priest.
And certainly never takes long to find one that’s willing to take a bribe.
The whole thing takes probably an hour, maybe two, to arrange. I’m not quite ready to tell Elio yet, so I call around, working my contacts until I find a space that will take us on short notice. It’s expensive, sure, but with the amount of buildings that need to be preserved and the waning state of Catholicism in Europe, once money’s on the table, the priest agrees to meet us in an hour.
The sun is just breaking over the tops of the mountains when I bundle her into the car, our bags already there.
The road rolls away underneath the tires, and I feel like I need to do something. Say something. But every time I open my mouth to ask more than a surface-level question, nothing comes out.
I have truly no idea what to say to her.
Far too quickly, we arrive at the destination. I peer over the dashboard, squinting at the tiny building in front of us, nestled in a small alpine valley that would be picturesque if we weren’t here to get married and get on out of here.
It’s nice. The building is tiny. I snort.
Roisin and I are going to be married in a chapel that’s somewhere around a billion years old. I don’t know, actually, and I don’t care, because as we sit and stare at it, I’m not thinking of the stones around us.
I’m only thinking of her.
She hasn’t said much since we left the cabin. Just kind of perfunctory stuff. This morning when she got dressed, she put on the only dress in the bags that I packed for her. It’s a sundress, a light green color that looks nice with her hair and her skin, with a flared skirt and a tighter bodice that pushes up her breasts.
Distracted, I don’t notice that her hands are shaking until we’re almost at the door of the little chapel.
I pause. “Are you okay?” I ask. She might be fucking cold. I mean of course she is. I’m an idiot. It’s fucking winter up here. The wind is still icy, and I hastily shrug off my coat and put it on her shoulders.
There, that should do it.
Roisin gives me a tight smile. “Fine.”
Pointedly, I look down at her hands, because they’re still shaking like crazy.
Clearly she notices my stare. With some hesitation, she curls her fingers under her palms. “Well they don’t exactly say that having a wedding day is a walk in the park,” she mutters defensively.
Fuck. Of course this is about the whole wedding thing. Clearly, she’s been thinking about it all morning, and I was too focused to tell. “They say that, but they also say everyone gets cold feet on their wedding day.”
“Yeah,” she offers lamely.
I can tell she’s trying to walk it off, but I’m not sure why. She agreed to this. She said it was a good idea. I suck in a breath. “Roisin…”
“I’m fine, Marco. I just… she huffs.”
I pause.
Roisin’s eyes look down. “Look, it’s just a lot. It’s rushed. And that’s not a bad thing, it’s just… different. I don’t even have flowers or anything.”
Fuck.
I know I saw something, which felt impossible because there’s literally snow on the ground. While spring might be touching the other areas of the world, here in the Italian Alps, there’s still snow everywhere.
Tracing back our steps, I see them. There. Impossibly small flowers that are pushing up under the crust of snow in a sunny area.