The world exploded in a wrenching, deafening crash. An eerie, smoky silence ensued, interrupted only by a strange whirring sound.
Dazed, Celina lay on her back, her mind spinning, vaguely aware. The smell of dirt and grass filled her nostrils. Somehow, her feet seemed higher than her head. How is that possible?
She felt herself slipping into a sweet void.
Celina, wake up! A disembodied voice boomed in the dark.
Tony?
With great effort, she tried her eyes. Open.
Before her, blurry pinpricks of hillside light wavered. She blinked. Stars spun overhead like pinwheels, then slowed and sharpened into focus.
Where am I?
She lay splayed on a hillside, tossed like a Raggedy Ann doll onto a thorny cushion of shrubs and brush. Struggling to turn herself, she rolled to one side. Wretched pain exploded through her body in a blinding flash that robbed her breath. Staggering to her feet, she gasped for air.
Hurry. Tony’s presence urged her forward. Hurry, hurry, hurry.
Suddenly, clarity seized her. The coupe lay twisted by a tree on the edge of the road.
Lauro.
She scooted down the hill and pounded across the pavement. Ahead on the road, another car was slowing down the incline.
“Help! Stop!”
Reaching the driver’s side of the coupe, she flung open the door, heaving Lauro’s limp body to extricate him from behind the steering wheel.
Smoke seeped from the car.
Using her body for leverage, she shoved him from the car. He toppled onto the asphalt, a dead weight on the road.
Headlights blinded her. People were yelling in rapid-fire Italian, but she couldn’t follow what they were saying.
Smoke invaded her nose and lungs and stripped her of breath. Choking, she leapt from the car and flung herself over Lauro. Wrapping her arms and legs around him, she pushed off the ground to roll him away.
Behind her, the car ignited and then, in a flash, exploded in a shower of flames. Scorching heat lashed at her legs.
Moments later, strong arms reached out and pulled them into cool grass. At once, amid anxious cries, people were upon them, separating them, bearing down on Lauro.
“No, no, no.” Celina grasped at Lauro. A stranger’s arm curved around her shoulder in support.
She tried to sit up, but the scene around her appeared oddly speckled, wavering before her as everything shaded and went black.
Celina woke on a narrow iron bed in a white-washed room, her head pounding, and every fiber in her body screaming in agony. An antiseptic smell hung in the air, and she blinked against the scorching morning light.
A woman with an apron tied over a white shirtwaist dress hovered next to the bed. She pressed a cold hand to Celina’s forehead.
Raising herself on one elbow, Celina tried to call out, but pain shot through her shoulder and she cried out, falling back onto the firm mattress. As murky events of the night before raced through her mind, terror flooded her, and she thrashed against the scratchy, starched pillow.
“No, no, you need rest.” The nurse flicked a glass thermometer with practiced determination and inspected it. Satisfied, she held it aloft, poised to take Celina’s temperature.
“Wait,” Celina cried. “Lauro. Please, how is he?”
Hurried footsteps clicked on the stone floor, and Sara appeared in the doorway.
“Grazie a Dio, she’s awake,” Sara said, rushing toward the bed.
Carmine followed his wife. They wore the rumpled clothes of the night before, and neither one looked like they had slept.
Celina sought answers in Sara’s tired face. A vein pulsed in her mother-in-law’s forehead. Searching the older woman’s weary eyes, Celina silently fought against what she couldn’t bear to hear, yet desperately needed to know. “Is he…?”
Sara brought Celina’s hand to her lips, kissing it and stroking it. “Oh, my poor, brave girl.”
“Lauro is resting,” Carmine said, a grave expression on his face.
Exhaling a ragged sigh of relief, Celina let tears trickle onto her cheeks. She brushed them aside, dampening her tangled hair. “How bad is he?”
“Only a few scrapes. A miracle.” Sara smiled down at her. “He’ll be sore for a while, but thanks to you, he’s alive.”
“That was a foolish reaction,” Carmine said in a husky voice.
“Bastante!” Sara shot a stern look at her husband. “What did we agree on?”
Carmine slid a hand over his silver-shot hair and nodded with reluctance.
Sara turned back to her. “Celina, I’ll never know how you managed to get Lauro out of that car.”
“I, I did?” Bits of jagged memory floated in her mind like puzzle pieces, shifting slowly into place.
Tires screeching. A thundering impact. The blurry night…stars overhead. Then…a blast in the night.
“Oh, good Lord, I remember the fire.” She pressed a hand to her mouth.
“You were thrown free of the car. But people in the other car saw you run back to him.” With a loving touch, Sara smoothed Celina’s hair from her forehead, just as her mother used to do. “My dear Celina, you saved my son’s life.” Her voice cracked. “That dreadful, horrible curve. That was exactly where Isabella had her accident.”
Celina closed her eyes, recalling the rage and disappointment that had boiled through Lauro. The wine and amaretto they had been drinking. The argument he’d had with his father. Carmine’s flat denial of their love for each other.
Her stomach roiled, churning against Carmine’s decision, and she convulsed. Shielding her eyes from the brightness, she whispered, “Where is Marco?”
“Matilde is sitting with him,” Sara said. “Don’t worry, he’s fine.”
“Does he know I’m okay?”
“He was sleeping. Matilde is probably making breakfast for him right now. We’ll let her know.”
“I need to see him. And Lauro.”
Carmine flexed his jaw and got up, crossing the floor. “You’ll both come home today.”
Home. But for how much longer? She could still feel the tension from the night before emanating from her father-in-law. And she could see it in his tightly drawn face.
Nothing had changed.
His mandate still stood.