He Gave Her My Place. I Gave Back His Ring.

I signed the cancellation agreement in a hotel office overlooking the Hudson. The planner glanced toward the closed door, where Luca's security man had been waiting ten minutes earlier.

“Does Mr. DeLuca know?”

“He will. The booking is in my name, and the cancellation charge comes out of my account.”

Outside our families, weddings could end without a conference of men deciding whether the bride had permission. I reminded myself of that as I put down the pen.

My phone lit up.

Valentina caught the train under her heel. I've sent the coat to be cleaned. Please don't be upset. I'll make sure it's ready for you.

Then another message:

It's still your wedding coat, amore. Wearing it once doesn't change that.

My mother had started it when I was twelve, before the cancer made holding a needle impossible. Ivory silk, a fitted waist, seed pearls along the cuffs. She couldn't know what kind of wedding dress I would choose, she'd said, so she'd make something to go over it.

“That way, I get to put my arms around you.”

It vanished after her funeral. Eleven years later, Luca found it in a garment chest belonging to one of her old clients. He'd knelt beside me while I cried into the silk, stroking my hair and saying he wished he could have brought her back too.

I had believed him. I still did, which made his messages harder to read.

At home, Valentina rose from the sofa. Jewelry trays and garment bags covered the tables. She'd changed out of the coat, but my mother's pendant still rested at her throat.

“Don't blame Luca,” she said. “I begged him. I know I shouldn't have.”

My father closed the ledger he'd been reading. Men in Brooklyn lowered their voices when Vittorio Moretti looked up that way. At home, it usually meant I was about to be told to give something up.

“Her father never got to see her grow up,” he said. “She sees a wedding and remembers everything she lost. Surely you can understand that.”

Valentina's father had died protecting him. Dad married her mother two years after mine died, and somehow the debt had become mine to repay.

“I wasn't going to keep it,” Valentina whispered.

Claudia touched her daughter's wrist. “Then take it off, sweetheart.”

Valentina flinched, and Matteo immediately moved closer.

“Leave it for tonight. She's already upset.” He turned to me. “You don't have to make her feel worse.”

“What have I said?”

He hesitated. Since walking into the room, I hadn't accused anyone of anything.

Valentina went upstairs. As she passed, I recognized my mother's orange-blossom perfume, the one she'd once dismissed as something an old woman would wear.

Matteo lowered his voice. “I bought the pendant for you. You know that. Let her have a couple of days with it, and I'll bring it back before the ceremony.”

I looked at the empty velvet tray.

“You gave it to her?”

“She said the coat looked unfinished.”

On my fourteenth birthday, Dad had turned my party into Valentina's welcome to the family. Matteo and Luca took me out afterward, slipping past the guards to a bakery still open after midnight. Luca scraped the best strawberry onto my plate; Matteo swore I would never have to compete for them.

Now my brother waited for me to make this easier.

“Emilia, please. I can sort it out once she's calmer.”

Upstairs, Valentina called his name. The pendant clasp was caught in her hair.

He was halfway to the stairs before he remembered me.

“You're not angry?”

“No,” I said.

He smiled, relieved, and went to help her. I stayed beside the empty tray, wondering when he would notice that I hadn't said I would wait.