Chapter 22: This Is the Call

Camilla stood in the third row with both hands gripping the chair in front of her.

"Camilla," Gianni said, low and fast. "Not now. Sit."

"I was told to stand when the priest asked," she said. Her voice shook, then steadied. "So I'm standing."

Two hundred people watched her.

"I'm Camilla Hayes. I was engaged to Nico for five years."

She did not look at me. She looked straight at the front row.

"Gianni Tessaro asked me to tell you Nico is unwell. He has a doctor's letter that says so."

A noise went through the tent.

"Nico is not unwell," she said. "Nico is the most patient man I have ever met, and I used it."

"That is enough," Gianni said.

"Let her speak, Gianni," said Nonna Pia.

"For fifty-seven months he paid me four thousand two hundred dollars to say *next year.*"

"I said it every spring. When Nico asked for a date, I said it, and he waited."

Camilla's face was wet now, and she let it be.

"My mother is sick. That's why I took it. That's not an excuse. I could have told Nico, and I didn't."

She turned at last and looked at me.

"I'm so sorry. You deserved to be told by me."

I had no speech ready. I said the only true thing I had.

"Thank you for standing up."

She nodded once, and her shoulders dropped.

Then she sat, and a cousin I barely knew reached across the aisle and squeezed her arm.

The silence after that was enormous.

Renzo stood under the arch with the roses behind him.

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