I Won't Bridge an Impossible Gap novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: The Hollow Tree

Alessio's POV

I sat at the corner of the piazza with the engine running and my hands on the wheel.

I had promised Nina I would stay out of the town hall.

I kept the promise for four minutes.

Then I thought about the note she had shown me, and the word in it.

Original.

Ilaria was going to burn something at noon and call it the original.

I had known for a week that it could not be.

The real contract was in the hollow of the oldest olive tree, in an oilcloth, where my father had hidden it.

I found it the Monday after Nina came back.

I had gone to the bench under the tree to be alone.

I put my hand in the hole where I had hidden marbles as a boy.

There was a packet in it.

I read it by the light of my phone.

It was the contract Domenico had read out on the terrace, with both signatures and the red seal.

On the back page, in my father's hand, there was a rider.

*If my son reaches thirty and names a wife of his own choosing before the council, and twelve households of the poor streets of Naples stand with her, no Montanari voice is needed.*

*Then this contract is void. I was born in those streets.*

*I will not have my son's wife judged by a man who has forgotten them.*

I had read it six times that night.

Then I folded it back into the oilcloth, put it back in the tree, and told no one.

A week of apologies, and I had kept this one thing back from her.

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