When Jo turned back towards home, she saw a man walking along the path to the bridge. He had a slight limp. There was something familiar about him. And then she knew, too late: it was Ash’s grandfather. Panicked, she considered crossing the road, but he was already drawing close.
‘Hello, Jo.’ It was hard to meet his gaze. The sadness in his eyes made her shiver. She held her breath.
‘I didn’t see you until… I can go…’ She nearly said his name. Nonno Nello, that’s what she called him. She remembered him saying, ‘You can call me Antonello, or Nello if you want, or Nonno, like Ashleigh here.’ Only, he wasn’t her grandfather, he was Ash’s. What could a child call a man who was older than her own grandparents? Jo couldn’t call him Nonno Nello anymore.
‘You don’t need to go.’ There was sternness in his voice. Would he yell at her? She braced herself. She deserved it, and he was entitled to it.
Antonello stood between her and the path; she stood between him and the memorial. Overhead on the bridge, the traffic continued, immune to them — a breathy whirr, punctuated by the rattle as the heavier vehicles, trucks and semis, drove over metal strips and joins. The scaly underbelly towered over them, and Jo felt reduced, like one of the little people in fairytales about giants.
‘I come here often,’ he said. ‘I’ve been coming for years. Usually I have the place to myself.’
‘For years? Before the accident?’ Jo said.
‘Before your accident. Yes,’ Antonello said.
‘I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt Ash.’ The words came out in a rush. ‘You must hate me.’
‘Ashleigh was so beautiful. And now she’s gone, and —’
‘It’s my fault, I know it’s my fault. I’m so sorry. Please believe me.’
‘Stop. Stop, please. I don’t hate you, Jo. I’m angry and sad, but I feel sorry for you too. You must miss Ashleigh. You were so close.’
‘Rae and Alex and Jane hate me. They must.’ The words, these words, she hadn’t expected to be saying to Ash’s grandfather. She knew they hated her. Nothing else was possible, nothing but hate.
‘They’re upset and sad and it’s hard for them. We’ve lost Ashleigh.’ He sounded angry, even though he hadn’t raised his voice.
‘It’s all my fault.’ Her face was burning; she was sweating, her hands were clammy.
‘It was an accident, Jo. We’ll all have to come to terms with that — you’ll have to come to terms with that,’ Antonello said, bending down slowly to pick up a discarded milkshake cup on the edge of the path.
‘But I was drunk, and if I hadn’t been drinking… Or if I’d left the car there… It’s all my fault.’ She should stop talking. Her voice was the pleading voice of a child, whimpering. She had no right to expect him to forgive her, no right to burden him with her guilt. She stole a look at him, but he was looking at Ash’s memorial. She longed for Grandpa Tom and the strength of his arms when he had swooped her up from the floor when she was younger.
Antonello crossed the path to throw the rubbish into the bin. ‘There isn’t much point in going through what would’ve happened, if you hadn’t done this or that, because in the end it won’t make any difference. You have to find a way to live with what happened.’
‘I don’t know if I can.’ What possible life could there be? How did people put something like this behind them? Was it feasible that once she’d been punished, once she’d gone to prison, she could live again? Redemption was at the base of Mary’s religion — confess your sins, ask for forgiveness, do your penance, and then start anew. Pick yourself up, Sarah said.
‘You can.’ Antonello’s voice softened. ‘We’re stronger than we think. And if we couldn’t go on, if we couldn’t move on, when someone dies, when bad things happen, the whole world would fall apart. Every day people die, and the people that love them — not all of them, but most of them — pull themselves up by the bootstraps and keep going.’
‘But what about the people who killed them? Do we have a right to keep living?’
Antonello stretched his hand out to Jo, and she took it. His palm was cold but smooth. Not like Grandpa Tom’s hands, rough, cracked, and cut — even after all these years, even though sometimes she couldn’t call up Grandpa Tom’s face, the memory of his hands came back. Hands like sandpaper. Lines and cuts, dips and hollows. Scars, each one a story.
‘Come with me,’ Antonello said.
Jo was thin, her features sharper, than he remembered. She wasn’t beautiful, not like Ashleigh. She was a plain girl. Plain and ordinary and alive.
It snuck up on him, the desire to take her throat between his hands and wring the life out of her, the desire to slap her hard, to knock her to the ground, to shake her; to yell at the girl, to make her flinch; to scream you stupid, stupid girl; to see her broken and bloodied. It wasn’t a sudden, all-consuming rage — it was a slow monster swelling. The impulse terrified him; he thought his propensity for such evil thoughts, for such an overwhelming desire for destruction, had gone. He closed his eyes and pushed down on the emotion.
Jo winced. He’d tightened his grip of her hand, and she was trying to pull away. He let her go. ‘Sorry,’ he whispered. He saw the terror in her face and was immediately overcome with pity, with something like love, deep and paternal. He resisted the inclination to embrace Jo. She wasn’t Ashleigh. Embracing Jo did not have the power to bring Ashleigh back to life.
Jo took several steps back, but she didn’t leave. She was the girl who had called him Nonno Nello, who he and Paolina had included on their trips with Ashleigh to the movies, shopping, to dinner. Every year they bought her a Christmas present, a chocolate rabbit at Easter, and a birthday present. Her birthday was marked on the calendar that hung above the phone in their kitchen, along with the birthdays of their children and grandchildren, their siblings and nieces and nephews. Their album included photographs of Jo with Ashleigh. The two girls laughing and scheming, having fun together. The girl in front of him was pale and tired, not much more than a child.
He thought of Alex and what he might think if he saw his father talking to this girl, Ashleigh’s killer. Alex would feel betrayed. And Rae as well. Alex had said he wished they had never met her. He’d said he never wanted to see her again. He cursed her. I hate that girl. I hope she rots in prison. It sounded like hate. It had all of hate’s outside features, all of hate’s intensity, but he didn’t think Alex and Rae hated Jo. There was too much sadness and grief for any other feeling to find room in their hearts. That was the problem: grief was ravenous. It found its way into each pore, took residence in the body and the mind, making it impossible to distinguish any other feelings. Sometimes grief, unbearable and relentless, disguised itself as hate, as anger. Hate mobilised; grief drained. After the bridge collapsed, Antonello was broken and battered, like an animal left wounded by a clumsy hunter. He was suicidal; he saw no way out. Time, Paolina and his parents told him, give it time, but instead he buried the grief under hatred and anger, and then he spun it into a cocoon that kept him at a distance from everyone.
In Alex and Rae, he saw himself: the younger man who’d survived the collapse of the bridge but remained lost, unavailable to his family, as if he’d been buried under the debris. His son and daughter-in-law drifted through the house as if they were alone; they didn’t recognise each other or Jane. They loathed any evidence of the world continuing in Ashleigh’s absence. It was this girl’s fault. It was all her fault, that was true, but of course he knew that it was also not true. Death and disaster were intruders — they barged in unexpectedly, and they didn’t discriminate. There was no God’s will or God’s grand plan.