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astragal
‘We were sitting there,’ his
wife went on. ‘The three of us.
If Stefano had just put away
his phone for a moment. If
Frieda hadn’t been talking all
along to that woman with the
fur coat. We would have seen
her walking away. We would
have seen what happened to
her before our very eyes.’
He poured an entire sachet
of sugar into the cold coffee,
felt it pool within him.
Magda wiped her face. His
granddaughter’s hands were
fledgling pink birds that liked
to pluck the long hairs on his
arm, brush over his cheeks
and cup his eyes in a panel of
darkness.
What do you see, Grandfather
darling? Tell me the colours
that you see.
He had held her when she
had been hours old, with
her bug-like unreeling and
the throbbing apricot in her
chest. Then they had taken
the bundle away and he’d felt
a holiness removed from him.
Luna and her gust of love had
come after his daughter’s long
years of singlehood. Frieda
had been left by a handful of
men and she’d met Stefano
on a holiday to Tanzania. She
had returned to Milan wearing
noisy earrings carved out of
stained teak. She had told
them she was engaged to be
married.
They watched Stefano reach
the timber steps, sweating and
his glasses fogged. The young
man stood there breathing
in white shreds. He saw
that Magda wished to go to
him. He saw the very instant
Magda’s thoughts devolved in
her limbs. His wife was never
wordless for long.
‘Did they see anything? Do