Mallory is back at the side of the bed. “She’s not breathing,” she sobs. “Do something!”

The nurse takes Mom’s wrist and checks her pulse. “I’m sorry, honey. She’s gone.”

“No.” I step up to the side of the bed as the nurse brushes her fingers over Mom’s dead eyes. She’s so much thinner than she was even last time I saw her, two months ago. Nothing but skin and bone.

I can’t reconcile the anger I feel that she didn’t wait for me with the grief that wraps around my heart and squeezes, threatening to choke out its rhythm. I convulse with sobs that I can’t control as everything I feel for and about her erupts out of me.

She drank. She let a parade of strange men into our lives. She threw Mallory out. She abandoned me and pretended like none of what happened to me afterward was her fault. She was a horrible mother. But she was mine—the only parent I’ve ever had. I wanted her to be so much more. I wanted her to love me.

The least she could have done was wait to die until I had a chance to say good-bye.

I drop the crushed Oh Henry! in my hand and spin for the door. Mallory calls after me as I bolt into the hall. When I get to the stairwell, I slide down the wall to a sitting position and pull my phone from my pocket.

“Il mio amore,” Alessandro purrs in greeting.

“I need you,” I sob into the phone. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever uttered those words out loud to anyone, but right now, it’s true.

MOM DIDN’T HAVE any friends. She had one brother, but all I know about him is that he lives somewhere else and didn’t want me after Mom went to jail. I didn’t try to find him to tell him Mom’s gone.

We don’t do a service, because there’s no point, but I stayed last night at Mallory and Jeff’s, and we go to the cemetery together when they put her in the ground.

After almost two weeks in Alessandro’s bed, being alone last night was cold and lonely. But Jeff asked me to come for Mallory. She’s still dealing with the emotional fallout of seeing Mom again for the first time in years, just in time to watch her die.

Despite his insistence, I asked Alessandro not to come to the cemetery for that reason. Mallory’s already a wreck, and seeing Alessandro and me together isn’t going to help. I’m finally ready to open up to Alessandro, as soon as I figure out how, but I’m not quite ready to tell Mallory about it. But it’s harder than I thought it would be to do this without him.

The cemetery is a few train stops south of Mallory’s house in New Jersey. I guess it was the cheapest place Jeff could find. It seems a little run down, with patches of weeds between the patches of snow, but overall, not too bad. It suits Mom. It’s quiet right now: only the three of us and the guy with the backhoe.

I shiver under the gray January sky as Backhoe Guy very unceremoniously cranks Mom’s coffin into the hole. No one brought flowers or anything, so when he asks us if we’re ready, we nod.

As he climbs onto the backhoe, I feel Mallory’s hand tighten, where she’s holding my elbow. I look at her and her pale face is pulled tight as she stares through the stumpy, bare trees toward the parking lot.

I follow her gaze and, walking across the grass toward us, is Alessandro. His back wool jacket is closed over black slacks and a blue button-down. I’d been containing my emotions pretty well, but when I see him, I feel the dam start to break.

He stops across Mom’s hole from where Mallory, Jeff and I are standing, and there’s a question on his face.

Do I want him to stay?

Mallory splits an anxious glance between us, then drops my arm and grasps Jeff’s hand tightly. Jeff looks from her to Alessandro and his eyes widen in understanding. There’s no way anyone close to Henri is going to miss the resemblance.

I walk slowly around Mom’s hole and stop in front of him. He reaches for my gloved hand and squeezes. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t stay away.” He bites the corner of his lower lip. “I can’t stand the thought of you in pain.”

I sink into his arms. “It’s okay.”

Alessandro glances at Mallory as Backhoe Guy cranks the engine loudly to life, then says into my hair, “Would you like me to say a word?”

I look at Mallory and her face is paler than it was a minute ago, her mouth fixed in a tight line. “That would be great. Thanks,” I tell Alessandro.

He lets go of me and crosses himself then bows his head, suddenly looking very priestly. I bow mine too. “Oh God, you do not willingly grieve or afflict your children. Look with pity on the suffering of this family in their loss. Sustain them in their anguish, and into the darkness of their grief bring the light of your love. Through Jesus we pray, Amen.”

When I lift my head, Mallory is curled into Jeff’s arms, sniffling into his shoulder. We all step back as Backhoe Guy starts plowing dirt on top of Mom, and I feel my throat thicken with tears. I swallow them.

“You need to let yourself grieve,” Alessandro says, softly into my ear.

I bite my lips between my teeth and I continue to fight the tears.

He smooths a hand over the back of my hair. “She was your mother, Hilary. No matter what happened between you, you wouldn’t be human if you didn’t hurt.”

A single hot tear trickles over my lashes and courses down my frozen cheek, and he pulls me to his shoulder. And that’s all it takes for me to totally lose it. He holds me close and hands me a tissue when I start to snot all over his jacket.

When I get my shit mostly together and peel myself off Alessandro, Mallory and Jeff are already walking back to their car.

“Are you going back to your sister’s?” Alessandro asks.

I shake my head and look at him with pleading eyes. “Take me home?”

He takes my hand and we start toward the road. “I expect the taxi I took from the train station is long gone.”

I lean into him and he wraps an arm around my waist, pulling me close, knowing I need his support without my having to ask. “There’s a bus stop just up the road,” I tell him. I look toward the parking lot and see Mallory and Jeff waiting at their car. Mallory is glaring so hard, I’m surprised it doesn’t cut Alessandro down on the spot.

Alessandro must see it too, because he squeezes my waist. “I hope didn’t create a problem by being here.”

“I’m glad you came.” And it’s true. But it’s also hard, because it means I have to come clean with Mallory. I was hoping to put that off as long as possible.

Alessandro lets go of me before we reach Mallory. “I’m very sorry for your loss,” he tells her.

She huffs out a derisive laugh. “You can’t lose something you never had.”

Jeff’s grimaces and he grasps her elbow. “Mallory.” His tone is low and soft, the voice he uses when he’s trying to talk her off the ledge.

“What are you even doing here?” she spits at Alessandro, ignoring Jeff. “Haven’t you done enough damage to this family?”

“Let’s go,” Jeff coaxes, tugging gently on her elbow.

Alessandro stiffens next to me. “I’m sor—”

But that’s as far as he gets before Mallory rips her elbow out of Jeff’s grasp and launches into him, shoving him back. “I want you to stay away from Hilary, and I want you to stay away from Henri. I don’t want you anywhere near my family. Do you hear me?”

Alessandro splits a confused look between me and Mallory, trying to decipher where the venom is coming from.

Jeff grabs Mallory by the shoulders and physically puts her in the passenger seat of the Volvo as she thrashes against him, dissolving into tears as he closes the door. “I’m sorry,” he says, scratching the top of his head. “She’ll never admit to how hard this is hitting her, but she’s barely holding it together.”

“It’s understandable,” Alessandro answers, but his tone is pensive, and when I look at his face, his look tells me he’s still trying to puzzle out Mallory’s overreaction.