Summer In San Caprile

This uplifting short story by Angela Petch is set in the hills of Tuscany.

breath, Tina thought. It was unreal.

“I don’t understand.

What have I done?” she asked.

“You haven’t done anything. It’s probably me.” As he spoke, he ran his hand through his hair. She’d noticed him doing that whenever he was under stress.

“Can’t we talk about it?” “There’s no point, Tina.” “Is there somebody else?”

Tina was crying now. She knew people were watching and listening to their raised voices, but she couldn’t help it.

“There’s nobody else. I just need to get back home to Australia. I feel hemmed in. I’m sorry.”

****

Back at the house, she’d numbly watched him shove his few possessions into his worn rucksack. The same one she’d shared when they’d travelled across Europe; the same one he’d been carrying when she’d met him in Thailand.

He avoided her gaze while he packed and, as he left, he started to say something, then shrugged, raised his hand in a half-hearted wave and, with that, he was gone.

After she’d cried herself dry and understood he wasn’t going to acknowledge her frantic text messages, she took to her bed.

After two days she had to change the sheets because they smelled of him, and the effort wiped her out. Then the end-ofsummer rains arrived, beating hard on the terracotta roof tiles so that water dripped through and she had to place buckets underneath.

She lay in her bed,

How would Tina cope here alone now Nick was gone?