A Mother for His Daughter. Ally Blake

her. Infusing her with hope. Because in finding her father, she had placed a massive amount of hope in finding herself. Only now she had some willing help. She shoved her hands in her pockets to stop herself from reaching out and giving Luca a great big hug.

      They said their goodbyes to the effusive Giovanni, and each of the grown-ups took one of Mila’s hands. Their pace was slow as they ambled through the winding back streets of Rome. Mila sang and giggled and pointed at interesting things with an outstretched foot, as she was unwilling to let go of either hand.

      All evidence of the spring shower had evaporated and the sun seemed to shine more brightly than it had during the rest of her stay. The tourists milling about did not get in her way as she walked by, they seemed excited, enthralled, bewitched.

      As Gracie’s gaze swept to her right, she took the opportunity to have a good look at the man at her side, the stranger in whom she had placed the remnants of her hope. He could be a psycho killer luring her off to his secluded villa. To torture her before his daughter, his grandmother and horse named Pino? She didn’t think so.

      ‘What are you smiling at?’ Luca asked.

      Gracie looked away, disgusted with herself for having been caught staring. ‘Nothing I would dare repeat for fear of being thought a numbskull,’ she said.

      ‘Che cosa è un…numbskull?’ Mila asked.

      ‘Someone who smiles for no good reason at all,’ Gracie said.

      Once they reached the hostel, Luca and Mila waited outside while Gracie said her goodbyes to Enzo and packed her minimal belongings. Once downstairs she was surprised to see a beautiful black car awaiting her, what with the multitude of tiny dented cars and daredevil motor scooters that trawled the streets of Rome with frightening pace and oblivious to road rules.

      The window rolled down and Mila popped out her head. ‘Venuto, Gracie! It’s time to go home!’

      Home, Gracie thought, taking one last look around the warm stuccoed buildings and cobbled stone streets that championed the history and beauty of Rome, her home for the past few weeks, and she realised that she did not really know what the word home meant any more.

      Before leaving Melbourne, she had quit her job and sublet her apartment. She was a woman without a home. A woman without a country. A woman without full-blood kin. A woman with her future laid out before her like the paved road below the car, and with her past twinkling back at her like a star just beyond reach of her fingertips. And all she could do to join the two was to take this sudden divergence in her journey.

      She took in a deep breath and hopped in the car. They took off, Luca, Mila and she in the back, a driver hidden behind a dark petition. Gracie watched city roads turn into country roads as Rome gave way to the green, undulating Tuscan landscape, with its scattered farmhouses and hilltop villages, and for the first time in a long time she felt as if it could all really happen to her. All she could do was go with the flow and wait and see.