My little sister Giulietta tugged at my sleeve. "Serafina, aren't we going to meet him?"
I should have been. In both my previous lives, that was exactly what I'd done.
The script never changed.
I congratulated him on his victory.
He proposed in front of the entire neighborhood.
We married, we grew old together, we never parted.
It took a third life to see the truth: I'd given my heart to the wrong man.
I tightened my grip on Giulietta's hand. "We're going home."
The crowd pressed in from every side, the air thick with exhaust and cigarette smoke and the stench of too many bodies. Each breath felt like swallowing stones.
Giulietta pointed at my hair. "But you got up before dawn to do your hair. Wasn't that for him?"
"Did he make you angry? Is that why you won't let him see your pretty hairdo?"
I had no answer for that.
I reached up and pulled the sprig of orange blossom from my hair.
Placed it in my palm and crushed it, slowly, between my fingers.
Once, a bright-eyed boy had tucked an orange blossom behind my ear on the steps of his family's church.
He made me promise to wear one when I came to welcome him home from whatever war the family sent him to fight.