Antonio lifted a fist near his face and gestured angrily toward Maria. His ball and socket joints groaned in protest as he shook it back and forth.

‘You interrupt my tomato watering, for what? A stupid locket!’

‘You know it is precious to me.’

‘My tomatoes are precious to me. I water them at the same time every day. That is why they grow ripe and juicy. Not shrivelled and wrinkled.’ 

‘Ah, that is all you care about is ya tomatoes. I’m surprised you a know I have a locket.’

‘Been a hanging around ya neck for twenty-five years.’

‘Forgive me for carrying a picture of the love of my life.’

Maria stomped through Antonio’s rocket patch. He threw his arms in the air.

‘Watch where you are a steppin’.’

‘It a grow back.’

Antonio cooled his rage before he began sifting carefully through his chilli plants. Maria squelched through the water-saturated earth to join him. Her hands were a blur as they tore through the plants and searched through their leaves. Her reckless intent unleashed a chilli into the air.

‘Arrrrg,’ he bellowed, over-exaggerating the pain of the chilli crashing into his eye. ‘Be more careful with a my plants.’

He patted the ground in search of the hose that dribbled close by.

‘That will make it a worse,’ scolded Maria as she flicked through the last chilli plant.

‘How did you lose a the locket?’

‘Through a hole in my pocket.’

‘Ah, let me a guess. The pocket on ya apron.’

‘You were meant to buy me a new one for Christmas.’

‘But you a never take the locket off.’

‘Don’t change tha subject.’ Maria replied, waving her finger in the air, and looking in the opposite direction.

Antonio placed the hose back in the circular moat surrounding his best tomato plant.

‘How did you lose it in a my garden? Hey?’

‘I was picking parsley for the pasta sauce.’

Antonio glared at Maria as she tore through his flourishing crop of parsley. She was red-faced. Flustered. Frantic. He knew his wife well. She was desperate to find the locket. Before he did. He peered down at the mini moat surrounding his eggplants. As the water faded into the ground, it revealed the locket. Open. He froze. Antonio’s body numbed. Tears whelmed in his eyes.

‘The love of ya life, hey.’

Antonio’s voice trembled as he lifted his gaze towards Maria. Her eyes widened as they fixed on the opened trinket.

‘Antonio, I …’

Antonio’s bottom lip trembled. He staggered to his feet. Then walked towards the house. Not once did he acknowledge Maria, who sat there, mouth open, staring at the open locket with pictures of her and Antonio’s brother, Vincenzo. Embracing passionately.