Chapter 11 Don’t Let Go
SERAFINA
By the time I get out of bed on Thursday, the morning light reaches across the floor. I make it to the bathroom before the nausea catches up with me.
I kneel on the tile floor with my forehead against the cool porcelain, waiting for my stomach to settle.
The pregnancy test is still in the wastebasket under a layer of tissues.
I wrapped it in the pharmacy bag, but that's not secure enough.
Anyone emptying the bin could find it. I need to deal with that today.
My mother knocks softly on the bathroom door. "Serafina? Are you all right?"
"Fine." I flush the toilet and pull myself up to the sink. "Just a bad night."
I hear her footsteps retreat down the hall.
She's giving me space, the way she has since I arrived with my suitcase and my silence.
I'm grateful for it, even though I know I can't keep this secret much longer.
She's going to notice. The morning sickness, the way I've been avoiding coffee, the nausea that hits without warning. She raised me. She knows my tells.
But not today. Today I need to figure out what I'm going to do before I start explaining it to anyone else.
I rinse my mouth and splash cold water on my face, then look at myself in the mirror. I don't look pregnant. I look tired and pale and slightly green around the edges, but that could be stress. That could be the divorce I'm filing, the marriage I'm ending, the husband I sent away twice in two days.
Rafael's text is still on my phone. Marisol admitted she wanted you to see her with me. I kept returning to it last night after he drove away. I kept waiting to feel something, relief or vindication or the satisfaction of being right. Instead I just felt tired.
I want to call Marisol and make her say it to me. I want to hear how she explains using our friendship to get close to my husband. But I know what she did now, and hearing her excuse won't give me back the evening I spent waiting for him.
And now I'm pregnant with his child, and I have no idea how to tell him.
I dry my face and return to my room to get dressed.
The formula notebook is on the desk where I moved it yesterday, open to the jasmine page I've been studying.
Fiorella already knows about that project from our Monday call.
She offered to help me assess the citrus trial again, with more time than we had at the market.
I should focus on that. I should think about my work, my future, the life I'm trying to build.
Before I forget, I go back to the bathroom and fish the wrapped test out of the wastebasket. The pharmacy bag crinkles as I tuck it into my pocket. On my way downstairs later, I'll dispose of it in the outside bin where no one will think to look. One less thing to worry about.
My phone buzzes. I pick it up expecting another message from Rafael, but it's Beatrice.
Can I call you?
I stare at the screen for a moment. Beatrice has been careful since she brought my clothes on Monday, texting to check in but not pushing for more than I want to give. She helped me pack. She chose me when I needed someone to choose me.
Yes.
The phone rings almost immediately. I answer and sit down on the edge of the bed.
"Serafina." Beatrice's voice is warm but careful. "Thank you for picking up. I wanted you to hear this from me."
"Hear what?" My stomach tightens, and I press my free hand against it without thinking.
"Rafael ended his consultancy with Marisol this morning." Beatrice pauses, letting that sink in. "He called her to the office and told her their working relationship is over. She's not welcome on the estate anymore."
I don't know what to say. His text told me what Marisol admitted. It didn't tell me what he intended to do about it. But actually ending things, actually removing her from the place she'd carved out in his life, that's different. That's action.
"How do you know?" I sit forward, needing this to be more than something he said he would do.
"Corrado was there." Beatrice's voice softens. "Rafael asked him to witness it. He wanted someone else present so there wouldn't be any question about what was said."
I try to imagine it: Rafael behind his desk, Marisol in the chair across from him, Corrado standing somewhere nearby with his quiet, steady presence. I trusted her as my friend. He trusted her with his work. Now he needs a witness to tell her to leave. "What did she say?"
"Corrado said she argued at first. Tried to make it about the branding work, about projects in progress.
Rafael told her he'd handle the transition himself, that his lawyer would be in touch about any outstanding agreements.
" Beatrice pauses again. "Then she tried to make it personal.
Said some things about you. Rafael told her to leave. "
"What kind of things?" My grip tightens on the phone. Even now she has something to say about me.
"Nothing worth repeating." Beatrice's tone sharpens. "The point is, she's gone. He's made it official. I wanted you to know before you heard it somewhere else."
I lean back against my pillows and close my eyes. Marisol is gone. The woman who called me to that office, who stood between me and my husband with her hand on his skin, who smiled at me like I was an inconvenience she'd been waiting to dispose of. Gone.
It should feel like victory. Why doesn't it feel like victory?
"Serafina?" Beatrice's voice pulls me back. "Are you still there?"
"I'm here." I open my eyes and stare at the ceiling. "Thank you for telling me."
"There's something else." Beatrice hesitates, and I can hear her choosing her words carefully. "He asked about your workshop. Whether you wanted him to have your things packed and sent to you, or whether you'd prefer to arrange it yourself."
My workshop. The east wing room where Rafael helped me set up my equipment the Saturday before everything fell apart. The space that was supposed to be mine, in the house that was supposed to be ours.
"He asked?" I look toward the wardrobe where Beatrice hung the clothes she brought. I had expected another box to arrive with his idea of what I needed.
"He said it's your equipment and your decision." Beatrice sounds almost surprised by this herself. "He wanted me to make sure you knew that."
I think about the extraction setup, the precision scales, the rows of bottles waiting to be filled. I think about the photograph tucked into the corner of the mirror, the one from our wedding that I forgot to take when I left.
"Tell him I'll let him know." I sit up and swing my legs over the edge of the bed.
"Actually, there are a few small things I could use now.
My box of glass droppers and my portable scale.
They're on the shelf by the window. Could he bring those to my father on Saturday? I don't want to go back there yet."
"I'll tell him." Beatrice's voice warms. "I'll make sure he knows to arrange the time with your father. And Serafina? You can call me. Whenever you want. Even if it's just to talk."
"I know." And I do know, which is the strange part. Beatrice is his mother, and she's still choosing me. "Thank you, Beatrice."
I take the wrapped test downstairs. My mother is in the kitchen, her back to me as she washes dishes.
I slip out the side door and walk to the bins at the edge of the courtyard, dropping the pharmacy bag into the one that gets collected tomorrow.
For a moment I want to take it back. I have no photograph of the result, only the memory of those lines.
Then I shut the lid. Keeping the test won't tell me how to have this conversation.
When I come back inside, my mother glances up but doesn't ask where I went. I pour myself a glass of water and sit at the table, watching her work.
"Beatrice called." I leave my water untouched. "Rafael ended things with Marisol. Officially. She's banned from the estate."
My mother turns off the water and dries her hands on a towel. "How do you feel about that?"
"I don't know." I trace a pattern on the table with my finger. "It's what I wanted. But it doesn't fix anything. Not really."
"No." She hangs the towel on its hook and comes to sit across from me. "It doesn't. But it's a step."
I nod, not trusting my voice. She reaches across the table and squeezes my hand once, then gets up to take the bread out for breakfast. Neither of us mentions Rafael again.
***
By Friday afternoon, I have my citrus trial packed and a list of questions for Fiorella. I drive into town and park near the square.
Fiorella is behind the counter when I enter Profumi e Spezie, sorting through a delivery of glass bottles. Her face lights up when she sees me.
"Serafina." She sets down the bottle in her hand and comes around the counter. "You brought the full trial?"
"The second version." I pull the amber bottle from my bag and hold it out. "You smelled it at the market. I want to spend more time on the balance, now that I've lived with it for a while."
Fiorella takes the bottle and turns it in her hands, examining the color through the glass. "Let's go to the back. We'll have room to spread out."
I follow her through the curtained doorway into the workroom behind the shop. It's smaller than my space at the Visconti house, cluttered with supplies and half-finished projects, but there's a clean table near the window where she does her evaluations.
She uncaps the bottle and wets a smelling strip, then passes it to me. "You first. Tell me what you're unsure of."
I lift the strip to my nose and breathe in, waiting for the nausea that hit me on Tuesday. It doesn't come. The scent unfolds the way it should, bright bergamot opening into softer neroli, the cedar rising underneath to anchor everything.
"The bergamot is the same as what you tried at the market." I lower the strip and watch her prepare one for herself. "I keep wondering about the cedar. I think the blend could be warmer without making it heavy."