Chapter Twelve #2
“You didn’t need to disrupt your life.” She looked to the windows that offered a view to the back garden. Her breastbone had turned to sand. Her throat was so dry, she could hardly speak. “I wasn’t planning to tell anyone. I don’t want to make a nuisance of myself.”
“You’re not. This has weighed on me a long time. May I tell you how it happened?”
“If you want to.” She realized the pain in her hand was her own grip. Her nails were cutting into her skin. She kept her gaze on the window, even though the view was nothing but a blur of green with smudges of rose-pink and butter-yellow.
“My wife and I were acquainted with Trude. My cousin had the villa next to your mother’s in Praiano. You played with my cousin’s children for a week one summer.” His voice caught with emotion. “I don’t know if you remember that.”
“I do. I didn’t know that’s who they were.” Scorching heat rose to press behind her eyes.
“No one did except Trude. Otto was with you on that trip. He didn’t usually come, but he was there.
Your mother didn’t know how to refuse to allow you to play with them without arousing his suspicions.
My cousin had no idea, but after I heard about it, I suggested they sell the property.
Your mother stopped bringing you so it became moot. ”
Mira looked at her hands and twisted them together, feeling cheated.
“In any case, that’s how I met Trude. We often stayed in my cousin’s house when we visited from Australia.
Back when people actually used their holiday homes instead of renting them to strangers over the internet.
” His tone lightened. “When the grapevine was the internet. Trude and Claudina chatted many times over the fence. They were always laughing about something.”
Mira couldn’t help a tiny smile of wistfulness as he shared that memory of her mother.
Winola knocked and came in with a tray of cups and a carafe of coffee, glancing at Mira as though she could feel the mist of mixed emotions on the air.
Mira nodded jerkily that it was okay for her to leave everything on the low table. Winola closed the door on her way out.
Mira poured for both of them, then doctored her own with lots of cream and sugar.
Silvio left his black and set aside his hat to pick up the cup and saucer.
“I happened to be visiting alone when your mother and I… It was one afternoon, Mira. May I call you that?”
She snorted and shrugged. He was her father.
“Thank you.” He set his cup back on the table without tasting it and clasped his hands, leaning forward.
“Your mother and I were both going through a difficult time. My father was dying. He wanted me to move back to Italy to take over the family business. Manufacturing. Our plants had survived the war. I couldn’t let them languish, couldn’t sell them when I had family here that relied on their jobs there.
Claudina didn’t want to come. Her family had emigrated from Italy before she was born.
All her family is in Australia. Our eldest had just started school.
My business there was doing well enough that she couldn’t see leaving the life we’d built to start over here.
We were fighting constantly. I came here to see my father, fearful I would never see him again.
It was offseason, but Trude was at her villa.
She leant a compassionate ear, then told me her own troubles, that her husband was having an affair and she had lost three pregnancies. ”
“Oh!” Mira’s cup rattled against her saucer. She set it down. “I never knew that about her.”
“I don’t think she had ever told anyone except Otto.
She was desolate. She didn’t love her husband, but she wanted to be a mother.
Your grandfather was still alive and their marriage contract made divorce very costly and complicated.
She didn’t feel she had any choice but to stay married.
We were comforting each other and one thing led to another.
It wasn’t anything we planned or intended to continue.
I thought she was kind and beautiful and I liked her a great deal.
I felt very close to her that day, but I love my wife, Mira.
I went back to Australia immediately, sick with myself for jeopardizing my marriage when it meant so much to me. ”
“Then Mom became pregnant.”
“She did. And she told me as soon as she found out, but she said she would probably miscarry so I shouldn’t worry.” His brow wrinkled in anguish. “When she carried you to term, I couldn’t fault her for not considering other options. She wanted you so badly. She loved you very much.”
Oh, Mama, Mira thought with despair. How heartbreaking to be stuck in a loveless marriage and go through so much loss.
“I saw you once, asleep in your cradle,” Silvio said with a reflective smile. “I felt exactly as I had with each of my children—grateful and proud and filled with immediate love.”
She was afraid to look at him. Afraid to know whether that was really true.
“I hated myself for cheating on my wife, but I couldn’t regret that I’d made you, or the joy you had brought to your mother.
She said Otto believed you were his, but I did what I thought was right.
I set up a trust for you. At the time, everything seemed very tidy.
You and your mother had everything you needed.
I was able to go back to my life with Claudina and pretend I’d never stepped out on her. ”
“She must be upset, learning you’ve been hiding this for so long.” Rocco had kept this secret from her for far less time and she was devastated by his betrayal.
“She is very hurt,” he acknowledged solemnly. “But she knows where I’ve slept every night since it happened because it’s always been beside her.”
“You think she’ll forgive you?” she asked. How?
“I hope so. I know the affair was wrong. I know it was wrong to hide it. It was very wrong of me to ask Rocco to carry that secret. I unburdened myself at his expense.”
“I don’t want to talk about him.” Her voice scorched her throat.
“I had no idea that Otto had discovered so long ago that he wasn’t your father, Mira.” Regret weight heavily in his voice. “Did Trude know that he was cruel to you?”
“She protected me from it.” She pressed her lips together to keep them from trembling, but she could feel her chin crinkling along with her brow.
“It was worse after she died. I think Otto must have seen the paperwork in the safe in Praiano. I didn’t understand what I’d done to deserve the way he was treating me. ”
“Nothing,” Silvio said with quiet vehemence. He hitched forward and reached out a hand toward her. “I refuse to call you a mistake, Mira. I have made many, including not coming into your life until now, but you are not a mistake. There is nothing wrong with you.”
She didn’t take his hand. She looked away, but she appreciated the words.
And she thought she understood why Rocco had chosen to keep this man’s secret rather than condemn him. He wasn’t a bad person. He was actually very kind.
With a heavy sigh, Silvio drew his hand back and rubbed it on his thigh. She heard him swallow.
“Will you let me tell your brothers and sisters about you? And meet them when you’re ready?”
“Why on earth would they want to meet me?” she asked on a choke of emotion.
“I’m the product of your cheating on their mother.
” She had to hide then, unable to bear this much emotion.
She plucked a couple of tissues from the nearby box and pressed them to her clenched eyes, trying to keep the hot tears from leaking out.
“Bambina.” She heard him rise. He drew her from the chair and wrapped his arms around her the way she’d always wanted Otto to do. He patted her hair and pressed his own wet cheek to hers.
“She should have told me,” she said, breaking down and sobbing into his lapel.
“Yes,” he agreed. “Perhaps she thought she would. Perhaps she left those documents in Praiano for you to find. I know she never would have left you so soon if she’d had a choice, stellina. You were the light of her life.”
She clung to him and cried out her grief and hurt and sorrow and loss.
Silvio was patient, so patient, patting her back and hair. His expression was ravaged with anguish as they drew apart.
“Let me wash my face,” she said shakily, needing to pull herself together.
She stepped into the powder room and splashed water across her salty cheeks. While she was patting them dry, she heard him blow his nose with a loud honk, which somehow made her smile.
It made it possible to come back into the room feeling a little more in control.
Silvio was seated again, sipping his coffee, eyes red.
“You can tell your children about me if you want to. I’ll give you my number.” She unlocked her phone and handed it to him as she sat down again, not expecting to hear from any of them, ever, but it was nice of him to suggest it.
His phone pinged in his pocket. He smiled as he handed hers back. “Grazie.”
“Prego.” She fell back into the Italian she hadn’t used since leaving Rocco.
His gaze warmed with appreciation, then grew somber. “Will you speak to him? Please?”
“No.” She looked to her coffee, but suspected she’d only spill it if she tried to pick it up.
“I have no right to ask you for favors, Mira, but this was another mistake that was mine. I know you think he was acting for me, but that’s not true.
He was seeing you in spite of our friendship.
At the expense of it. He has already told me he will never forgive me for the hurt all of this has caused you. ”
“I think you’re misunderstanding the whole thing.” Her throat strained under the words. “He only ever spoke to me because of you. I went to Rome to see him because I was angry with Otto. Our engagement was never real. There’s nothing more between us.”
“Then why are you punishing him so harshly?” he challenged. “Why is he eating his heart out? I’ve never seen him this way. Not even when I first met him and he told me about losing his aunt.”