Chapter 17
GIANNA
The conversation with Matteo left me in such a funk that I didn’t even feel like eating the cake or having the coffee.
Maria was in a rush to get back to the cooking, so I just followed her inside and went back to the bedroom, thinking some silence and watching the ocean ripple in the distance would help.
Nothing will ever help again.
That’s all the insight I got from staring at the ocean all afternoon. It’s fully dark now, the waning crescent moon high above in the sky casting a very pale light over everything.
There was a lot of commotion in the house earlier.
Men talking, engines revving, and excitement in the air.
But it has all died down again and the house and garden have been silent for a while now.
Maria came to collect some of my dresses for laundering, and asked if I wanted some dinner, but I refused.
I’d expected Matteo to be here by now. Even had vague notions of the two of us eating dinner together. But he hasn’t come yet and it’s getting very late.
Truth is, I don’t even know what to say to him.
He opened up about his mother. And I could feel there’s a lot of pain there. A lot of darkness.
But he also refused to let me see my own mother. And there’s a lot of pain and darkness there too. My own.
If I don’t find a way to square it all away in my mind, find some sort of middle ground, I’ll just lose my mind. I’m sure of that now.
But does any of it even matter?
I’ll still be his prisoner. My family will still be scattered and homeless. My little sister will still be married to the man who caused all of it. And I’ll still love and hate Matteo.
I hear footsteps coming across the bedroom and my heart rate quickens, sweet anticipation of pleasure a whirlwind in my stomach, stronger and fiercer because I try to fight it. I should not be excited to see him.
“Are you sure you’re not hungry?” Maria’s voice asks from the balcony doorway.
And the disappointment that it’s not Matteo is like a blow to the chest. I should not feel that either. And I should’ve known it wasn’t him. There was no sunshine-like heat accompanying the footsteps.
“I’m fine,” I mutter and keep my eyes fixed on the ocean.
More soft footsteps sound and then she’s standing beside me, the nighttime breeze moving her long wavy hair and the moonlight illuminating her face, making her look like a marble statue.
“You’re not fine,” she says. “But you will be. You just have to get through the worst of it.”
“And accept that this is my life forever now?” I snap at her. “How can I? He took everything from me.”
She makes an annoyed sound with her tongue and doesn’t reply for a few moments. Like she’s trying to find the right words. There are none. I’ve searched.
“I understand that you miss your family,” she finally says. “And I know I’m not the person you want advice from, but I’d like to give you some anyway.”
She looks at me as though waiting for permission. And maybe it’s the way she looks like she was cut from marble, or maybe it’s that I’ve been so lonely and confused for so long, having only Matteo to talk to—when he chooses to be with me—that I nod.
She clears her throat then slides her palm down my cheek, catching a stray lock of hair and pushing it back behind my ear. “There are worse things than having the love of a man like Matteo. He loves you very much, I can see that.”
I shudder and move away from her touch. Figures her advice would be actually singing his praises and nothing to do with what I need.
“I’m not just saying that,” she says. “I’ve been with the family since before he was born and helped raise him, so I know what kind of man he is. And this, keeping you prisoner, that’s not him.”
“You knew him,” I say. “But maybe you don’t know him anymore. Because he is keeping me prisoner. Maybe he’s no longer the man you knew.”
She nods. “I was afraid of that. But he’s still in there. Just hidden by a lot of years of suffering. Tarnished, but not gone.”
I scoff again. But I wish what she was saying was true. And I don’t. Because it’s so much harder to hate him when I believe it is true.
“I thought I could love him once. I thought I was in love with him. And now I’m here, locked up, separated from my family, ruined for all other men.”
I don’t know why I told her all that. Maybe because she’s not his enemy, because she’s the only one who could possibly understand how I can still love him after everything he’s done to me.
As for me being ruined… I went down that path willingly before he showed his true colors and intentions. But it still holds true. No one wanted to marry me before. Now it will be even worse.
“Love is a tricky thing,” she says, looking out at the ocean. “Our hearts choose and sometimes our minds don’t agree. But I always believed the heart knows best.”
She sounds like she’s talking from personal experience now. Like it doesn’t just have to do with me. Even though it’s exactly how I feel too. She turns to me and gives me a sad little smile.
“You’re young and you have a lot of life left to live,” she says. “This is just a bump in the road. If everything works out for Matteo here, then you will have everything you desire again. If it doesn’t, you’ll be free to do whatever you want.”
“So what, your advice is that I forget all he’s done to me and just go with the flow?”
She shrugs. “Like I said, there’s worse things than having the love and affection of a man like Matteo. But you’re right, it’s not the best advice. I shouldn’t have spoken. Being back in this house, it makes me remember the old days. The happier times. Makes me hope they can come again.”
“I think those are gone for good,” I say sternly.
She nods and smiles sadly. “Yes, I expect you’re right. But this family was my family too, for a long time. And I was happy here. We all were. There was laughter and love in this house. For a time.”
She falls silent like it’s painful for her to speak.
I have the biggest urge to put my arm around her shoulders and tell her everything will be like it was.
That there will be children for her to help raise again.
And laughter. And love. And the part of me that loves it here, that knows I could be happy here, wants to do that.
But the sad, hateful girl inside me won’t let me fall into that fantasy.
Because it is just a fantasy. Nothing good can come of the carnage and pain that caused all of this and led us here.
“Come on,” she says. “I brought you some spaghetti. No one can feel bad after eating spaghetti. And then we can put some of your freshly washed new clothes away.”
“Because no one can feel bad when they have a roomful of expensive new clothes?” I ask sarcastically.
She just smiles wider. “But isn’t that true?”
And she’s not wrong. In my case it is true. I’m ashamed to admit it, even to myself. And I’m certainly not going to admit it to her. So I just go inside.
“There’s nothing wrong with feeling the little pleasures life offers us even in our darkest despair,” she says. “The pleasures are always God’s way of telling us he hasn’t forgotten about us.”
I don’t know about God and all that, but what she said about embracing the pleasure sounds so much like what Matteo advised me to do that I’m sure she was the one who gave him that advice.
And she’s not wrong. There’s already so much darkness in my life. I should hold onto the light. Because it might get a whole lot worse before it gets better. And it might never get better.