Chapter 20
GIANNA
It’s been three days since he said he’d take me to meet his sister, but he hasn’t mentioned it since.
I also haven’t seen a lot of him, except late at night when he wakes me with his soft kisses and even softer love making.
I still don’t know how I feel about that, or any of it.
But when I don’t think too hard, I know I like it. A lot. Too much.
So I try not to think about it at all.
I’ve been speaking to Chiara on the phone every day.
Maria has now left me the phone again while she cooks lunch for all the men who live on this estate now.
The men Matteo recruited for his war. There are a lot of them.
I hear them talking in the garden sometimes, or in the hallways of the house, but I’ve yet to see any of them.
Sometimes I imagine I can hear my father’s voice among them too.
I can move freely through the wing of the house where the bedroom is. That’s half a floor at least. Five huge rooms, two of them sitting rooms. There’s even a TV room with a huge screen TV, and a DVD player, which are both old but still work. And the library of movies is extensive.
I’m in that room now, sitting on the plush beige sofa, that’s big enough to sit a whole family, leaning against the pale gold, white, pink, and light blue cushions.
There’s a big balcony here with a view of the ocean here too.
A liquor cabinet is hidden inside one of the built-in cupboards, but there are only a bunch of pretty crystal glasses and no actual liquor inside it.
A very good thing. Because I’d probably have drank all of it by now and I’m not sure I should drink anymore. I don’t need it, and I want to stay sober. Maybe for the first time since I discovered that wonderfully soft buzz and relaxation vodka gives.
My period is late. I haven’t had it since before everything happened.
Since before I gave myself to Matteo for the first time.
It could just be from stress, but I’m starting to think that maybe it’s not.
I didn’t even notice it was late until the day he took me shopping and I realized I hadn’t needed pads or tampons for a while. I got a stash of both, just in case.
If I am pregnant then this truly is the beginning of the rest of my life.
And even if I’m wrong, and my period will come any day now, I have to know if I really want this new life.
So I can’t just drown out my feelings in alcohol.
I’m having a hard enough time figuring out what those actually are without being drunk on top of it.
I’ve been coming to this TV room a lot since I discovered it.
Trying to find a reason not to pop a DVD in and lose the day watching my favorite movies.
There are many reasons. And chief among them is that the second I put in the first DVD, then I have decided that this is my home now.
That I am comfortable here. That I choose this.
And I can’t in good conscience do that. Especially not with Chiara’s angry words of rebellion, disobedience, and revenge playing in my mind all the time. She still talks about that each time we speak.
There’s also a very deep veil of sadness hanging over this house. Or more like a good foot of snowfall made just of sadness. Except it’s invisible and the only thing covering everything here is dust.
Maria keeps apologizing for the dust and dirt, keeps telling me she will get the cleaners in to put everything right soon.
And I keep telling her it’s fine. Because it’s more fitting this way.
Easier to keep myself removed from everything in this house when it’s so clearly a remnant of a time that no longer is, that never can be again, because all the people who lived here, who were a family here, are dead.
Part of the dust that covers everything in here. Or not even that.
Except Matteo and his sister.
And he might soon be dead too. He might soon join the dust in this house.
Every time I get to that thought, I have to stop thinking.
I should be happy that he’ll probably die in this war of his. That’s what Chiara keeps telling me. That I’ll be free then.
But I’ve been thinking a lot about the conversation we had about freedom. And I now know I’ll never be free. Not of him. Not of the life we could’ve had. Even if he’s physically gone from my life or the world.
The phone I’m holding in my hand rings. It’s Chiara, she’s been able to call me for days now.
Clearly her husband is increasing her freedoms. But when I so much as vaguely suggested that’s a good sign, she blew up at me like in the good old days.
A part of me doesn’t want to pick up. Because the good old days will never come again.
Not the way she wants them to. And it’s hard knowing that while she won’t accept it in the slightest. But it’s harder for her.
She’s married to a guy she hates. A guy who took everything away from her.
So I do pick up.
“I almost hung up,” she says by way of a greeting. “I thought maybe you were out, meeting that sister of his.”
The contempt in her voice cuts like a blade.
“No, not yet,” I say. “I think he’s avoiding going to see her. He still blames her for what happened to their family. Sort of.”
She scoffs. “Listen to you, feeling sorry for him. He’s holding you there against your will and you’re worried about his feelings. What happened to you?”
I sigh and walk to the balcony. The sight of the ocean could always calm me and it’s beautiful today, almost perfectly white. Like opal.
“I guess I’ve just always been a lot more compliant and complacent than you.”
“You can say that again.”
I feel no need to do that. Just as I feel no need to have this same conversation with her over and over again.
What’s happened has happened. Our family is safe.
Even Rafaelle is safe. Matteo has assured me of that and he keeps assuring me.
He’s even shown me pictures of Mom and Lidia shopping in the same store he took me to.
And of my dad and Rafaelle drinking espresso, sitting at one of the tables in this garden.
They all look well. They all look like they’re taking things in their stride.
I’ve shared all this with Chiara, but she insists on treating me like a traitor despite it.
“He’s asked me to be his wife.”
I haven’t told her this yet, and even now I said it so quietly that I think her silence means she hadn’t heard me.
“There’s your chance then,” she exclaims. “Did you say yes? I hope you said yes. Your curse will get him soon now.”
“I didn’t accept,” I say just as quietly as before.
“What? Why? It’s like the only weapon you have.”
“I don’t know if I want him to die,” I say. “I think I want to be his wife.”
The silence that follows feels like all the air’s been sucked out of the world.
I can feel her shock, her anger, her disappointment across the whole country.
I wish she’d say something. And I don’t.
Because I know it will be terrible to hear.
I haven’t admitted this to her before, I’ve barely admitted it to myself.
But now it’s out there. And I do feel just a tiny bit lighter for having said it.
Like all the weight of sadness and regret pressing down on my chest lost a couple of pounds.
“You can’t be serious,” she finally says. “After everything he did?”
“He did a lot to protect us too. Us and the rest of our family. Things just played out how they did. It could’ve been worse for us.”
She scoffs. “Speak for yourself. You’re not the one stuck in an old, rotting house with a madman.”
And there goes all my hard-won complacency. All my wispy little hopes and dreams that we’ll all come out of this on the other side, safe, whole, and happy. Happier even than we used to be.
I should never have told her all this.
“Is it very bad?” I ask and she just scoffs again. I feel the anger behind that as though she were standing right beside me.
“I’m sorry.”
She exhales loudly. “Yes, yes. We’re all very sorry, Gianna.”
I don’t know what to say to that, nothing I can think of would make it any better, so I don’t say anything.
And in the silence, I feel her anger grow and grow.
Her disappointment. My treachery. If there was vodka in that liquor cabinet I’d be drinking it straight from the bottle right now, forgetting all my good intentions of staying sober.
“We’ll get you away from him,” I say. “As soon as possible. I’ll make sure of it. I’ll talk to Matteo… to dad once I can… we’ll get you back.”
She scoffs again. “It’s not that bad, don’t go freaking out on me now.”
“What?” I ask breathlessly. Her words feel like what a balloon losing all its air sounds like. Like I’ve been knocked down while running.
“He’s very sorry that he shot me,” she says. “And he can be sweet when he wants to. Sometimes even a little interesting. But I don’t want him to be any of those things. He’s done too much bad to ever be redeemed.”
Hearing that, the heavy weight on my chest just lost a few additional pounds.
I feel that sun on my back that always precedes Matteo appearing even before I hear him calling out my name.
“We’ll all be fine, you’ll see,” I tell Chiara, then say my goodbyes before she can start explaining all the ways we won’t be all over again.
Matteo pops his head in the door of the TV room, just as I slip the phone into my pocket. “There you are. We’re going to see my sister now.”
He sounds nervous, agitated, in a hurry. But I think it’s just because he’s finally decided to go see his sister and not anything other than that.
“Get dressed,” He adds.
I look down at the black jeans and T-shirt I’m wearing. “I’ll go like this.”
“I’m taking you out for dinner afterwards, so you might want to put on something nicer,” he says.
“Or go like that. You’ll be the prettiest woman there either way,” he adds when I don’t reply right away.
I wish he’d stop saying good things like that to me. And I wish he’d never stop.
“I’ll be ready in half an hour,” I say and slip past him out of the room.
“An hour it is then,” he calls after me, laughing.
The empty, dusty rooms just swallow that laughter though. Eat it up. Make it more dust. But I want to be the one who returns laughter to this house. Just as much as I want joy to return to my life and the lives of my family.
And for the first time since all this started, I feel like I might have finally found the path that leads to that future. A tiny, narrow overgrown path, full of obstacles yet to be overcome. But the right path nonetheless.