5. Danielle
— ? —
Danielle
Talia arrives on a Thursday morning, stepping out of the tiny car she borrowed from a friend with her hair escaping from its braid and a bag of Mamma’s biscotti clutched like a peace offering.
“These are from home,” she says, shoving them into my hands. “Mamma made me promise to deliver them personally. She says you’re getting too thin.”
“Mamma says everyone is getting too thin. She tried to feed the postman last week.”
“The postman needed feeding. Have you seen him? The man looks like a stiff wind could take him out.” Talia pulls me into a hug, and I hold on longer than I mean to, breathing in the smell of home - cooking oil and laundry soap and something floral that’s just her.
My little sister, twenty-two now and studying hospitality at the vocational college near Vallechiara, and still the person who knows me better than anyone.
“I’ve missed you,” I say into her shoulder.
“Obviously. I’m extremely missable.” She pulls back and studies my face with narrowed eyes. “You look tired.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m not being mean, I’m being observant. When did you last sleep properly?”
“I sleep fine.”
“Liar.” She hooks her arm through mine. “Give me the tour. I want to see this palace you’re living in.”
***
The tour goes about as well as I expected.
Talia makes appropriately impressed noises at the formal rooms and the art and the gardens, but I can see her cataloging everything - the staff who appear and disappear like ghosts, the portraits of Morelli ancestors staring down from the walls, the sheer overwhelming weight of it all.
“It’s very…” She trails off, searching for a word.
“Cold,” I supply. “The word you’re looking for is cold.”
“I was going to say ‘fancy,’ but sure. Cold works.”
We end up in the small sitting room I’ve claimed as my own, the one room in this house that has my things in it - a throw blanket from home, some books, a photo of our family from before everything got complicated.
“Okay, tell me the truth,” Talia says, dropping onto the settee and pulling her legs up under her. “What’s going on? Your messages have been weird for months.”
“They haven’t been weird.”
“Dani. You used to send me pictures of your cooking every other day. Now I’m lucky if I get a ‘fine, busy, talk soon’ once a week. Something’s wrong.”
I should tell her I’m fine. I should perform happiness the way I’ve been performing it for months, put on the smile that makes everyone think the commoner wife is settling in beautifully, thank you for asking. But this is Talia. And I’m so tired of pretending.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” I say slowly. “Nothing is specifically wrong. Niccolo loves me. I have everything I could want. This house is beautiful and the family is… welcoming enough. It’s just…”
“It’s just what?”
“I feel like I’m disappearing.” The words come out before I can stop them. “Like every day I get a little smaller, a little quieter, and nobody notices. Or maybe they do notice and they’re glad. I don’t know anymore.”
Talia’s face goes serious. “The mother-in-law?”
“Partly. She’s never outright cruel, she’s just…
correcting. Constantly. The way I speak, the way I dress, the way I exist in this house.
And Niccolo doesn’t see it because he’s never here, and when he is here he’s exhausted and distracted and-” I stop, shaking my head.
“I sound ungrateful. I know I sound ungrateful.”
“You sound unhappy. There’s a difference.”
“I love him, Talia. I really do. When it’s just us, when we’re at the vacation house or he actually has time to be present, it’s everything I thought marriage would be.
But those moments keep getting rarer and the rest of it keeps getting harder, and I don’t know how to fix it because I don’t even know what’s broken. ”
My sister is quiet for a long moment, turning a throw pillow over in her hands.
“You can come home anytime,” she says finally. “You know that, right? If this isn’t working, if he’s not fighting for you the way you need him to - you can just come home. We’ll figure it out. We always do.”
The offer hits me somewhere deep, in the place I’ve been trying to protect.
“It’s not that simple.”
“It could be. If you wanted it to be.”
Before I can answer, the door opens and Matilde appears.
“Danielle, I didn’t realize you had a guest.” Her smile is polite and distant, the one she uses for staff and delivery people. “You must be the sister.”
“Talia.” My sister stands, extending her hand. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Donna Matilde. Dani’s told me so much about the family.”
“Has she.” It’s not a question. Matilde’s gaze sweeps over Talia - the borrowed car, the rumpled travel clothes, the braid that’s given up entirely - and finds her wanting. “Well, I hope you’ll join us for dinner. We have guests tonight, some family friends. I’m sure Danielle mentioned.”
She didn’t. Because I didn’t know.
“That’s very kind,” Talia says smoothly, “but I actually need to get back. Classes tomorrow.”
“Of course. Your studies.” Matilde’s smile doesn’t waver. “So important to have a practical education. Not everyone is cut out for higher academics.”
I watch my sister’s jaw tighten, and I want to say something, defend her, but the words stick in my throat the way they always do in this house.
“I’ll walk you out,” I say instead.
At the car, Talia hugs me again, tighter this time.
“I don’t like her,” she says into my ear. “And I don’t like what this place is doing to you. The Danielle I know would have told that woman exactly where to shove her comments about my education.”
“I know.”
“Think about what I said. About coming home.” She pulls back, holding me by the shoulders. “You don’t owe anyone your happiness. Not even him.”
I watch her drive away until the little car disappears around the curve of the drive, and then I stand there for a long moment, feeling the weight of her words. You can come home anytime.
***
I find Niccolo in his study that evening.
I’ve been working up to this all day, rehearsing what I want to say.
That I’m struggling. That I need more from him - more time, more attention, more of a presence in the life we’re supposed to be building together.
That I love him but I’m drowning, and I need him to see it before I go under completely.
The door is slightly ajar, and I raise my hand to knock, and then I hear his voice.
“ - don’t know what to do anymore. I’ve tried, I really have, but she doesn’t fit in this world.”
I freeze.
“She tries so hard,” he continues, and there’s something heavy in his voice, something I can’t quite read. “And it just… none of this suits her. I watch her at these dinners and these events and I can see her struggling to be something she’s not.”
Another voice murmurs something I can’t quite hear. His mother, maybe. Or someone on the phone.
“I don’t know how to fix it,” Niccolo says. “I thought if I just gave it time, she’d adjust, she’d find her footing. But she hasn’t. And I’m starting to think she never will. She doesn’t fit here. She was never meant for this.”
She doesn’t fit in this world. The words echo in my head, sharp and final.
My husband thinks I don’t belong here. My husband agrees with his mother, agrees with the whispers, agrees with every silent judgment I’ve felt since the day I walked into this house.
She doesn’t fit. I back away from the door slowly, carefully, not making a sound.
My hand finds the wall and I use it to steady myself because suddenly I’m not sure my legs will hold me.
All this time I thought I was the problem - that if I tried harder, learned faster, smiled wider, eventually I’d earn my place here.
Eventually they’d see me as one of them. But Niccolo doesn’t want me to become one of them.
He thinks I can’t. I make it back to our bedroom without anyone seeing me, close the door behind me, and sit on the edge of the bed that’s never felt like mine.
She doesn’t fit in this world.
Something in me, the last hopeful part that’s been waiting for things to get better, finally goes quiet.