26
LUCA BELLANDI
We spent three nights apart.
She didn’t come to my room. She left the studio door open when we were alone and didn’t reach for my hand in the halls.
She was professional and cordial. I didn’t know whether she was waiting for something from me or beginning to give up waiting.
On Thursday, four days after the family dinner, Sofia sent me a copy of the photograph Gabriela had already received.
Gabriela stood beside me. My hand rested on her waist, and I was looking at her instead of the camera. I remembered letting go when I noticed the reporters. The photograph had caught a moment I’d ruined seconds later. I opened our messages and wrote that I needed to talk to her after work.
I found her in the studio late that afternoon. She was reviewing garden drawings and didn’t turn when I came in.
“Do you still need to work late?” I asked.
“I’m done for today. You can close the door.”
I did.
She capped her pen but stayed seated across the table.
“About the dinner . . .”
“We’ve talked about it.”
“Not enough.”
“Are you going to tell me again that we have to wait until the opening?”
“No.”
She finally looked at me. I set the photograph on the table.
“Sofia sent me a copy too,” she said.
“We look happy.”
“We were, before the photographers.”
“I wanted it to stay that way. Then I start thinking about what you’ll expect from me.”
Her face closed off.
“I’ve told you what I expect. You don’t have to imagine it for me.”
“There’s something you don’t know yet.”
I walked to the window. I’d rehearsed this conversation for three days. Now, with Gabriela waiting, I couldn’t find a way to begin.
“When Beatrice said she was pregnant, I believed the child was mine,” I began.
She looked up from the table.
“You’ve told me that.”
“I didn’t tell you everything.”
I turned.
“After I found out about the affair, I had tests done. I wanted to know whether there was any chance the child was mine, despite the messages and the dates.”
“And?”
“They found no sperm. Marinelli said it was probably damage from the accident that killed my father. They took another sample weeks later. Same result.”
Gabriela went very still.
“Luca . . .”
“I’m sterile.”
She looked at the photograph on the table, then at me.
“Can I see the results?”
“Why?”
“To try to understand. You’re talking as though there’s nothing left to discuss.”
I almost refused. I asked her to wait, went to my private office, and opened the safe. When I returned, I handed her the aged envelope. It held results, conclusions, and signatures from the Marinelli clinic. She laid two reports side by side.
“Were they done at the same lab?”
I nodded.
“A few weeks apart.”
“And both reach the same conclusion.”
“That’s what I said.”
“And you’ve never tried another lab?”
“I went back to the same clinic because they knew my history.”
She returned to the first page, pausing at the date.
“Would you talk to another specialist?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I’ve spent fifteen years trying not to go back to that room.”
She let go of the edge of the paper. I’d shut down as soon as she mentioned another appointment, just as I had with Sofia. Gabriela pushed the reports aside and waited until I looked at her.
“I don’t know how to interpret these, Luca. I’d like someone who does to examine you now.”
“Marinelli said there was no treatment for my case.”
She came toward me, but I raised a hand.
“I don’t want your pity.”
“I don’t pity you.”
“You’re looking at me differently.”
“You just told me something that’s hurt you for fifteen years. I don’t know what to say yet.”
I lowered my hand. She came around the table and pulled her chair close to me. Her nearness left me more exposed than her questions.
“In Venice, you said you wanted children. A noisy house. A family.”
“I remember.”
“I can’t give you that.”
“That’s what the doctor said about biological children. You’re talking as though you’re not allowed to want a family either.”
“I’ve never been able to separate the two.”
She held my gaze.
“Not even to think about adoption?”
“No.”
“You never considered it?”
“It felt like admitting I’d failed and trying to fill what was missing.”
“An adopted child wouldn’t be compensation.”
“I know. I’m not saying they would. That’s how I felt when I tried to think about it.”
“I’m not asking you to decide today.”
“You’re talking about ‘us’ as though . . .”
“As though it could last? Yes. After Venice, after our first night, after everything we’ve talked about, I thought you were considering that too.”
I turned toward the window.
“I don’t know how to promise forever.”
“I’m talking about trying, Luca.”
“My father promised my mother. He married again before she’d been dead a year.”
“You’re not your father.”
“I don’t know who I’d be in a family either.”
“You could find out without demanding a guarantee that you’ll get everything right.”
She smoothed the bent corner of the envelope and set it on the table. I wanted to pull her chair even closer. I stayed standing.
“What if you wait for something I’ll never be able to want?”
The silence turned cold.
“Do you want to end this?” she asked.
I looked at the reports. The question demanded an answer I couldn’t attribute to Marinelli.
“I’m afraid you’ll stay and regret it. That one day you’ll look at me and see the life you gave up.”
“I haven’t given anything up in this conversation. I’m trying to understand what we can decide together.”
“If you don’t want me anymore, I’ll go,” she said. “But don’t say you’re doing it for me.”
She pushed her chair back. I caught her hand before she stood.
“I don’t want you to go.”
“Then stop looking for a way to send me away. I need time to think about what you’ve told me too.”
“Can you stay with me without knowing how this ends?”
She looked at our hands before answering.
“I can keep talking. I won’t promise today that I’ll never want something different, and I don’t want that promise from you either.”
She touched my face.
“I want children. I want you too. I need to know whether you’re willing to think about it with me, even if you’re still afraid.”
I closed my eyes against her hand.
“I don’t know what I’ll be capable of.”
“Start by telling me that. Without deciding for both of us.”
I sat beside her, pushed the envelope aside, and leaned in to hold her. She met me halfway.
I pressed my face into her neck. She stroked the back of mine and stayed there while I tried to breathe without hiding.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I confessed.
“I know.”
“I’m afraid I’ll ruin everything.”
“Today you told me. Let’s start there.”
I kissed her.
She kissed me back for a moment, then rested her forehead against mine. We stayed seated. I still needed to hear what she hadn’t had time to say.
That night, we opened the reports again. She asked me to describe the appointment, what Marinelli had said, and what I’d asked him. Trying to answer, I realized I remembered the conclusion far better than anything else.
She moved her chair against mine.
“I’m still here,” she said.
She asked whether she could get a specialist recommendation from Cris. I agreed. When she offered to photograph the reports, I shook my head; I didn’t want to send them to anyone else just then. She set her phone on the table and called only to ask for names.
“Luca’s here, and he knows I’m calling,” she explained. “We need a recommendation for someone who works in male fertility.”
Cris said it wasn’t his field and that he’d ask a colleague.
Later, he sent two names unconnected to the Marinelli clinic.
Gabriela printed the contact details. I hadn’t expected him to do something for me without turning it into a contest. Realizing whose expectation that was made me uncomfortable.
“I’m not making the appointment for you,” she said. “But I’d like you to talk to one of them.”
“I need time.”
“How much?”
“After the opening. I’ll think about it then.”
“You’ve already waited fifteen years.”
I didn’t answer. She left the contact details on the table.
“All right. But you chose that deadline. Don’t ask me to pretend the subject is closed.”
I closed the envelope. The two names stayed outside it.