Chapter 8 What Absence Leaves Behind #2
"I did. Thank you." I keep my voice even. "Sofia, I need you to tell me exactly what happened with my original return flight."
"Of course. The booking was canceled the morning before your scheduled departure. I received a call saying you had approved an extension of your stay and wouldn't need the original return."
"Who made that call?"
There's a pause. "Your mother, sir. Donna Vera. She said you had asked her to handle the change because you were in meetings."
"And you didn't confirm with me directly?"
"I... no, sir. Donna Vera has authorization on the family travel accounts. She's made changes before. I had no reason to think..." Sofia's voice wavers. "Did I do something wrong?"
"You followed normal procedure. This isn't your fault." I take a breath. "Is there a record of the call? The time, anything she said?"
"I have notes. She called around nine in the morning, said you needed to extend for at least another day for additional partner meetings, and asked me to cancel the return booking. She said you would rebook yourself when you knew your new schedule."
"Thank you, Sofia. That's all I needed to know."
I hang up and sit in the dark study, turning this new information over in my mind.
My mother canceled my booking. She told Sofia I had approved an extension, knowing I had done no such thing. She stranded me overseas on purpose, on my anniversary, while my wife waited at home with a dinner she had cooked and a table she had set.
I think about the sitting room conversation before I left.
My mother pushing for Nadia to accompany me to the launch since Ysabel was too unwell to travel.
Ysabel asking me to make the distinction clear, to introduce Nadia as an investor rather than family.
I promised I would. I promised I would be home for our anniversary dinner.
And my mother made sure I couldn't keep that promise.
How much of the rest did she arrange? The interviews, the photographs, Nadia always close enough to be mistaken for something she wasn't. I remember my mother touching Nadia's elbow, drawing her into the frame.
The cancellation is no longer a mystery. I need to hear what my mother calls it when I ask her to my face.
***
A car comes up the drive. From the study window I see my mother step out, back from the Contis at last. When she enters the house, I meet her in the hall.
"Come into the study, Mother."
"Can't this wait until dinner? You must be tired."
"It can't wait."
She follows me inside, setting her handbag on the chair beside the desk. I close the door. For once I don't offer her a drink or ask about her visit.
"You canceled my booking."
Her hand stills on the clasp of her bag. "I don't know what you mean."
"I spoke to Sofia. She told me you called the morning before my scheduled return and canceled my flight. You told her I had approved an extension."
"There must have been some confusion. Perhaps she misunderstood."
"She didn't misunderstand." I step further into the room. "You deliberately stranded me overseas on my anniversary. You made sure I couldn't get home to my wife."
My mother sets down her bag and turns to face me.
Her expression is calm, almost pitying. "Leon, this is a very dramatic interpretation of what was, at most, a scheduling error.
One extra evening at the launch shouldn't end a marriage.
If Ysabel is so fragile that she can't handle a minor delay, perhaps that tells you something about her suitability as your partner. "
"She's not fragile. She's been putting up with your interference for two years."
"Interference?" My mother's voice sharpens. "I've been trying to help her. Trying to teach her how to conduct herself, how to represent this family properly. She's resisted at every turn. The woman can barely host a dinner party without looking like she wants to disappear."
"Because you've made her feel like she doesn't belong."
"She doesn't belong. That's exactly my point.
" My mother straightens. "I've tried, Leon.
I've tried to see what you see in her, to find some way to make this work.
But Ysabel is the daughter of servants. She doesn't have the education, the connections, the understanding of what it means to be a Rosciano. She never will."
"She's my wife."
"A mistake that can be corrected."
"She's already signed papers to begin a separation." Saying it to my mother makes me want to take it back, keep this one thing beyond her reach. "They were waiting for me when I got home."
She looks at me without speaking. Then she lets out a small breath, almost relief.
"Well. Perhaps she's finally understood. She's giving you an exit, Leon."
I grip the back of the chair. "You kept me away from her. You put Nadia beside me for the cameras. Was this what you wanted?"
"I created an opportunity for you to see clearly. What you do with that clarity is your choice."
"And Nadia? What's her role in all this?"
"Nadia is everything Ysabel isn't. Educated, connected, comfortable in the world you need to operate in. The partners were impressed by her. The cameras loved her. She knows how to stand beside a man of your position without shrinking into the corners."
"I never asked for Nadia."
"You never had to ask. I've been managing this family's interests since your father died. I know what you need even when you don't."
I think about the broadcast again. The reporter's assumption, my silence, the image of Nadia and me framed together like a couple.
I didn't correct it because I was focused on the business, because contradicting the reporter seemed awkward, because in that moment it didn't seem important enough to make an issue of.
But it was important. It was important to Ysabel, who was watching from home, who had spent two years being positioned as lesser, who saw her husband let someone else take her place without a word of objection.
"I failed her," I say. "Every time I let you position Nadia where Ysabel should have been.
Every time I smoothed over a slight instead of confronting it.
Every time I told myself that loving her in private was enough, that she didn't need me to defend her in public.
I gave you room to do this, and that's on me. "
"Then you understand. Ysabel was never strong enough for this life. Better to end it now than to drag things out."
"No. What I understand is that I let you erode my marriage while I was too busy keeping the peace to notice. That stops now."
My mother's eyes narrow. "What exactly are you saying?"
"I'm saying that you don't speak for me.
You don't arrange anything involving my marriage.
You don't contact Sofia or any other coordinator to change my travel.
You don't position Nadia or anyone else as my partner at events.
" I hold her gaze. "This is not a discussion.
This is me telling you how things are going to be. "
"You're upset. You're not thinking clearly."
"I'm thinking more clearly than I have in years." I step back toward the door. "Leave my study."
"Leon..."
"Now, Mother."
She stares at me for a long moment, and I see something shift in her expression. Not defeat, not quite. More like a recalculation, a reassessment of the pieces on the board.
"Very well," she says finally. "We can discuss this further when you've calmed down."
"There's nothing to discuss. I've told you what I expect."
She picks up her handbag and walks past me without another word. I listen to her footsteps fade down the corridor, and then I'm alone in the study with the evening light dying in the windows.
I go back to the dining room. The table is still set, the napkins still folded, the candles still waiting to be lit. I pull out the chair where I should have sat last night and lower myself into it.
The separation papers are still on the table where I left them. Ysabel's signature is dark against the cream paper. Even this, the decision to end our marriage, is something she had to face without me.
I pick up one of the napkins and run my thumb along the embroidered leaves. She chose these. She set this table. She cooked a meal and waited for me to come home, and when I didn't, she watched me on television with another woman and decided she was done.
I don't blame her. I wouldn't wait for me either, if I were her. Not after everything.
I want to call her again. Tell her what Sofia said, repeat my mother's words, give her a reason to believe last night wasn't what I wanted. My hand is already on my phone before I stop.
She asked me to leave her alone for a while. I can at least listen to that without deciding I know better.
I lay the phone beside the papers and pull her place setting a little closer, until I can touch the edge of the plate. I don't know whether she'll ever sit across from me here again.
My mother wanted her out of this house. I heard the relief in her voice when I told her about the separation.
And while I was telling myself that marrying Ysabel had settled whose side I was on, I kept leaving her to face my mother alone.
Her signature is still in front of me. I smooth the page where opening the envelope creased it, careful with the paper now that I have been so careless with everything written on it.