11. Senna
— ? —
Senna
The apartment I’m renting is small and impersonal and exactly what I need right now.
It’s on the third floor of a building in Oltrarno, across the river from the life I used to have, and the view from the single window shows a slice of terracotta rooftops and a strip of sky that turns pink in the evenings.
There’s a bed, a tiny kitchen, a bathroom that’s barely big enough to turn around in.
No piano. No framed platinum records. No ghost of my husband’s presence haunting every corner.
I’ve been here for three weeks now, and I’m starting to remember what it feels like to breathe.
“You look better,” Elena says, setting a cup of coffee in front of me at the small café table by the window.
She’s been my friend since conservatory, back when we were both young and ambitious and convinced the world was waiting to hear what we had to say.
“Still like you haven’t slept in three weeks, but better. ”
“Thanks. That’s very encouraging.”
“I’m not here to encourage you. I’m here to feed you espresso and make sure you don’t disappear entirely.” She sits down across from me, her dark hair pulled back in the messy bun that’s been her signature since we were twenty. “Have you talked to him?”
“No.”
“Have you read his texts?”
“No.”
“Have you done anything except sit in that apartment and stare at the walls?”
“I went to the lawyer.” I wrap my hands around the coffee cup, feeling the warmth seep into my fingers. “Filed the paperwork. So that’s something.”
“That’s something,” Elena agrees carefully. “Is it what you want?”
“I don’t know what I want. I know I can’t keep being what I was.”
She nods, and for a moment we just sit in silence, watching the morning foot traffic pass by the window. Elena was always good at silence - it’s part of what made us friends in the first place, two women who understood that sometimes the most important things happen in the spaces between words.
“I have an idea,” she says finally. “And you can say no. You probably will say no, because you’re stubborn and scared and you’ve spent seven years convincing yourself you don’t have anything to offer. But I’m going to say it anyway.”
“That’s ominous.”
“There’s a singer. Young guy, twenty-four, incredible voice, absolutely no idea what to do with it.
He’s been bouncing around trying to find his sound, and I’ve worked with him a few times, but what he really needs is a producer.
Someone with an ear. Someone who can hear what he’s trying to do and help him find his way there. ”
“Elena-”
“You used to do this. Before Rocco. Before the marriage. You used to sit in practice rooms with other singers and help them find the thing they were missing. I watched you do it.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“So? It doesn’t go away. That ear you have, that instinct - it’s not something you lose just because you stopped using it.
” She leans forward, her expression intent.
“Senna, you’re the most talented musician I know who isn’t making music.
And it’s a crime. It has been a crime for seven years, and I’ve been too polite to say anything because you seemed happy, but you’re not happy anymore, and I’m done being polite. ”
“I don’t know the first thing about producing.”
“You know more than you think. And Matteo - that’s his name, Matteo - he’s patient. He’s not looking for someone to tell him what to do. He’s looking for someone to help him figure out what he’s trying to say.”
I think about the demo I recorded in Rocco’s studio, the one I deleted before he could hear it. I think about the songs in my missing notebook, the melodies I wrote before I knew that being talented was something you could give away to someone else.
“I don’t-” I start, and then I stop, because the word that wants to come out is can’t, and I’m so tired of can’t.
I’ve been living inside can’t for seven years, building walls out of it, decorating my cage with it.
Can’t pursue my own music because I have to support Rocco’s.
Can’t ask for more because he’s struggling and I should be patient.
Can’t admit that I’m disappearing because that would mean admitting that I let it happen.
“What’s his schedule like?” I hear myself ask.
Elena’s face breaks into a grin. “He’s free tomorrow afternoon. Two o’clock. I’ll give you the studio address.”
“I haven’t said yes yet.”
“You’re going to.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know you, Senna. And I know that look on your face right now. That’s the look of someone who just remembered they used to want things.”
***
The studio is in a converted warehouse in San Frediano, all exposed brick and high ceilings and the particular smell of old wood and new equipment that takes me back to my conservatory days immediately.
I stand outside for five minutes before I can make myself walk in, my heart pounding like I’m about to audition for something instead of just meeting someone who might let me help with their music.
The door is unlocked. I push it open and step into a space that’s surprisingly warm and cluttered - rugs on the concrete floor, mismatched furniture, a wall covered in handwritten notes and photographs and what looks like a collection of vintage postcards.
“Hello?” I call out. “I’m looking for Matteo? Elena sent me-”
“Back here!”
I follow the voice to a smaller room at the back, where a young man with dark curly hair and an open face is bent over a guitar, picking out something slow and sad. He looks up when I enter, and his smile is immediate and genuine.
“You must be Senna. Elena told me you’d be coming. I’m Matteo.”
“Nice to meet you.” I shake his hand, suddenly feeling every one of my thirty-three years. He’s so young. So eager. So utterly unaware of all the ways the world can grind you down if you let it.
“Elena says you’re incredible,” he says. “She says you have the best ear she’s ever encountered.”
“Elena exaggerates.”
“She said you’d say that too.” He grins and gestures to a chair across from him. “Sit down. Let me play you something. And then you can tell me everything that’s wrong with it.”
“I don’t-”
“Please.” His expression turns serious, earnest. “I’ve been working on this song for three months and I can’t figure out why it isn’t landing. Everyone I play it for says it’s good, but I know it’s not good. It’s almost good. And I can’t hear what’s missing.”
I sit down, because what else am I going to do? I came here. I walked through the door. I might as well see it through.
Matteo starts to play.
The song is pretty - a gentle melody, lyrics about longing and distance, the kind of thing that could work on the radio if it had a bit more polish.
But he’s right that something’s missing.
I can hear it immediately, the way you can hear when someone’s singing the right notes but not the right song.
He finishes and looks at me, vulnerable and hopeful.
“Well?”
“The bridge,” I say, before I can second-guess myself. “You’re rushing through it. The verse is slow and the chorus is slow, but the bridge speeds up like you’re trying to get past it. Why?”
He blinks, surprised. “I don’t know. I didn’t realize I was doing that.”
“Play it again. Just the bridge.”
He does, and this time I stop him halfway through.
“There. That line - ‘I held the door but you walked past.’ You’re skipping over it. But that’s the moment. That’s where the whole song lives. Everything else is setup for that one image.”
“You think so?”
“I know so. The rest of the song is beautiful, but it’s not saying anything new. That line is saying something new. That’s your heart. That’s what you’re trying to tell people. But you’re burying it because - why? Because it’s too personal? Because you’re scared of what it means?”
Matteo stares at me for a long moment. Then he laughs, shaking his head.
“Elena was right. You’re terrifying.”
“I’m not trying to be-”
“No, I mean that in a good way. Three months I’ve been playing this song for people, and you’re the first one who’s actually heard it.
” He sets down the guitar. “Will you work with me? Please? I don’t have a lot of money, but Elena said you might be willing to do it as a trial, and I promise I’ll work hard, and I really think-”
“Okay.”
“ - that we could make something special together, and - wait, what?”
“I said okay.” The word surprises me as much as it surprises him. “I’ll work with you. We’ll start with this song, get it where it needs to be, and see where it goes from there.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
His face lights up, and something in my chest loosens - a knot I didn’t know I was carrying, a weight I didn’t realize I could set down.
“Thank you,” he says. “Seriously. Thank you. You won’t regret this.”
I think about Rocco, about the years I spent standing outside his creative life waiting to be invited in. I think about the song my sister stole, the demo I deleted, all the music I could have made if I hadn’t convinced myself that I wasn’t allowed.
“Let’s get started,” I say, and I pull my chair closer to his.
For the first time in seven years, I walk into a studio as the person in charge.