11. Serena #2
“May I ask for something?” Rocco says.
“You can ask.”
“The next appointment.”
Something in me goes still.
No. My brain says it instantly. My body says something else. Something softer and far more dangerous.
Because part of me imagines him there. Big and silent in the chair beside the bed. His face open in that way only I used to get to see.
I hate that wanting it doesn’t make it safe.
“No,” I say.
Rocco doesn’t move. But his eyes close. Only for a second. Then he opens them.
“All right.”
Just that. No why. No Serena, I’m the father. No using the baby as a key because the wife changed the locks.
I almost hate him more for getting this part right.
“I can send confirmation that the accounts are restored,” he says.
“I already used my card.”
He nods. “Good.”
“Do not sound proud of yourself. You unfroze money that was already mine.”
His shoulders draw tight.
I search his face. Like the man who always had three answers has run out and has to stand there with only the truth.
“Why now?” I ask.
“Because you were right.”
“About the tape?”
“About the tape. About the flat. About the guards. About me.”
My throat aches.
“You don’t get to use being right as a gift,” I say. “And you don’t get to come here with wet hair and sad eyes and make me feel sorry for you.”
“Do you?”
“What?”
“Feel sorry for me.”
I hate him. Who stands in a stairwell after ruining your life and asks a question so naked you have to either lie or bleed?
“Yes,” I snap. “And I hate it. I hate that you look terrible and I notice. I hate that you said the baby was good and I wanted to tell you everything. I hate that you asked to come to the next appointment and I wanted to say yes for half a second. I hate that you can still stand there and make me remember being loved by you.”
The flat goes silent.
Oh. I said too much. Very empowered abandoned wife behavior. Ten out of ten, no notes, please push me into the sea.
Rocco’s hand closes around the doorframe. Not the chain. Wood cracks softly under his fingers. He lets go at once.
“I did love you,” he says.
I laugh because if I don’t, I’ll cry. Again. “Past tense?”
His eyes go black. Not angry. Fierce.
“No.”
The word moves through me before I can stop it. My whole body hears it.
No. Still. Now. Always.
I wish that fixed anything.
“Love did not save me from you,” I say.
There. That one hits all of us. Even Lucia stops breathing loudly, which is basically silence for her.
Rocco looks like I’ve put a bullet exactly where he expected it.
“No,” he says. “It didn’t.”
The baby shifts. A private reminder that I have to live after this conversation. I have to eat dinner. I have to sleep on a sofa bed and keep being pregnant even though my marriage keeps trying to drag me under.
“I’m tired,” I say.
Rocco nods immediately. “I’ll go.”
He steps back. One step. Not far enough. Too far.
“Rocco.”
He stops. I don’t know why I say his name until he looks at me.
Then I pull the scan envelope from my pocket.
Lucia makes a tiny sound behind me. Matteo goes still.
I hold the envelope, but I don’t hand it over.
Rocco looks at it like it’s something holy.
“This isn’t for you,” I say. “But I want you to understand what you missed.”
His face breaks. Not fully. Rocco’s too trained for that. But enough that I see the man from our bathroom months ago, holding a pregnancy test and pretending shampoo made him cry.
I slide one photo from the envelope. Just one. The smallest print. I hold it up through the gap in the door. The chain stretches between us.
Rocco doesn’t reach for it. He leans closer, only enough to see. His eyes move over the tiny black-and-white shape.
Our baby.
He looks for maybe five seconds. Then he lifts his head to me.
“Thank you,” he says. So rough I barely hear it.
I pull the photo back. “You don’t get to keep it.”
“I know.”
“Not yet.”
His breath catches.
I wish I hadn’t said yet. No, I don’t. Yes, I do.
“I’ll earn it,” he says.
That should sound arrogant. It does not. It sounds like a man making a promise to a door chain. And because my life is a joke with armed personnel, it also hurts.
“You can try,” I say.
Behind me, Matteo shifts. Rocco’s attention snaps to him again. This time, the jealousy is there. Clear. Hot. Brutal.
But he does not put it on me. He does not say Matteo’s name like a threat. He just breathes through it and looks back at me.
“If you need anything,” he says, “call me.”
I tilt my head. “I did.”
The words are quiet. Worse than shouting.
Rocco goes still. “I know.”
“No, you don’t. You know that you didn’t answer. You don’t know what it felt like to stand in that flat and call my husband once because I had too much pride to call twice.”
His throat moves. “Tell me.”
My head comes up. “What?”
“Tell me what it felt like.”
The hallway fades around the edges. Not literally. I’m not fainting. It just becomes smaller because the question is too big.
Tell me. Not defend yourself. Not calm down. Not I had reasons. Tell me.
I almost do. I almost tell him about the clean sheets that smelled like bleach. The guards outside the door. Sitting on the edge of a bed in a flat he chose for me and listening to his voicemail greeting like an idiot.
I almost tell him that when he didn’t answer, something in me stopped reaching.
But if I give him that now, he’ll hold it. And I’m not ready for him to hold anything of mine. My pain, the photo, my trust—he doesn’t get to carry any of it yet.
“No,” I say.
He nods. Learning the shape of no like it’s a language he should have studied years ago.
“All right.”
He steps back again. This time, he really leaves. Down one stair. Then another.
I watch through the gap because apparently I enjoy making myself miserable.
Halfway down, he stops without turning.
“Serena.”
“What?”
His hand rests on the banister.
“I was wrong.”
The words land softer this time. Maybe because he’s already said them. Maybe because he’s leaving after I told him to.
He turns his head just enough that I see the side of his face.
“Not enough,” I say.
Rocco closes his eyes. Then he nods once and keeps walking.