Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Giovanna
‘ H ow are you both?’ I questioned loudly, as I moved around the large lounge room of my penthouse apartment putting away the few things that were out of place. Having a housekeeper, who cooked when I wanted her to, meant that outside of my work I never really had very much to do, apart from think. And thinking too much was something I always tried to control.
‘I’m good, and the baby is kicking strongly, which makes me happy,’ Mia replied.
‘How many more weeks to go?’ I stopped dead, as I made a mental calculation in my head.
‘Four weeks. So, even if he was to come early, he would be fine.’
‘He will be fine,’ Serafina added, before reaching over to grab her sister’s hand.
‘That’s good.’ I smiled at her statement.
Painful memories came flooding back to me of how, after giving birth to two healthy and beautiful little girls, Mia’s last two pregnancies had ended with a late miscarriage and the still-birth of a perfect son.
‘And me, I’m fine too,’ Serafina answered. ‘Although I have three months to go and I’m already the size of a woman who is nine months pregnant.’ Mia and Serafina laughed out loud, and I joined in.
‘Show me,’ I squealed with excitement, as I moved closer to the monitor I was using for the video call.
Serafina complied and after standing, she then moved backwards. Standing in front of me in maternity cycling shorts and a pretty, loose top, she pulled the top tightly across her middle and showed off her pregnancy bump.
‘Turn around,’ I instructed, eager that although I was a few hundred miles away, I wasn’t going to miss anything. I watched, as instructed she turned slowly around a couple of times.
‘Serafina, you look beautiful. Do you know, I think you might be carrying another girl?’ I informed them both. ‘I think you’re the same shape as you were with little Gi.’
‘I said that too, Sera.’ Mia turned back to look at her.
‘You don’t look that big at all,’ I lied. ‘But even if you are, you know how amazing your body is. You go back into shape easily afterwards.’
‘I know, I’m naturally lucky. I thank our mum’s genes for that. But it does take a lot of exercise and hard work.’
‘I’m sure.’ I grinned at the two of them, and knowing the three of us were alone, I carried on. ‘Having all the sex you have with my brother is all the exercise you need. But I’m sure it shouldn’t be hard work, otherwise perhaps he’s not doing it properly?’ I winked at them both.
‘I assure you he is—in fact, he does it very properly,’ Serafina laughed.
‘He must be. I mean, you’ve been pregnant nearly every year for the past seven,’ I added and I listened to their laughter. Suddenly, missing them both even more.
‘Oh, listen to her, Mrs. Newly-engaged-suddenly-knows-all-the-answers,’ Mia teased.
I felt the smile slip from my face at her teasing. It was true, although I would never admit it to anyone, not even them, that I had now experienced sex, losing my virginity to the man I was to marry, because it wasn’t something a good Calabrian woman did before marriage. Once I was married, and if my experience of sex was still the same, I would ask them about it and get their opinion on what they felt might be wrong with me, to find it so unsatisfying.
I wish I was there with you both,’ I sighed as I sat down on the comfy chair behind me, and after lifting my legs, I hugged them to my chest.
‘No, you don’t!’ Mia chastised. Through the camera I watched as she too stood and went to stand with her sister. ‘You deserve this little bit of freedom, this little bit of your own life. Enjoy it.’ She pointed a finger back at me to drive home her order. ‘Now, look at her,’ Mia demanded, as she smoothed a hand over her baby bump for comparison.
Mia stood up next to Serafina, and it was then I could see just how big Sera looked. The two of them stood there, carrying much loved and wanted children, was a sight to behold. Both beautiful women in their own rights, so different in their personalities, but equally the same in their love for their husbands and children. The future for our conjoined families looked rosy and I smiled at them both. I made the smile stay firmly on my face as I watched Mia hook her long hair behind her left ear, exposing the jagged looking scar our past had left her with, the one she normally kept so well hidden. I loved how she was so relaxed with the two of us she forgot herself. Our pasts and our futures seemed even now so tightly interwoven, sometimes the later bled across the years. If only I could be more like the two of them in their acceptance, and once and for all put my past to bed.
Remembering where I was and just what I was supposed to be examining, I squinted at the screen before letting a grin consume me.
‘Dr De Luca…’ I came closer to the screen as I studied them both, ‘you don’t think it’s twins again, do you?’
‘No, it can’t be. Having one pregnancy where one hid behind the other until I only had a few weeks to go was unusual, there’s no way it could happen again.’
When neither Mia nor I replied to her, but widened our eyes, she looked between us shaking her head.
‘Stop it! Both of you!’
Both of them sat back down.
‘Tell us, then. How’s Rome?’ Mia questioned with a faraway look in her eyes, having studied here nearly ten years before.
‘It’s wonderful. It’s everything you ever said it was and so very much more. I know I’ve only been here a few weeks, but I love it.’
‘I knew you would.’ Mia nodded at me. ‘What’s your favourite place?’
‘The Pantheon.’
‘Fantastic, it was one of mine too.’
‘How are the students?’ Serafina enquired.
‘They are…’ I lifted my hands in a bid to find the right words. ‘Talented, surprising, hard-working, and so very creative.’
‘You’ve found your place, Gi. It’s an amazing feeling when that happens.’ I understood she too had found hers, with the voluntary work she still did at our local hospice.
‘It is,’ I agreed. ‘I just wish I had a bit more freedom.’
‘It’s to keep you safe, Gi,’ Serafina insisted.
‘I know. I’m trying not to be ungrateful…’
‘But?’ Mia pushed.
‘Well, it’s the end of term here this week coming, and I’d like to stay in Rome a while.’
‘Okay.’ I watched as Serafina bit into the side of her cheek the way she always did when she was uncomfortable.
‘Why?’ Mia questioned.
‘You two have your mama, and she’s wonderful.’ I raised my eyes back to theirs after looking down for a few seconds. ‘The last we heard of my mama was that she’d married into a Greek shipping family.’
‘She did. The Aritis?’ Serafina recalled.
‘That’s right.’ I nodded at them. ‘She married Peter Ariti. Now, I know she wasn’t much of a parent, but when you’ve only got one left, it makes you wonder if you could have worked harder at having a relationship with them.’
‘It must be hard,’ Mia sympathised. ‘I know how we all felt nearly losing Papa all those years ago.’
Serafina sighed loudly as she listened to Mia.
‘Once it came to light just how… well, how awful my papa was, it’s made me think about how that could have affected her?’
‘What’s going on, Gi?’
‘I need help,’ I whispered and watched the two of them lean as near to the screen as their pregnancies would allow.
‘I know Mama resides some of her time here in Rome and I’d like to contact her. I don’t want to upset Salvatore. I don’t want him to think badly of me, as though I’m going against his wishes… not again.’ I shook my head. ‘But I wondered if you could talk to him for me, Serafina? Could you plead my case and get him to give me permission to stay here a few weeks, and his blessing to go and see her?’
‘Wow! I didn’t see that coming,’ Mia exclaimed.
‘Is that all of it, Gi?’ Serafina stared intently at me, knowing full well even before I’d answered her that there was something else going on.
‘No.’ I hung my head, suddenly ashamed of what I’d very nearly tricked her into. ‘It’s just…’
‘Yes. It’s just what exactly?’
‘I’m twenty-seven years old. By June next year I’ll be married, again .’ I let the last word hang between us for a few seconds. ‘I’ll never get this freedom another time. Peter Ariti is a shipping magnate. When the heat becomes too much here in Rome he comes by and picks up his fashionista of a wife and together they sail around the Mediterranean for a few weeks. Or at least that’s what all the fashion magazines report.’
‘You want to go on holiday with her?’ Mia asked, looking at me in confusion. ‘You don’t even know if you like her.’
‘Possibly.’ I shrugged as I tried to navigate one of the most difficult conversations I’d ever had, and I’d had a few in my life. ‘I love the two of you as though you were my own flesh and blood, but you both know that your lives, however wonderful with your children and husbands, have next to no freedom to do anything else.’
‘It’s the way we live, Gi.’
‘I know,’ I guiltily replied. ‘And I will embrace it all once I’m married, but for now I just need…’
‘Stop!’ Serafina demanded. ‘I think I know where this is all going.’
‘You do?’ Mia looked at her. No words were exchanged between them before she fell in and turned back to look at me.
‘Oh,’ she muttered as the realisation hit her.
‘Please… I need to do this. I need to try to put my past to rest before I move forward.’ It was the only explanation I had, and I hoped it would be enough.
Silence filled the void between the three of us and I knew, in those few seconds, that all of us had only one man on our minds.
A man that we all missed.
Their brother and my first love.
Dante.
Yet not one of us spoke his name out loud.
‘Don’t say anymore, Gi,’ Sera rallied herself. ‘I will talk to Salvatore about your mama. I think it would be fantastic if you two could mend the bridge between the two of you. He will never accept her back into the family, but when a woman marries, her mum’s support can be irreplaceable.’
‘Thank you,’ I whispered, before lifting my hand so my fingers could touch the screen.
‘And a few weeks holiday with her would be a good time to see if you can create the bond you should always have had—and I hear Malta is a wonderful place, if you get the chance to visit,’ Mia added.
They both stretched out their hands to virtually touch my own.