24. Lucy
Lucy
L ife changed after the funeral.
Adriano was never exactly an emotionally available person. Mostly he loomed around the house and glared at me like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to rip my head off or shove his tongue in my mouth. And honestly, I was starting to enjoy it.
But now it’s like he pulls into himself even more.
Half the time he doesn’t come to bed, and when he does, he’s in after I’m asleep and out before I’m awake.
I catch glimpses of him around the house and only know he still lives with me when I find little pieces of evidence: a wet toothbrush, a pair of slacks thrown over the back of a chair, dirty dishes in the sink.
That first week, he throws himself into clearing out his father’s rooms with a reckless obsession, almost to the point of self-harm.
“I’m worried about him,” Donatella tells me one afternoon. “He’s working too hard.”
“I agree, but I don’t know what I can do.”
“Maybe you can talk to him?” Her skinny eyebrows raise high. “I think he’d listen to you.”
I promise her I’ll try, but I know it’s pointless. When I finally do corner him in his office, he’s vague and dismissive, just keeps saying that he’s busy now that he’s officially in charge of the Famiglia.
I start to miss him.
It’s a weird feeling, missing someone that was never really mine to begin with.
But there was something growing between us, and now it’s like that thing is either dead or frozen solid.
I start making him espresso every day in my favorite teacups, just to let him know that I’m thinking of him.
I place it down in his office and go pick it up again a few hours later.
Inevitably, the cups are empty, even when I didn’t know he was in the house.
I start picking up other little tasks. I organize his suits and lay them out for him in the morning.
At first, I’m not sure he’ll like it that I’m dressing him, but soon the new suits disappear and the old suits take their place.
I arrange for them to get dry cleaned and make sure everything’s perfect.
Some nights, I sneak into his office and leave drinks on his desk. I make him Manhattans, Old Fashioneds, even start experimenting with tequila. There’s always an empty glass, except when I go crazy with gin. He ignores those.
I start learning him from a distance.
The clothes he wears, the music he listens to, the books he reads.
I cook his favorite dinner and even catch him eating it.
There’s a strange smile on his face as he sits at his desk and carefully twirls some simple pasta with Bolognese onto a fork.
My stomach thrills at the sight of him eating my dish, but I don’t go in and bother him.
A few nights after that, I find roses in our room. They’re left on top of my bureau with a little note. You’re a wonderful cook. A.
More gestures follow. A new pair of house slippers.
A silk robe from Givenchy with my initials on the chest. Designer dresses, beautiful handmade hair clips, a whole avalanche of lotions, serums, and masks.
One afternoon, I come downstairs and find a new teacup sitting on the kitchen counter.
When I ask Donatella about it, she only smiles.
“That’s a good sign, isn’t it?”
But I don’t know what anything means anymore.
A month passes, and I keep missing him. I see Kennedy a few times. She gets a new job working at a nearby veterinarian clinic. “God, I love dogs, but I can do without all the cats,” she complains, but at least she seems happy.
Even though I’m trying to find him in my own way, he’s somewhere else.
I catch him watering my plants on a quiet Sunday morning, and I swear I hear him whisper all their names. It shocks me that he knows them all. When I walk into the room, he makes an excuse and leaves me alone. I touch the wet soil just to make sure he was really there.
I know there’s a conflict going on outside the mansion, mostly because I hear snatches of conversation between the guards.
Luca gets a black eye. One of the other young men has his hand wrapped in bandages.
I hear them talk about guns, ammunition, ambushes, blood.
There’s gossip about burned buildings, drive-by shootings, and vicious hand-to-hand battles.
I don’t know if we’re winning. I’m not sure we even can.
Adriano is in the middle of it all, but it’s like I’m living with a ghost.
One night, I’m sitting outside with Donatella. We’ve gotten closer since the funeral. She’s smiling and on her second glass of wine, which means she’s starting to get a little loose. “I know you have stories about Adriano from when he was younger,” I press her, refilling her glass to the tippy top.
She sighs and gives me a sly look. “I know what you’re doing, pumping me full of wine so I’ll tell you his most embarrassing secrets.” She takes a sip to keep it from spilling. “But I’d do that without the alcohol, darling.”
There’s the time he got caught stealing a car and his father had to bail him out of trouble.
And the time he broke into a bakery and stole six trash bags filled with fresh rolls, only to realize they’d all go bad in a few days anyway.
He had to donate them to a homeless shelter.
There was the street race and the many, many fights, and the guitar phase.
“You should’ve seen him,” she says, hand over her heart. “Fourteen years old, hair down to here—” She gestures at her eyes. “And singing these awful songs. Don’t get me wrong, Adriano has a very wonderful singing voice, but the music.” She wrinkles her nose.
“Was it emo stuff? God, tell me he was into emo music.”
“Oh, it was all, my girlfriend is so mean, she cheated on me, she broke my heart into a million pieces , that kind of thing.”
I cover my mouth. “He was into emo!”
“That phase lasted maybe two months before he broke the guitar over the head of this other boy in one of their endless fights, and that was that. He got a haircut and decided he liked knives instead of music. What a missed opportunity. You never could tame that boy.”
I cackle with delight. Everybody has an awkward teenager phase. It’s basically an intrinsic part of the human condition. But I never in a million years would’ve guessed Adriano would’ve been a budding scene kid.
The sliding door opens suddenly. We both look back to find my husband looking out at us. I flinch, surprised, and it’s like seeing a loved one come back from the dead. I try to remember the last time we made eye contact and can’t. Now, he’s staring right at me.
“We need to talk,” he says.
Donatella gets up. “I was just heading home anyway.” She throws back her wine. “Good to see you, Adriano, dear. How’s work?”
“Busy.”
She pats his shoulder as she shuffles past him. Then he comes out to join me on the patio, but he doesn’t sit down.
He looks haggard. Beautiful and sculpted, but ragged at the edges. His eyes are tired and his hair’s slightly messy. His suit looks like he slept in it, which he genuinely might have.
I don’t know what to say. All this time I’ve been dreaming about him, and now he’s right there, and I have nothing. I want to tell him how much I miss him. But what do I really miss? His hands? His mouth? The dirty way he whispered in my ear?
All of that and everything else too. His arms around me, his heartbeat, his lips brushing my neck.
“I think you should know there have been some threats made against your family.”
My eyebrows raise. “Oh, really?”
“Your brother in particular.”
That catches my attention. Pierre and I haven’t been close for years, but he’s still my older brother.
We survived the Helena Regime together and suffered through the family’s downfall side by side.
We mourned our parents when they passed.
We’re very different people, but I don’t hold that against him.
“How serious is it?”
“I can’t be sure, but I have people watching him.” Adriano glances away. The outside fairy lights cast a shadow along his cut jaw.
“Is that a new scar?” I ask, sitting forward.
He grunts and touches his face. “It’s nothing.”
“ Nothing ? It looks like someone tried to cut your head off.”
“Just a minor disagreement.”
That finally does it. Something in me breaks.
“Is that how it’s going to happen then? I won’t see you for weeks.
I’ll only know you’re alive because you drink the espresso every day and put on the clothes I leave out for you, and then suddenly I’ll get a call.
Adriano got his head blown off. Is that how I’ll find out you’re really gone? ”
He flinches, and his face hardens. His jaw flexes as he glares at me. “It’s a dangerous time, Lucy. You know that.”
“I also know you’re my husband, and it’s like you don’t exist anymore.”
“I’m dealing with a lot.”
“And you’re ignoring a lot too.” I’m being too hard on him. I know it, but I can’t help myself. “I know we’re not really married or whatever. I know you only did this because you wanted my last name?—”
“Stop it,” he says, his voice rough with a surprising passion.
“At least admit it. Now that you’re the Don, you don’t need me anymore. You have the fund. You have my connections. Why not just disappear?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Isn’t it? That’s how it feels to me. I just want to go to bed one night and have you there with me. Or maybe we can pass each other in the halls and say hello, or you can come see how I’m doing, or you can just talk to me. But it’s like you moved away.”
“I haven’t left,” he says softly, hands clenched into fists. “There’s a war going on out there, Lucy. My men are dying. I’m fighting to make sure you’re safe. I want to protect you, but I can’t keep you safe if all I’m doing is obsessing about every inch of you.”
I sit back in surprise. “That can’t be true.”
“Right up until my father’s funeral, it was all I could do.
From the day you snuck into my office to the day we lowered my father into the ground, you’re all I could think about.
I knew it was fucked. I knew it was stupid.
I have too many other responsibilities to spend all my time obsessing over my wife. But I couldn’t help myself.”
My heart quickens. I push myself from my chair and stand, not even sure why I’m doing it. My mouth goes dry and I try to lick my lips. A strange desperation floods through me.
“Why didn’t you tell me that already?” I whisper, not sure if I want to reach for him or run as fast as I can.
“Because it would’ve only scared you. Like I am now.” His hands relax, and he takes a deep breath. “It’s better for you this way. There’s no happy ending for me.”
“Why do you get to say what’s good for me and what isn’t?” It’s now or never. I have to say it. I have to tell him how I feel.
The words are there, but they won’t come out. I’m too afraid of what it’ll do.
I’m terrified of the hole it’ll break in me if he doesn’t feel the same way.
“Because I’m the fucking Don,” he says, and his tone is firm and laced with darkness. “That’s my job.”
He walks back to the door. I feel small and stupid. Just tell him you miss him! Just say it!
“Are you coming to bed tonight?” I ask, meek and small and pathetic.
“I’m not sure.” He doesn’t look back. “I just wanted to let you know that I’m doing everything I can to make sure your family is safe.”
“Right. Okay. Thanks.”
He nods, shoulders tense, and then disappears back inside. The door slides shut behind him.
I slump back into my seat. I stare up at the black sky. Only a few bare stars twinkle, and I feel as empty as the space between them.
I’m a coward.
Just a worthless coward.
I couldn’t even tell my own husband that I miss him.
This is what always happens. Even back then, people only cared about me because my last name was Willing-Morris.
When that didn’t mean anything important anymore, my friends began to fade away until I was left with nothing.
My parents abandoned me to their addictions.
My classmates ignored me when I wasn’t worth anything to them anymore.
And now my husband.
The wine suddenly tastes bitter.