Chapter 8 A Life Beyond Him
SERAFINA
By Monday morning, I've run out of reasons to leave the number untouched. I sit on the edge of my childhood bed with my phone in my hand.
My mother brought me food over the weekend, and I made myself eat it.
My father walked the groves with me Saturday afternoon without asking questions I wasn't ready to answer.
They gave me space to think. Rafael's face at the gate kept coming back to me, along with his claim that he only remembered pieces.
I still want to know what happened in that office.
But even if he can explain that night, what about the months before it?
I can't keep planning my life around the hope that he'll change.
I scroll through my contacts until I find the number for the family lawyer, the one my father recommended years ago when I was setting up my perfumery accounts. I press call before I can talk myself out of it.
She answers on the third ring, her voice brisk and professional. I tell her my name and that I need to discuss my marriage.
"I understand." There is a pause, the sound of papers shifting. "What specifically do you need from me, Serafina?"
My throat tightens, but I force the words out. "I want a divorce." Saying it makes it real in a way that thinking it never did. I grip the phone harder and keep going. "I need you to start the process. Whatever paperwork, whatever first steps. I want it started."
She asks if I'm safe, if there's any urgency beyond the emotional, and I tell her no, I just need to begin. She says she can send me the initial paperwork this afternoon and that we should meet later in the week to discuss the details. I tell her that's fine. I tell her to proceed.
When I hang up, my hands are shaking, but not the way they shook early Friday morning. This feels different. This feels like something I chose.
I set the phone on the nightstand and look around my room.
The perfume notebook is on the desk where I left it.
The three trial bottles I brought from my workshop are lined up on the shelf, amber glass catching the morning light.
My suitcase is still at the foot of the bed, mostly unpacked now, my clothes hanging in the closet next to things I wore years ago.
Beatrice is bringing some more clothes this afternoon. I asked her yesterday, before I'd decided whether I could make this call. Now I have to tell her what I've done.
I get up and open the curtains wider, letting the sunlight fill the room.
The lemon groves stretch out below my window, the same view I woke up to for years before I married Rafael and thought I was starting something new.
Now I'm back where I started, and I don't know if that's a failure or a beginning.
Maybe it's both. Maybe that's allowed.
***
My mother is in the kitchen when I come downstairs, standing at the sink with a colander of greens she's been washing. The radio is playing something low and classical, and the windows are open to let in the morning air. She glances up as I come in, then goes back to shaking water from the leaves.
"There you are." She transfers the greens to a towel spread on the counter. "I was starting to think you'd sleep through lunch."
"I've been awake for a while." I pull open the drawer where she keeps the kitchen scissors and find them where they've always been. The herb pots on the windowsill need trimming, and I need something to do with my hands. "I made a phone call."
"What kind of phone call?" She turns down the radio before I have to speak over it.
"I called the lawyer." I carry the scissors to the windowsill and start snipping dead leaves from the basil. "I told her I want to start divorce proceedings."
My mother sets down the towel and turns to face me. Her expression is careful, controlled, the way it gets when she's trying not to influence a decision I've already made.
"I'm not asking if you're sure." She leans against the counter, giving me space. "I'm asking if there's anything you need."
"I don't know yet." I drop the dead leaves into the compost bowl and move to the rosemary. "The lawyer is sending paperwork. We're meeting later this week."
"You can give her this address." She picks up the towel again and starts patting the greens dry. "Your father and I want you to know you can stay as long as you need. You don't have to keep calling it a few days."
I'd prepared an answer for what if you regret it. Apparently I don't need one. I clip a dead stem I missed on the basil.
"I've been thinking about leaving." I say it while I'm still looking at the rosemary, at the way the new growth is coming in pale and tender. "Not just the marriage. Sicily. Starting over somewhere else."
"Where?" She leaves the towel spread out, the greens still lying on it. I hadn't realized she was counting on having me nearby.
"France, maybe. Grasse." Over the weekend, I tried to imagine an ordinary day there, in a room that was entirely mine. "I know some people there through my work. I could ask."
"That's far." My mother gathers the greens into their bowl and puts the towel aside. "I'd miss you. But you know that already."
"I don't know what I need." I finish with the rosemary and move to the thyme, which is getting leggy and overgrown.
"I know I can't stay in this marriage. And I know I can't keep living in his shadow, waiting for scraps of his attention.
But leaving everything behind, everyone I know, that's different. "
"It is different." She opens the refrigerator and puts the greens inside, then closes it and leans against the counter again. "But you're not deciding today. You're just thinking. Thinking is allowed."
I keep trimming. The thyme needs more room than this pot allows. I turn it to reach a trailing stem, grateful to have something in front of me that I know how to fix.
"Would you come with me to the appointment?" I set down the scissors and gather the trimmings into my palm. "You wouldn't have to come inside. I just don't want to drive back alone."
"Of course." My mother pulls out a cutting board and starts slicing bread for lunch. "Tell me when you've arranged it."
I dump the trimmings into the compost and wash my hands at the sink, watching the water run clear. Outside the window, sunlight falls across the lemon groves. I grew up watching my father walk those rows, learned the rhythm of the seasons by the work that filled them.
Whatever happens next, this place will still be here. That's something.
***
Beatrice arrives in the early afternoon, her car pulling into the courtyard with a familiar crunch of gravel. I watch from my bedroom window as she gets out and opens the trunk, lifting out a cardboard box and a garment bag that I recognize as mine.
On the phone yesterday, I told her she didn't have to bring my clothes herself. She said she wanted to. Watching her balance the box against her hip, I'm glad she did.
I meet her at the front door before she can ring the bell. She looks tired, lines around her eyes that weren't there a week ago, but she manages a small smile when she sees me.
"I brought your blue dress." She tilts the garment bag toward me. "And some things from your dresser. There's more, but I didn't want to overwhelm you."
"Thank you." I take the garment bag and step back to let her inside. "Come upstairs. I'll put these away."
She follows me up to my room, carrying the box while I carry the dress. The garment bag brushes the banister at the turn, and I lift it clear. Even now I don't want to snag the dress. I spent too long choosing it for a dinner Rafael never came home to eat.
I hang the bag on the closet door and stand there for a moment, not opening it. Beatrice sets the box on the bed and waits.
"I can unpack it later." I turn away from the closet. "If you want to go downstairs, my mother can make tea."
"We can leave it in the bag." Beatrice clears a space on the bed beside the box. "I only brought it because I didn't want to choose what you kept."
That makes me want to open it. I chose this dress. I liked it before Thursday happened.
I unzip the garment bag and look at it.
The color is beautiful. I remember that now, remember how I felt when I first tried it on, the way the silk caught the light and made me feel like someone worth looking at. I wore it for him. I wanted him to see me in it, to remember why he married me, to want to stay.
He never saw it.
I touch the fabric, running my fingers over the smooth silk, and something clenches in my chest. I pull my hand back.
"I'll hang it up later." I close the garment bag and turn to the box on the bed. "What else did you bring?"
Beatrice doesn't push. She just steps aside while I open the box and start lifting out sweaters and blouses. She's packed carefully, folding everything neatly, tucking tissue paper between the layers.
"I called a lawyer this morning." I keep my eyes on the clothes as I say it, transferring them to the dresser drawer. "I asked her to start divorce proceedings."
Beatrice is quiet for a long moment. When I finally look up, her face is still, her hands clasped in front of her.
"I thought you might." Beatrice leaves the next blouse in the box. For a moment I think she'll ask me to wait. "Have you told him?"
"Not yet. I need to meet with the lawyer first." I close the drawer and turn to face her fully. "And it's not just what happened Thursday. It's everything before that. Months of coming second to the estate, to the crisis, to her. I kept waiting for it to pass, and it never did."
"I know." Beatrice sits down on the edge of the bed, her shoulders dropping slightly. "I watched it happen. I kept hoping he would realize what he was losing."