CHAPTER 20
"Absence teaches the name of what was there."
VALENTINA ROSSI
Donna Beatrice brought me coffee at eight.
"Good morning, signorina."
"Good morning."
"The Don has gone to Rome."
I already knew—I'd heard the car leave in the early hours, at five in the morning, with the engine muffled and the gravel making that specific sound it makes when someone wants to leave without waking the house.
"I see."
"He's back Friday."
She set down the cup but didn't leave, standing there with both hands folded over her apron.
"Signorina. May I say something?"
"You may."
She looked at the door and made sure it was closed.
"In thirty-two years in this house, the Don has left for Rome unannounced only three times. Once when his father died, once when his mother died, and this one."
"Donna Beatrice. You help me so much."
"I serve, signorina. I don't help."
"You do help."
She sort of smiled for the first time in three weeks. It was a small gesture, but it was a real smile.
"Enjoy your coffee, signorina."
She left.
I held the cup with both hands and looked out the window. The bay was in the same place, Vesuvius too. But the house was different—empty in a way that only a specific absence explains.
And it was in that moment, a hand's breadth from the black coffee, with the sun coming through the windowpane, that I admitted to myself: I missed him.
It wasn't hatred. It wasn't confusion. It was longing.
I, Valentina Rossi, twenty-three years old, daughter of Salvatore Rossi, raised in a convent, had been missing a man for exactly five hours.
The Madre Superiora would have said it was a sin. Francesca would have said it was progress.
I didn't decide which of the two was right.
I went down to the cellar at two in the afternoon.
The soldier was a different one today, older, more tired. He recognized me before I spoke.
"Signorina. Don Acquaviva asked you not to come down."
"Don Luca didn't ask," I said slowly. "Don Acquaviva did. That's not the same thing in this house. Are we clear?"
He looked at me for three seconds, and then he opened the door.
"Fifteen minutes, signorina."
"Grazie."
I went down.
The south cellar wasn't what I'd imagined.
It wasn't dark, much less damp. It was a large room, with a stone floor, white walls, a folding bed with a clean sheet, a small desk, an armchair, a full bathroom in the corner. There was even a window—just one, high, barred—but there was light.
Matteo was reading in the armchair, and he stood up when he saw me.
"Bella."
"Matteo."
We embraced. Short, this time, without crying. There are things you only cry over once—after that they become something normal.
He held me at arm's length, looking at me.
"You're different."
"You haven't seen me in seven years. Everything's different."
"No." He smiled. "You're different."
I sat down on the edge of the bed, and he went back to the armchair.
"What's it like being here?" I asked.
"Better than Capri. There I was a prisoner of papà, here I'm a prisoner of Luca. It's quite different."
"Different how?"
"In Capri I was property. Here I'm a problem." He smiled. "I'd rather be a problem, bella. A problem has a solution; property doesn't."
It was the first joke I'd heard from my brother in seven years.
"Matteo. I need to ask you something. In 2015, when you found out what papà did, why didn't you talk to Don Marco?"
"Because I loved papà, Valentina. I know it's the stupidest thing a man can say, but I loved him.
I still love him. Cazzo, I still love him.
" He laughed, without joy. "And I thought: if I talk to Don Marco, Don Marco will kill papà.
Then I'd have no father, and I'd have to take over the Rossi famiglia at twenty-eight.
Then I'd have to lock Valentina in a convent forever.
" He looked at me. "I thought wrong. But I thought it. "
"Matteo. I have another question."
"I'm listening."
"Our mother, in 2013... was it really cancer?"
"It was."
"Really?"
"Really, Valentina."
"Do you swear?"
"I swear on your life."
I nodded and took a deep breath.
"I believe you, brother."
"There's one more thing. Did Bianca tell you about the steel box?"
"She did."
"Bella," he said, lower. "There's a letter in the box from our mother to papà. From 2012."
"How do you know that?"
"Because I put it in the box myself, in 2015, before papà locked me up.
It was the only thing of mine I had on hand when he found out.
I put it there with the other documents so he wouldn't throw it out.
" He looked at me. "Mamma knew about the scheme, bella.
Mamma wrote to papà asking him to stop. In 2012, a year before she died. "
"Our mother knew..."
"She did."
"And she stayed with him anyway."
"Bella," he said plainly. "Do you really want the answer?"
I swallowed hard, looking at the white wall of the cellar.
"Not yet. I need to go up now. I'll come back tomorrow."
I climbed the cellar stairs. And I thought, with my heart beating out of rhythm: I'm going to Mondello. Before the wedding.
Raffaele was in the rose garden. I saw him through the salon window, before going down. I thought about detouring through the south terrace, but I didn't.
"Cognatina."
"Raffaele."
He was in trousers and a shirt, no jacket, with a glass of sparkling wine.
"You're prettier in the afternoon."
"I look the same."
"You don't." He smiled. "A Moretti's woman gets prettier in a Moretti's absence. It's a phenomenon I've observed for thirty-three years."
I smiled despite myself.
"Raffaele. You know your brother asked me not to be alone with you."
"I know."
"And you came to the garden to see me anyway."
"I came to the garden to smoke. You're the one who came."
He was right.
"Cazzo."
"Cognatina, such convent language."
"Shut up, Raffaele."
He laughed. I walked over to the stone bench, sat down, and looked at him.
"Why do you always show up when I need to think?"
"You're the one who decides when to come see me—that's different. And I know you want to ask me something."
"I do."
"Ask."
"Do you love your brother?"
"I've been his brother for thirty-three years, cognatina. It's a complicated question." He took a sip. "But yes. I love him."
"Even when you flirt with his fiancée?"
"Especially when I flirt with his fiancée." He smiled, amused now. "Because someone has to provoke the monster, cognatina. Otherwise the monster falls asleep. And my brother asleep is a dead brother."
"I understand."
"Brava."
He stood up and set the glass on the bench. Then he kissed my hand without lingering—three seconds, two seconds. Different from the other times.
Soon after, he left, and I stayed in the garden with the scent of the roses and realized, slowly, that Raffaele had changed his game.
And that I had changed my game too.
That night I had dinner alone in the small room. Donna Beatrice appeared at nine-thirty.
"Signorina. The Don arrives tomorrow night."
"You said Friday."
"A message just now to Acquaviva, copied to me. He asked that you be in the music room at eleven o'clock tomorrow night."
"The music room?"
"Sì."
"Did you bring the key to the music room so I can lock it from the inside?"
She looked at me.
It took three seconds.
"Sì, signorina." She set the key on the table. Small, gold, old. "I brought it."
She left, and I picked up the key, put it in my trouser pocket, beside the Mondello key.
Now I had two keys in my pocket and two letters against my chest.
And a silent promise for tomorrow at eleven at night.