CHAPTER 39
"I didn't know how much I missed him. I knew the moment he walked into the house."
VALENTINA MORETTI
The nonna had coffee with me in the lemon garden.
It was the fifth morning in Capri. The pink house on the Via Tragara was open in a way I'd never seen—windows flung wide, terrace doors with no curtains, pots of basil and geranium in every corner.
It no longer looked like the house where Matteo had been a prisoner for two months; it looked like a summer house.
Donna Pia brought the black coffee on the blue ceramic tray, fresh cornetto and local honey.
Matteo looked at me after the nonna went up to rest.
"Sorella."
"Sì."
"I owe you a conversation."
"I owe you one too."
He sighed. His hair had been cut three days before by Donna Pia, his beard shaved, a clean white shirt. He no longer looked like the man from the cellar; he looked like the brother I remembered from childhood in Mondello.
"I was cold to you in the south cellar. I know."
"You were."
"I was angry at the world, sorella. Not at you."
"I know. But I thought more than once that you were angry at me for marrying him."
"I was," he admitted. "For two days. After Mamma's letter, I stopped thinking that way."
"Va bene."
We stayed quiet for a while. Down below, at the Marina Piccola, a boat sounded its horn.
"Sorella. You're pale."
"I know."
"The nonna knows."
He reached his hand across the table and squeezed mine. It was the first time in seven years.
The phone rang at eleven. It was him.
"Bella mia. How are you?"
"I'm fine." I swallowed hard. "The nonna told me to rest. Matteo's well. And you?"
"I'm all right. Don't ask me where, bella mia."
"Va bene."
"I'll call you tomorrow."
"Sì."
He hung up.
His voice was tired in a new way. I stood there holding the phone in the room on the Via Tragara for a minute after he hung up.
The envelope arrived at four in the afternoon.
Donna Pia brought it up. No name on the outside, a plain seal, thin handwriting in the right corner that I recognized before I opened it.
Bianca.
I opened it.
The letter was short, only four lines.
Villa Salina, on the tip of the peninsula, in Mondello. That's where he'll be over the coming weeks. The doctor's name is Tito Fasano. He'll testify if you offer protection. I'm in Marseille. Don't look for me again. I owed you my life and I've paid it back with this.
Go with God, Valentina Moretti.
I read it twice, and called Matteo.
He read over my shoulder. His hand trembled a little at my waist.
"It's her handwriting."
"It is."
"Villa Salina."
"Sì."
He came at eleven thirty at night.
I'd already spoken with him at eight. We'd agreed I'd send the envelope by encrypted photo the next morning. I was in my nightgown, my hair loose, on the second-floor balcony, watching the lighthouse on the peninsula blink across the sea.
He knocked on the door downstairs, and Donna Pia answered.
I ran down the stairs and jumped on him. Legs around him, hands on the back of his neck, mouth on his mouth.
I tasted the salt of the sea before the kiss.
"Bella mia."
"Luca."
I didn't say anything else, just kissed him again.
Then Adelina appeared at the top of the stairs.
"Luca."
He set me down and went up the stairs slowly, kissing her forehead.
"Nonna. I'll come see you in the morning. I'll be back at four."
"Va bene."
She looked at me and went back to her room.
Luca's old room in Capri was small.
An iron bed with a white sheet, a window onto the sea. The smell of jasmine from the yard coming in through the thin curtain. It was the room where he'd slept as a boy, with his mother still alive, with his father still alive.
He took off his jacket and put it over the chair. Then he took off his shoes and sat on the edge of the bed.
I went to him and sat in his lap, resting my forehead against his.
"Twelve days," I murmured.
"Twelve."
"Tell me."
"Tomorrow I'll tell you, bella mia. Not today."
I gave him Bianca's envelope, and he read it in the low light of the lamp. Then he folded it and put it in the inside pocket of the jacket on the chair.
"Tomorrow I'll look into it."
"Va bene."
My fingers caught on the scar on his ribs. His fingers moved up the inside of my thigh.
"Luca. I was crying."
"Lo so."
"It's not from sadness."
"I know, bella mia."
I didn't know how much I missed it, I thought, until he came into the house.
When he came into me, I was already crying slowly. Hot tears running down the side of my face, and him kissing each one without a word, without asking.
I wrapped my legs around him, and he moved slowly.
In the middle, he stopped, his mouth at my ear, and whispered:
"You feel different, bella mia."
I went still for half a second.
"I know."
"You know what?"
"I can't explain it, but I'm different."
He didn't ask anything more, but kept going.
I came first, slowly, his forehead against mine. He came right after, his open hand on my belly—on my belly, again, I thought—and buried his face in my neck.
I woke at three thirty; he was getting dressed in the dark.
"Luca. Two weeks."
"One."
"You're sure?"
"Lo prometto."
He came to the bed and kissed my forehead, long. Then he put his open hand on my belly over the sheet, one more time. He looked at me—just looked—and left through the door before dawn.