10. Georgina
— ? —
Georgina
The house appears through the rain just after dark, its windows lit against the hills like someone has been expecting us.
Deus turns the car onto the gravel drive, and I watch the familiar shape of my father’s house grow larger through the windshield. The caretakers have kept the gardens trimmed and the shutters painted, the same warm ochre they’ve been since I was a child.
The light above the front door is on. I used to look for it when I rode back late and knew my father would be waiting to ask where I’d been.
“Rosa made dinner.” Deus pulls to a stop near the front steps and turns off the engine. “I told her we’d eat when we got in.”
I nod and reach for my bag on the floor. The silk of my dress has dried in creases across my lap. I smooth it once, then stop bothering. I won’t have to explain my appearance to anyone here.
The front hall smells like old wood and the lavender Rosa keeps in the linen closets. I set my bag on the side table and stand for a moment, letting the familiarity settle around me.
The portrait of my grandmother watches from its familiar place above the console, and the tile under my feet is worn smooth in the places where generations of della Roveres have walked.
“Kitchen or sitting room?” Deus shrugs out of his jacket and hangs it on the hook by the door. He moves through the space like someone who’s been here long enough to stop thinking about where things go.
“Kitchen.” I follow him down the corridor, past the study where my father used to work and the small parlor my mother always hated. “I want to sit somewhere warm.”
Rosa has left a pot of soup on the stove and a board of cheese and bread on the table. The kitchen is large and old-fashioned, with a fireplace that someone has already lit against the evening chill. I pull out a chair and sink into it, letting the warmth from the fire soak into my bones.
Deus ladles soup into two bowls and sets one in front of me without asking whether I’m hungry. I pull the bread board closer, suddenly hungry now that there’s something in front of me besides a road I don’t have to look back along.
“I see you’ve settled in.” I pick up my spoon and glance at the books stacked beside his usual chair. “When you asked to stay, I didn’t realize the library was coming with you.”
“Only the necessary parts.” He moves the top book away from his bowl before dipping a piece of bread into the soup. “I still have business with that breeder near Ascoli. Your house is closer than mine.”
There’s something underneath the practical explanation, something in the way he’s not quite meeting my eyes.
I remember hearing that he’d been seeing someone, that it had ended badly, but he’s said very little about her.
I know better than to make him talk just because tonight I’ve brought my own unhappiness to the table.
“You’re welcome to stay as long as you need.” I take a spoonful of soup and find it’s exactly the kind of thing Rosa makes when someone needs comfort, thick with vegetables and rich with herbs. “The house is too big for one person anyway.”
“I won’t be in your way.” He looks at me directly now, and I see the same guarded exhaustion I’ve been feeling since I got in the car. “I know how to make myself scarce.”
“I’m not asking you to be scarce.” The soup is warming me from the inside, loosening something that’s been tight in my chest since the championship. “I’m asking you to pass the bread.”
He snorts and pushes the board toward me, and for a moment we just eat in companionable silence. The fire crackles, the rain patters against the windows, and I let myself pretend that this is an ordinary evening, that I’m here for a visit instead of a retreat.
My phone buzzes in my bag, and I don’t move to answer it.
“If that’s Max again, you could send a message.” Deus glances toward the hall where I left my things. “You don’t have to have the whole conversation tonight.”
“I will.” I break off a piece of cheese and eat it slowly, giving myself time to think. “I just need to figure out what to say first.”
“You don’t need a speech.” He reaches for the bread, catching the end of the board before it slides off the table. “Tell him you got here. Start there.”
I can tell Max where I am without agreeing to come back. That should be simple enough to write, yet I keep imagining him reading it, asking when I’m coming home. I set down my spoon. I’ve spent most of the drive avoiding the answer because saying it will hurt him, and because it will hurt me too.
“I’m going to file for divorce.” The words come out steadier than I expected, and I watch Deus’s face to see how he takes them.
He sets down his wine glass and looks at me for a long moment. “Are you asking me to find a lawyer, or telling me you’ve already decided?”
“I need a name.” I leave my spoon beside the bowl and meet his eyes. “Someone who handles divorces. I want to understand what I need to do, and then I want to do it.”
“I can ask for a recommendation.” Deus pulls out his phone, then pauses with his thumb above the screen. “You’re certain you want me to?”
“Yes.” I stand and carry my empty bowl to the sink. There is a little soup left in the pot, enough for another evening here. “Send me the number when you have it. I’ll call.”
“I’ll find someone.” Deus sets the phone beside his plate without looking at it again. “I wish you hadn’t needed to ask me.”
I turn to face him, my back against the counter. “I still love him, Deus. I need you to know that. This isn’t easier because I’ve stopped.”
The night Max promised me another day together, I lay against his chest and let myself picture the blanket under the olive tree. His hand had been warm over mine. I remember trying not to ask when, wanting to believe he would arrange it because he wanted it too.
“He offered to cancel everything tomorrow.” I press my fingertips against the edge of the counter, remembering Max leaning toward the car window. “You heard him. We could finally have the day he promised me. I kept wondering why he could do it now, when asking him before hadn’t been enough.”
Deus doesn’t say anything. He just watches me, waiting for the rest.
“I asked him for time.” I wrap my arms around myself, feeling the chill that the fire can’t quite reach.
“I asked him to include me, to talk to me before he made decisions about my life. And he kept saying he would, and then he’d find another morning for Giselle’s lessons, another hour for their practice, another reason why our day could wait until next week.
He had time. He just didn’t have it for me. ”
Deus pushes his bowl aside, leaving his dinner unfinished. “What did you want him to say?”
“I don’t know.” I look toward the window, where our reflections hang against the dark. “That’s what frightened me. I could hear how much he wanted me to come back, and I wanted to believe it would be different. But I couldn’t get into our bed tonight and start waiting again.”
My throat tightens around the last word. I wait for Deus to suggest a few days apart, something less final that I might agree to because I’m tired. He reaches for his phone instead.
“I’ll get you that name in the morning.” He starts clearing the table, setting my spoon beside his. “If you want company for the appointment, ask me.”
I nod and retrieve my bag from the hall, then climb the stairs to my old room. The bed is made up with the blue coverlet I chose when I was sixteen, and there’s a nightgown laid out on the pillow. I change out of my ruined dress and sit on the edge of the bed with my phone in my hands.
Three missed calls from Max. No voicemails.
I open my messages and type slowly, choosing each word with care. I’m safe in Le Marche. Please don’t come. I’ll contact you when I’m ready to talk.
I send it before I can change my mind. Then I set an alarm for seven, early enough to make the call myself, and I silence incoming calls and put it on the nightstand.
The rain keeps falling. I lie in the dark and think about Max finding my ring beside his phone, and I don’t let myself wonder whether he understands why I left it there.
***
Weeks later, I’m standing in the stable courtyard when Marco’s trailer pulls through the gate.
The papers were filed in the first week.
I sat in my father’s study with the lawyer Deus found, a brisk woman named Valentina who asked practical questions and didn’t offer opinions about my marriage.
I signed where she pointed and answered what she needed to know, and when it was done, she told me the process would take time and I should try to focus on other things.
I’ve been trying. I’ve walked the hills every morning, relearning the paths I used to ride with my father before he died. I’ve sorted through the books in the study and answered the correspondence that accumulated while I was at the Costanzo estate.
At my request, Maria sent my clothes from Umbria, with the walking shoes I’d forgotten to put on the list. Felicity called twice, and both times she told me she loved me without asking me to forgive her son.
I haven’t spoken to Max.
He replied to my message that first night: I understand. I’m sorry. Please let me know if you need anything.
Since then, the practical arrangements have gone through Deus, who coordinated with Marco about the transport and told me last week that Max had arranged for Sovrano to come whenever I was ready.
I said I was ready. I wanted my horse here, in my stable, where I could see him every day. I wanted at least one piece of my old life within reach.
Now the trailer is backing toward the stable entrance, and I’m not sure I can make my feet move.
Marco climbs down from the cab and raises a hand in greeting. He looks tired from the drive, but his expression warms when he sees me waiting.
He’s watched me ride Sovrano often enough to know how particular I can be. I’ve already asked which stall would catch the morning sun, and I hold on to that small, familiar concern as he comes toward me.