7. Cielo
— ? —
Cielo
I set the table like it matters.
The good linens, the ones I found in the dining room cabinet during our first week here. The candles I found in a kitchen drawer, cream-colored and tall, the kind that burn for hours.
Two place settings - the ceramic plates with the blue rim that I liked when we first arrived, before I started hating everything about this house.
Two wine glasses, though mine will stay empty now, filled with water instead because there’s a person growing inside me who didn’t ask to be brought into this mess.
The necklace is warm against my collarbone.
I touch it without thinking, the little gold star that Giovanni hunted for three years, and I wonder if this is what our marriage has become - beautiful gestures that arrive too late to matter, love expressed in objects because the man himself is never here to say the words.
I’m wearing the blue dress.
His favorite. My hair is down the way he likes it, and I’ve put on lipstick for the first time in weeks, and if anyone were watching they’d think I was preparing for a romantic evening instead of an ultimatum.
Because that’s what this is.
That’s what I’ve decided, somewhere in the long hours since I stared at those two lines on the pregnancy test. I’m not just telling him about the baby tonight. I’m telling him everything - the loneliness, the fear, the slow erosion of the woman I used to be.
I’m telling him that I can’t do this anymore, that I can’t raise a child in a world where Daddy disappears for days at a time and Mommy eats dinner alone and the only constant is the absence of the person who swore to be there.
He’ll have to choose.
The thought sits heavy in my chest, sharp-edged and terrifying.
I’ve never given Giovanni an ultimatum before.
In three years of marriage, I’ve bent and accommodated and understood, because that’s what you do when you love someone whose life doesn’t leave room for normal expectations.
I’ve told myself that his work keeps us safe, that the distance is temporary, that the man who drives down coast roads just to show me views I mentioned once is the real Giovanni, and the ghost who haunts this house is just a necessary mask.
But masks have a way of becoming faces.
And I’m running out of time to find out which one is real.
* * *
The sun sets, and I light the candles.
The flames are steady in the still air, no breeze tonight, no sound except the distant crash of waves against the cliff below.
I’ve positioned everything perfectly - the food warming in the oven, the wine breathing on the sideboard, the chairs angled so we’ll be able to see each other’s faces when I say the things I need to say.
I’m pregnant.
I’m terrified.
I need you to choose.
I rehearse it in my head, trying out different versions.
The gentle approach, where I lead with the baby and hope the joy of it softens everything that comes after.
The angry approach, where I let three months of frustration pour out before I get to the news.
The calm approach, where I lay out the facts like a business proposal - here is the situation, here are the options, here is what I need from you.
None of them feel right. None of them capture the tangled mess of love and fear and desperate hope that’s been building in my chest since that pharmacy in the village.
I check my phone. Nothing.
It’s seven-thirty. He said he’d be home for dinner. He said the meeting would be over by seven, that he’d come straight back, that tonight would be different.
I pour myself a glass of water, and then - because I need to hear a voice that isn’t the wind - I call Delphine.
She answers on the second ring. “Already? The dinner can’t have gone badly that fast.”
“It hasn’t started yet. He’s late.”
“How late?”
“Half an hour. Maybe more.” I curl my fingers around the water glass, watching the candle flames dance. “I’m probably overreacting.”
“You’re not overreacting. You’re sitting alone at a table you set for two, waiting for a man who promised to be there.” Her voice is matter-of-fact, no judgment. “That’s not overreacting. That’s paying attention.”
“What if he doesn’t come?”
“Then you’ll know something important about who he is.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“It’s not meant to be comforting. It’s meant to be true.” A pause. “Cielo, listen to me. Whatever happens tonight - whatever he does or doesn’t do - you have choices. Remember that. You always have choices.”
“Even if all the choices are terrible?”
“Especially then.” Her voice softens. “The car is still in the village. The keys are still with the bartender. I’m not saying you’ll need them. I’m saying they’re there.”
“I know.” My hand drifts to my stomach, to the secret I’m still carrying alone. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. Call me when it’s over, whatever that looks like.”
“I will.”
I hang up and sit down to wait.
* * *
Eight o’clock. The candles have burned down half an inch, and the food in the oven is starting to dry out at the edges.
I call him. It rings four times and goes to voicemail.
“It’s me. I’m waiting. Please come home.”
I hang up and stare at the phone, willing it to ring back. It doesn’t.
* * *
Eight-thirty. I’ve moved the food out of the oven because there’s no point ruining it further.
The pasta is congealing in its dish, the sauce forming a skin on top.
I should eat something - the baby books I read this afternoon were very clear about regular meals - but my stomach is too knotted for food.
I call again. Voicemail.
“Giovanni, please. I need to talk to you. It’s important.”
* * *
Nine o’clock. The candles are guttering now, wax pooling on the good linens that I’ll probably never use again after tonight.
I’ve stopped calling because what’s the point?
He’s not answering. He’s in his meeting, or he’s at dinner with the Falcones, or he’s wherever Ludovica has led him, and I’m here, alone, with a speech rotting in my throat and a baby he doesn’t know about and a marriage that might already be over.
I should have known. I should have known that “tonight will be different” is just another way of saying “nothing will change.”
The anger comes slow at first, then all at once - a wave of it, hot and bitter, washing away the careful words I’d prepared.
I want to throw something. I want to scream.
I want to drive to that compound and drag him out by his collar and make him look at me, really look at me, for the first time in months.
But I don’t. I just sit at the table I set with such stupid hope, watching the candles die, and I think about all the ways this night could have gone if he’d just shown up.
* * *
Nine-thirty. I’ve given up on the table.
I’m curled on the daybed by the window now, the one where we made love about a week ago when I thought things might be different.
The necklace is still around my throat - I can’t bring myself to take it off - and my hand is pressed against my stomach, against the tiny life that has no idea what kind of chaos it’s being born into.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to it. “I’m so sorry. I thought he’d be here.”
My phone sits silent beside me. I’ve stopped checking it.
Outside, the night is dark and still. No moon tonight, just stars - the kind of sky that Giovanni would point to if he were here, naming constellations I’ve never learned because I always let him teach me instead.
I close my eyes and try to imagine a version of this night where he walks through the door.
Where he sees the table I set and the dress I’m wearing and the hope I can’t quite kill, and he understands.
Where he takes me in his arms and says the right things and I tell him about the baby and he’s overjoyed, terrified, present in a way he hasn’t been for months.
It’s a good fantasy. I let myself live in it for a moment.
Then headlights sweep across the window, and my eyes fly open.
For one heart-stopping second, I think it’s him. I think the fantasy is becoming real, that he’s come home after all, that the night isn’t ruined.
But the headlights are wrong.
They’re coming up the drive too fast, moving in a way that has nothing to do with someone coming home for dinner. And there’s more than one set - I can see that now, multiple vehicles, their lights cutting through the darkness like searchlights.
I stand up slowly, every instinct Giovanni ever trained into me going on alert at once.
When something feels wrong, trust it. Move first, ask questions later.
I move toward the wall, away from the windows, my hand already reaching for the phone I left on the daybed. I need to call him. I need to call Rino, the guard Beppe left at the gate. I need to-
The first window shatters.