17. Cielo
— ? —
Cielo
I come downstairs to find Giovanni making breakfast.
The sight stops me cold in the kitchen doorway. In three years of marriage, Giovanni never made breakfast. Not once. He was always gone before I woke, or he had meetings, or the kitchen was someone else’s domain.
But here he is, moving around the space like he belongs there, cracking eggs with the ease of long practice.
“What are you doing?”
He doesn’t turn. “Making breakfast.”
“I can see that. Since when do you make breakfast?”
“Since you left.” He slides eggs onto a plate. “I make it every time I miss you. So I’ve gotten a lot of practice.”
The words land like a physical blow. I stand frozen, watching him pour juice, add toast, arrange everything with movements that speak of routine - of years of mornings spent alone in this kitchen, making meals for someone who wasn’t there.
“Giovanni-”
“Gio likes his eggs scrambled, right?” He still doesn’t turn around. “Delphine mentioned it.”
“Yes. Scrambled.”
“Good.” He finally faces me, and his expression is carefully neutral - the mask he wears when he’s hiding how much something costs him. “Breakfast will be ready in ten minutes. You should wake him.”
I don’t move.
“You never made breakfast before,” I say. “In three years of marriage-”
“I missed you before. Every time you left the room, every business trip.” He turns back to the stove. “But I always knew you’d come back. I never knew what it was like to miss you and not know if I’d ever see you again.”
The simple truth of it cracks something open in my chest.
“Giovanni-”
“The plates are in the same cabinet. The juice glasses too. I didn’t move anything.” His voice is flat, matter-of-fact. “In case you came back. I wanted you to know where everything was.”
“You kept everything the same?”
“Mostly. A few things changed.” He gestures vaguely without looking at me. “The chair by the bedroom window. I had them add it. You used to sit on the floor to watch the sunrise, and I thought-” He stops. “It seemed like something you’d want.”
I remember sitting on that floor. I remember watching the sun come up while Giovanni slept, wondering if he’d notice I was gone, wondering if he’d care.
He noticed. He cared. He bought a chair.
“I don’t know what to do with this,” I hear myself say.
“You don’t have to do anything.” He starts plating the eggs. “I’m not telling you this to earn points or make you feel guilty. I’m telling you because it’s true, and I’m tired of hiding things.”
“Since when do you hide things?”
“Since always. Since I was seventeen and learned that showing weakness gets people killed.” He sets down the spatula and finally, finally looks at me properly. “But I’m trying to be different. With Gio. With you. I’m trying to stop hiding the things that matter.”
“Why now?”
“Because I have a son who looks at me like I hung the moon, and I don’t know how to be the person he thinks I am.
” His voice cracks, just slightly. “Because I spent five years wondering if you were dead, and now you’re standing in my kitchen, and I don’t want to waste whatever time I might have left pretending I don’t feel things. ”
The silence stretches between us.
“What things?” I ask, even though I shouldn’t. Even though I know better.
“You know what things.”
“I want to hear you say them.”
“Why? So you can throw them back at me later?” There’s no anger in his voice, just exhaustion.
“I love you, Cielo. I’ve loved you since the day I saw you arguing with that security guard about a painting.
I loved you when you married me, and I loved you when you left, and I’ve loved you every single day of the past five years when I didn’t know if you were alive or dead. ”
“Love wasn’t the problem.”
“No. I was the problem. My world was the problem. The fact that I couldn’t be what you needed was the problem.” He moves toward me, stops himself. “But I’m trying to change. I don’t know if I can. I don’t know if it’s too late. But I’m trying.”
“Giovanni-”
“You don’t have to say anything.” He steps back. “I just wanted you to know. Now-” He gestures at the stove. “Breakfast is getting cold. Go wake Gio.”
I go, because I don’t know what else to do. Because if I stay in that kitchen another moment, I’m going to say something I can’t take back.
Breakfast is a strange, fragile thing.
Gio chatters through the entire meal, oblivious to the tension between the adults. He talks about his dreams - something involving rockets and robots and a planet made entirely of cheese - and Giovanni listens like every word is precious.
“The cheese planet is called Formaggio,” Gio explains through a mouthful of eggs. “I named it.”
“That’s Italian for cheese,” Giovanni says.
“I KNOW. That’s why I picked it. Because we’re in Italy now.”
“Very logical.”
“Mamma says I’m very logical for almost-five.”
“Your mamma’s right.”
Gio beams, then notices something and frowns. “What’s that ring on your hand?”
My heart stops.
Giovanni glances at his left hand, at the plain gold band he’s worn for eight years - the one that matches the ring currently hidden under my shirt, pressed against my heart.
“It’s my wedding ring.”
“What’s a wedding ring?”
“It’s a ring that people wear when they’re married. To show they belong to someone.”
Gio’s brow furrows. “Are you married?”
“Yes.”
“To who?”
Giovanni’s eyes meet mine across the table. “To your mamma.”
The silence that follows is deafening. Gio looks between us, processing this new information with his usual intensity.
“If you’re married to Mamma,” he says slowly, “why don’t you live together?”
“That’s… complicated.”
“Grown-up complicated?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t like grown-up complicated.” He takes another bite of eggs. “When I’m a grown-up, I’m not going to be complicated. I’m just going to live on the cheese planet and eat cheese all day.”
“That sounds like a good plan.”
“It is.” He pushes his plate away. “Can I go play in the garden? Beppe said he’d show me where the bugs live.”
“Go ahead,” I manage. “Don’t get too dirty.”
He scrambles down from his chair and races out, leaving Giovanni and me alone at the table.
“He doesn’t know,” Giovanni says quietly. “That we’re married. That I’m-”
“He knows you’re his father. I told him that much.”
“But not that we were - that we are-”
“What was I supposed to tell him?” I stand abruptly, gathering plates. “That his parents are technically still married but haven’t seen each other in five years? That his mamma ran away and never filed the paperwork to end it officially?”
“You never filed?”
“I never-” I stop, realizing what I’ve revealed. “It wasn’t a priority.”
“For five years?”
“For five years.” I carry the plates to the sink, not looking at him. “I had other things to worry about.”
“Like what?”
“Like keeping our son alive. Like building a life where no one would find us. Like-” My voice cracks. “Like trying to forget you.”
“Did it work? Forgetting me?”
“No.” The word comes out harsh. “No, it didn’t work.”
“Then why-”
“Because I wanted to, Giovanni!” I spin to face him.
“Because every time I looked at him, I saw you. Because every night I put him to bed, I wondered if you were alive, if you were looking for us, if you’d given up.
Because I wore your mother’s ring on a chain around my neck for five years because I couldn’t bring myself to take it off, even when I hated you. ”
The confession hangs in the air between us.
Giovanni goes very still.
“What ring?”
Too late, I realize what I’ve said. My hand moves instinctively to my throat, to the chain hidden beneath my shirt.
“Cielo.” He’s moving toward me now. “What ring?”
“It doesn’t-”
“Show me.”
“Giovanni-”
“Please.” His voice cracks. “Please show me.”
My hands are shaking as I reach for the chain.
I pull it free slowly, letting the ring slide out from beneath my shirt - the heirloom ring his mother gave him before she died, the one he put on my finger the day we married, the one I’ve worn against my heart for five years because I couldn’t let go.
Giovanni stares at it like he’s seeing a ghost.
“You kept it.”
“I couldn’t-” My voice breaks. “I tried to throw it away. I tried so many times. But I couldn’t do it.”
“Five years. You wore my mother’s ring for five years.”
“Yes.”
He reaches out, slowly, his fingers brushing the ring where it rests against my collarbone. The touch is barely there, featherlight, but I feel it everywhere.
“You still wear it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” It’s a lie, and we both know it. “Giovanni-”
“You didn’t get rid of it,” he says, and his voice is barely a whisper now, thick with something I can’t name. “You ran. You hid. You built an entire life without me. But you kept my ring.”
“It was your mother’s. I couldn’t just-”
“It was yours.” He cups my face with his other hand, gentle as if I might shatter. “I gave it to you. It became yours.”
“Giovanni-”
“You kept it,” he says again, like he still can’t believe it. “This whole time.”
I can’t speak. Can’t move. Can’t do anything but stand there with his mother’s ring warming my skin and his hand on my face and five years of walls crumbling around me.
“You kept it,” he whispers, and he’s so close now I can feel his breath on my lips, “and you’re still wearing it.”