30. Matteo
MATTEO
Claire asks me to leave, so I leave.
The drive back to Bellamare takes twenty-seven minutes.
I know because I notice the clock when I start the car and again when I turn through the gate.
I try not to spend the drive deciding what the meeting means.
It is harder than it sounds.
My brain offers six conclusions before I reach the first turn.
She listened.
She did not forgive me.
She asked about the note.
She believed me about some of it.
She did not touch me.
She asked me to go.
Give me one of them and I could build a plan around it.
I keep driving.
When I reach my house, Claire’s paperback is still on the shelf.
I take off my shoes.
I drink water.
I answer one email from Milan because the subject line says URGENT and the contents are, in fact, urgent.
Then I go to bed.
That is all I do.
Two mornings later, I wake before the alarm and spend four full seconds not knowing why my chest feels wrong.
Then I remember Ravello.
I stay in bed another minute.
I dislike both developments.
At six thirty-four, I make one coffee.
The terrace is already warm. A pale strip of sun has reached the far wall, and someone below the lemon terraces is dragging a hose across stone.
Casa Ginestra remains quiet.
I no longer look at the house every time I sit down.
Approximately every third time is apparently acceptable.
Improvement.
I drink coffee.
At six forty-one, Luca appears on the path carrying nothing.
This is suspicious.
“You are empty-handed.”
“Good morning.”
“You usually bring food.”
“I can leave and return with bread if the absence is upsetting you.”
“It is unusual.”
“So is your face.”
“My face is the same.”
“No.”
He sits in the chair Claire used to take.
I look at him.
Luca notices.
He gets up again.
“For God’s sake.”
“What?”
“I forgot.”
He moves to the chair beside mine instead.
The small correction hurts anyway.
I look at my coffee.
Luca looks toward the water.
Neither of us says anything for a while.
Then he asks, “Did the meeting happen?”
“Yes.”
That is all he knows.
I did not tell anyone when I was going, but Sebastian apparently discovered I had driven to Ravello and then behaved with enough restraint not to circulate a theory.
It may be Sebastian’s greatest personal achievement.
Luca rubs one hand over his knee.
“Was it bad?”
“Yes.”
“Good bad or bad bad?”
“That is not a useful classification.”
“It is when I am asking.”
I consider the question.
“I told her the truth.”
“Good bad, then.”
“She asked me to leave.”
Luca’s mouth closes.
“Bad bad,” he says.
“Yes.”
He does not tell me what to do.
I had expected him to.
Luca interferes more than he should, and he believes food plus persistence can repair most forms of human damage.
He stands.
“I am making eggs.”
“I am not hungry.”
“That was not a question.”
He walks toward Casa Bellamare.
I finish my coffee alone.
Later that morning, my assistant calls about Japan.
For one disorienting second, I think she means Claire.
Then she says, “The Osaka investors moved the hospitality call to Thursday.”
It takes me a second to get back into my own life.
“Fine.”
“That puts it against the Florence review.”
“Move Florence.”
“To Friday?”
“Yes.”
She types.
“There is also a request from the Tokyo office to add a dinner while you are there next month.”
I stop.
Next month.
Tokyo.
Japan.
I knew I would be in Tokyo for two nights in September. The dates have been on my calendar for three weeks.
Claire will be in Osaka and Kyoto around the same time.
The thought arrives immediately.
The map follows.
Tokyo to Osaka.
Train time.
Hotels.
One dinner that could move.
I grip the edge of the desk.
My assistant says, “Matteo?”
“I am here.”
“Do you want the dinner?”
“No.”
“No dinner?”
“Keep the original Tokyo schedule.”
“All right.”
I look at the calendar.
Tokyo stays where it is. Claire’s Osaka and Kyoto dates stay hers unless she chooses to make them ours.
I do not open a rail schedule.
I close the calendar.
“Anything else?” I ask.
“Not until Milan creates another emergency.”
“It is only eight twenty.”
“Exactly.”
She hangs up.
Not long after, Milan creates another emergency.
This one is a delivery issue involving bathroom fixtures that have arrived in the wrong finish.
Nineteen minutes later, it is contained.
The brass is not supposed to be brass.
Someone has ordered enough of it to make forty rooms look as if they belong to a different hotel.
I send the photographs back to procurement with one sentence.
Wrong specification. Replace.
Then I stare at one of the images because Claire would hate the sink.
Not the finish.
The sink itself.
She once told me vessel sinks are bowls pretending they have jobs.
I had disagreed on principle.
Now I look at the photograph and hear her saying it.
I close the file.
At lunch, I go to Casa Bellamare because Luca sends one word.
LUNCH.
There are five places at the table.
Five.
I notice before I sit down.
Sebastian notices me noticing.
His eyes move to Nico.
Nico gives him a warning look.
Sebastian lasts thirty seconds.
“This is terrible.”
“What?” Luca asks.
“Everyone has become emotionally responsible.”
Adrian takes bread.
“No one asked you to.”
“That is exactly the problem.”
I sit.
Sebastian points his fork at me.
“I have a joke.”
“No.”
“It is not about Claire.”
“That makes it worse.”
“It is about Nico.”
Nico says, “Absolutely not.”
Sebastian looks delighted. “See? The room is healing.”
Luca throws a napkin at him.
It lands in his water glass.
I laugh before I can stop myself.
That catches me off guard.
Nobody looks up to examine the event.
Thank God.
Sebastian lifts the wet napkin between two fingers.
“I have been attacked twice this week.”
“You deserve a more efficient attacker,” Nico says.
Adrian says, “Eat.”
Sebastian looks at him. “You all use that word like violence.”
Luca puts more fish on Sebastian’s plate.
The conversation moves to a boat engine, then a restaurant Nico hates, then whether Adrian has been reading the same book for three weeks or simply carrying it around to discourage conversation.
“Both,” Adrian says.
That ends the inquiry.
I stay through lunch.
Afterward Adrian carries his book to the low wall outside the library and sits there without asking whether I want company. I take my laptop to the other end because pretending this is accidental would insult both of us.
For twenty minutes we say nothing. He reads. I answer email. A cicada starts somewhere in the rosemary and refuses to stop.
Eventually Adrian turns a page.
“You told her?”
I know what he means.
“Yes.”
“Everything?”
“Enough to make myself difficult to defend.”
He nods.
I wait for something else.
Nothing comes.
“That is all?” I ask.
Adrian looks over the top of the book.
“You wanted advice?”
“No.”
“Good.”
He goes back to reading.
Seven emails later, I realize this is Adrian’s version of being kind.
After Adrian goes back to his book, I stay where I am and finish the work in front of me.
From the terrace, I can still hear Luca complaining about olive oil and Sebastian defending a piece of bread he cut badly enough to provoke a second argument.
The noise keeps going without asking whether I am ready for it.
After lunch, I go back to work.
Later, an email arrives from Elena with a subject line about the gallery story.
I delete it without opening it.
Then I restore it because deleting work mail unread is childish.
The message says only that the cycle has moved on and there is nothing requiring action.
Good.
I archive it.
While looking for a spare key, I find Claire’s hair tie in the drawer where I put it after she left.
The hair tie is black, stretched, and worth nothing.
I close the drawer.
Half an hour later, I discover the spare key was already in my pocket.
My public reputation survives the humiliation.
Before dinner, Nico knocks on the open door.
He does not come in until I look up.
“Question.”
“Yes.”
“The east irrigation valve is being replaced tomorrow.”
“I know.”
“It will shut water off to the lower line for an hour.”
“All right.”
He waits.
I know why.
Casa Ginestra is connected to a separate line. The work does not affect it.
It is exactly what it sounds like: a valve.
I appreciate that more than I say.
“Anything else?”
“No.”
He turns toward the door.
“Nico.”
He looks back.
“Thank you.”
His eyebrows rise.
“For the valve?”
“For asking only about the valve.”
Understanding settles over his face.
He nods once and leaves it there.
That evening, I open my calendar.
Tokyo next month.
Florence Friday.
Milan in nine days.
There are spaces around all of it where I can imagine Claire.
I want her in them.
She may still decide she does not want to be.
The calendar remains useless on that question.
I stop before I turn any of it into logistics.
My hand stays on the trackpad. Usually this is where I move a call, book a car, or solve the second problem before the first one arrives.
That works beautifully on hotels.
It is less useful here.
Claire would laugh at that.
I can hear the exact sound.
Inspector, she would say, as if I had finally discovered something available to the general population.
I miss the nickname enough to close the calendar harder than necessary.
At dinner, Luca has food ready.
Later, Sebastian tries to convince Adrian to come to a party in Positano.
Adrian says no.
Sebastian asks why.
Adrian says, “I do not want to go.”
Sebastian looks personally betrayed by the simplicity.
I watch the exchange longer than necessary.
Adrian goes back to eating. Sebastian complains, but he does not ask again.
After dinner, I return to my house.
The terrace doors are open.
I leave them open.
There is no music next door, no camera bag under my table, no book facedown beside my coffee.
Her paperback is still on my shelf because I still have not returned it.
I could send it through Luca.
I could leave it at the gallery.
I could give it to Elena.
I do none of those things.
It can remain a book on a shelf until Claire asks for it.
The next day passes quietly. I work. Luca feeds everyone at lunch. Sebastian loses an argument to Nico about the boat.
By evening, I have gone another day without turning Ravello into a plan.
At eight forty-seven, my phone lights.
I look at the screen.
Claire.
For a second, I do not open the message.
For once, the delay has nothing to do with restraint. I am afraid to open it.
Then I open it.
Coffee tomorrow morning?
A second message arrives before I finish reading the first.
No agenda. Just coffee.
I read both messages twice.
Six thirty-two. Terrace. Weather. Food. The Milan call.
My mind gets through all five before I stop it.
Claire asked for coffee, not everything I know how to build around it.
I type one word.
Yes.
I stare at it, decide not to improve it, and send.
Three dots appear.
Claire: Your terrace. Same time.
I read the message again.
Same time.
Two words are enough material for several bad decisions.
I put the phone down instead.
My mind is already halfway out of the chair.
Move the work call. Wipe the terrace table. Find the book. Fix the chair.
Instead, I do one thing.
I rinse the cup I used at dinner and put it in the dishwasher.
I leave the kitchen before I invent another task.
A few minutes later, I check tomorrow’s calendar.
Milan at eight thirty.
Coffee before that.
I leave Milan where it is.
Then I remember the terrace chair has been wobbling slightly since last week.
I stand.
Then sit again.
I let the chair wobble.
I think about buying peaches.
No.
I consider whether her paperback should be on the table.
Absolutely not.
I go upstairs before I can find a third unnecessary problem.
I sleep badly.
I wake before midnight and check the clock.
After one, a scooter on the road above Bellamare wakes me.
Sometime after three, I am awake again for no identifiable reason.
Before six, I give up.
I shower.
I dress.
I make coffee.
Mine first, black.
Then I take the second cup from the cabinet.
Double espresso, water beside it.
I add nothing else.
I carry both cups outside.
The terrace is cool, the stone under my bare feet still holding the night.
I put Claire’s espresso where she used to sit.
The water goes beside it.
My coffee goes across from hers.
The chair wobbles when I pull it out.
I leave it that way.
I sit down and wait.