Chapter 1 Where We Learned to Hide #3
I should call her.
I've been meaning to call her all week, but the days keep getting away from me, and by the time I remember it's too late to ring the farm without waking my father.
They moved out there after the wedding, my parents, to a small place on the border of the estate.
My father tends goats now and pretends he doesn't miss the bustle of the main house.
My mother grows vegetables and writes me letters full of pointed questions about when I'm going to give her grandchildren.
The thought makes my stomach turn, just slightly, and I pause with my hands in the flour. I've been feeling strange for a few days now, queasy in the mornings, tired in a way that sleep doesn't fix. Probably just the change of seasons. Probably nothing.
I'm reaching for my phone to call my mother when I hear footsteps behind me, and I know before I turn around that it's not Leon.
"Ysabel." Donna Vera's voice is perfectly pleasant, the way it always is, and perfectly cold underneath. "I didn't expect to find you in here."
"I'm making biscuits for your sister-in-law's birthday."
"How thoughtful." She says it like thoughtful is a character flaw. "Though I should mention, the Rosciano family typically brings wine to these occasions. Something from the estate cellars. It's traditional."
"I'll bring wine too, then."
"That's not quite what I meant."
Vera moves further into the kitchen, her heels clicking on the tile. She's immaculate as always, silver hair swept up, dress perfectly pressed, every inch the Donna she's been for forty years. Next to her I feel flour-dusted and small, which is probably the point.
"What I mean is that homemade biscuits are a lovely gesture for a village gathering, but for a family dinner, we prefer to present a unified front. Gifts from the estate, not from individual family members."
I keep my hands moving, mixing the dough with more force than necessary. "They're just biscuits."
"Nothing is ever just anything, dear. Surely you've learned that by now."
The endearment lands like a slap, the way it always does.
Vera has been calling me dear since the day Leon told her we were engaged, and every time she does it I feel like a child being corrected by a patient, exhausted teacher. I am twenty-four years old. I am married to her son.
And she still speaks to me like I'm the maid's daughter who wandered into the wrong room and needs to be gently redirected.
"It's my grandmother's recipe," I say, keeping my voice even. "She made these her whole life. They're simple, but they're good."
"I'm sure they are, in their way." Vera's smile doesn't waver. "I only mean that presentation matters at these gatherings. The family has certain expectations."
"Then the family can enjoy the wine and admire the presentation, and anyone who wants something that actually tastes like it was made by human hands can have a biscuit."
Vera's expression flickers, just for a moment, something sharp beneath the pleasantness. "You have a gift for speaking plainly, Ysabel."
"I learned it from my mother. She always said fancy words are just plain words wearing uncomfortable shoes."
"How colorful." Vera smooths an invisible wrinkle from her sleeve. "Well. I'm sure Leon's aunt will appreciate the... rustic charm."
She leaves without saying goodbye, her heels clicking away down the corridor, and I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding.
My hands are shaking slightly. I hate that about myself, that she can still make my pulse race after two years, that every conversation feels like a test I'm not sure I passed.
I finish the biscuits on autopilot, shaping them into crescents, laying them out on baking sheets, sliding them into the oven. The familiar motions calm me down.
This, at least, I know how to do well.
While the biscuits bake, I finally call my mother.
"Ysabel!" Her voice is warm and too loud, the way it always is on the phone. She doesn't trust technology, my mother, and compensates by shouting into it. "I was just thinking about you. Are you eating enough? You sounded tired last week."
"I'm fine, Mama. I'm making Nonna's almond biscuits."
"For what?"
"Leon's aunt's birthday dinner tonight."
There's a pause, and I can picture her face, the way her eyebrows draw together when she's deciding whether to say something. "That's the aunt who lives in the big villa outside town? The one who asked if you knew how to use a fish knife?"
"That's the one."
"And you're bringing her biscuits? Our biscuits?"
"I thought she might like them. She did, last time."
"Hmm." Another pause. "You're a better woman than me, Ysabel. I would have put salt in them instead of sugar."
I laugh, surprised by it, and some of the tension from Vera's visit drains out of my shoulders. "That's why I'm the one who married into this family and not you."
"Thank God for that. Your father would have burned the whole estate down by now." I can hear her moving around, the clatter of dishes in the background. "How are you feeling? Really?"
"I told you, I'm fine."
"You didn't sound fine last week. You sounded tired."
"I've been a little queasy," I admit, because it's impossible to hide anything from my mother and I've learned not to try. "Probably just something I ate."
The silence on the other end of the line stretches for a moment, and I can picture her face, the way her forehead creases when she's deciding whether to push.
"You should come visit," she says finally. "It's been weeks. Your father asks about you every night at dinner, and you know he won't call you himself because he thinks phones are for emergencies and gossip."
"I know. I've been meaning to come."
"Meaning to isn't the same as doing." Her voice is gentler than the words. "The new goat tried to eat his hat yesterday. The brown one with the hole in the brim. He chased her around the pen for ten minutes before he realized she'd already swallowed half of it."
I laugh, and it feels good, like something loosening in my chest. "He loved that hat."
"He's in mourning. Very dramatic. Lots of sighing." She pauses. "Are you happy, Ysabel? Really?"
The question catches me off guard. I open my mouth to say yes, of course, everything is fine. But my mother has never been fooled by easy answers. "I'm trying to be."
"That's not the same thing."
"I know." The oven timer sounds behind me. "I have to go, Mama. The biscuits are done."
"Come visit soon. Not next month. Soon."
"I will. I promise. Give Papa my love."
I hang up and pull the biscuits from the oven, golden and fragrant and exactly right, and I try not to think about how much easier it is to breathe when I'm talking to my mother than when I'm standing in my own kitchen.
***
The green dress fits strangely. Not badly, just not the way it did a month ago, snug across the chest in a way I don't remember. I adjust the neckline in the mirror.
Leon appears in the doorway behind me, already dressed for dinner in charcoal gray, no tie because he hates ties and only wears them when the occasion absolutely requires it.
He looks devastatingly handsome, the way he always does, and for a moment I just look at him in the mirror and feel that familiar ache of loving someone so completely it scares you.
"You look beautiful," he says.
"You say that about every dress."
"Because you look beautiful in every dress." He comes up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist, and I lean back into him without thinking about it. His chin rests on top of my head, and we look at each other in the mirror, and for a moment everything feels simple. "Are you ready?"
"Almost. I just need to find my earrings."
"The pearl ones?"
"The small gold ones. The pearls are too formal for a family dinner."
He makes a noise of agreement, and I watch his reflection as he watches mine.
There's something soft in his expression, something unguarded that he only lets me see when we're alone. I want to stay in this moment forever. I want to freeze us here, in front of this mirror, before we have to go out into the world and be Don Leon Rosciano and his wife.
But my stomach has other plans. The queasiness that's been lurking all day surges suddenly, and I have to pull away from him and press my hand to my mouth and breathe slowly through my nose until it passes.
"Ysabel?" Leon's hand is on my back immediately, warm and steady. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing. I'm fine. Just a little queasy."
"You've been queasy for days."
"It's nothing. Probably something I ate."
He frowns, that worried crease appearing between his eyebrows. "Maybe you should stay home tonight."
The words land harder than they should. I know he means them kindly. I know he's thinking of my comfort, my health, my well-being. But what I hear is: stay hidden. Stay here, in the margins, where no one has to see you and decide whether you belong.
"I want to go," I say. "I made biscuits and everything."
"My aunt will understand."
"I don't want her to have to understand. I want to go to the dinner and give her the biscuits and be your wife in front of your family."
Leon is quiet for a moment, and I can see him weighing it, trying to figure out the right thing to say. "You are my wife in front of my family."
"Am I?"
The question comes out sharper than I meant it to, and I watch something shift in his face. "What does that mean?"
"Nothing. I just..." I sit down on the edge of the bed, suddenly tired. "When was the last time we went somewhere together, Leon? Not me tagging along to your events, but actually going somewhere as a couple? As partners?"
"We go places together all the time."
"Name one. In the last month."
He opens his mouth, then closes it again. I watch him search for an answer and come up empty, and something in my chest aches at the way his expression changes when he realizes he can't think of one.
"It's been busy," he says finally. "The estate takes a lot of my time. You know that."
"I know."