6. Chiara #4
“I was considering it.” She relaxes into the chair, and for a moment I can imagine an evening in which neither of us needs to mention Livia.
We talk about the supplies we brought back and the bread I would normally have bought without remembering a thing about the purchase. It is ordinary conversation, and I am grateful for it. By the time she takes the tray, I have eaten most of the meal.
The sommelier’s summary arrived before supper.
I lay it beside my notebook after Rosalia leaves.
It records the condition of the affected samples and his suspicion of an introduced substance.
The cause still needs testing. There is no name on the page except his own, no neat answer that will make people look at me differently tomorrow.
Lorenzo has his copy. I could go back to his study and read it with him, as he suggested. But I have already given him the useful parts of what I know. Tonight I can’t face helping him take more notes while he avoids the question I asked.
When I get up to close the curtain, I find Rosalia’s paperback on the sill.
She must have brought it to read after her shift.
I take it with me toward the service landing, where I can leave it with her things if she has already gone home.
The short walk inside the house gives me something to do besides stare at the report.
The corridor is quiet as I make my way toward the back stairs. Most of the household has retired or is working in other parts of the house. My footsteps sound too loud in the silence.
I’m almost to the service landing when I hear voices.
They come from somewhere below, near the small parlor that opens onto the back garden. A woman’s voice, pitched high with distress. And beneath it, lower and soothing, a voice I know as well as my own.
I stop on the landing, the book pressed against my chest.
“She’s telling everyone I did it.” I recognize Livia’s voice through the tears and stop with my hand just short of the banister. “The staff are looking at me differently. The sommelier keeps asking questions about my access to the cellar.”
“The investigation is following procedures.” Lorenzo waits for her to stop crying before continuing, giving her time to hear him. “Everyone is being asked questions.”
“But she’s the one pushing it.” A sound that might be a sob. “She’s been in the cellar, examining the wine, asking about timing. She wants them to blame me because she can’t accept that her precious presentation might have failed.”
I move closer to the top of the stairs, staying in the shadows where I can see through the partly open parlor door. Livia stands with her back to me, her shoulders shaking. Lorenzo faces her, his expression hidden from my angle.
“The presentation didn’t contaminate the wine.” He says it as firmly as he did in his study. He knows that much, at least. “That’s been established.”
“No one is pushing you out.” Lorenzo moves away from the window and rests his hand on the chair back. “You know she isn’t from here, Livia. She doesn’t understand this place the way you do.”
My thumb bends the cover of Rosalia’s book.
This afternoon, I told him about the man who spat at my feet and told me to go back to France. He asked whether the man had threatened me.
I thought coming home would mean I could stop hearing it.
“She’s your wife.” Livia keeps her hands on the other side of the chair. “She sleeps in your bed. If she decides I’m guilty, what chance do I have?”
“I’ve known you most of my life.” His voice is quiet, but I hear him. “That doesn’t change because I married her.”
I lean closer to the banister.
“Do you love her?” Livia asks.
“I…” His fingers tighten on the chair. “I don’t know.”
My mouth goes dry. I wait for him to finish, for the part that will make those words hurt less.
“It started as a transaction between our families,” he says. “It wasn’t like you and I.”
I stop leaning toward them.
I know why we married. I thought the two years afterward counted for more than what our fathers agreed.
On the lake, he remembered the strawberries. He held my hand when there was no one watching. That night, I went to bed remembering his smile and wondering whether it would be foolish to tell him how happy he’d made me.
Apparently, I was right to keep that to myself.
Livia doesn’t make a sound. She gets to hear him explain why his marriage is different from whatever he has with her, and I get to stand upstairs wishing I hadn’t brought a book back.
I press my lips together until I can trust myself not to make a sound either.
“Then please make her stop.” Her voice trembles. “I can’t keep defending myself to her.”
Lorenzo moves around the chair.
“I’ll handle Chiara.” He picks up the handkerchief from the table and offers it to her. “Don’t worry.”
He doesn’t hesitate over that answer.
When she takes the handkerchief, I wipe my cheek with my sleeve. I won’t go downstairs and ask him to find a kinder answer because I’m there to hear it.
I return to my room without leaving the book and close the door quietly behind me.
Because now I’m reminded of my place in his life.
I’m just the problem he has agreed to solve.