12. Lorenzo #3
“Yes. I want to ask you something, and I needed you to know the truth first.” I turn away from the window.
“Your journals should be with you. I’ll send them wherever you want, no conditions.
But if you’d rather collect them yourself, you could come back for one day.
See the gardens. Take whatever you need for your records or for the lawyer. ”
“One day?” I look at the empty side of the wardrobe, at the space she cleared for herself when she left. I won’t ask her to fill it.
“Not moving back. Not reconciliation. Just one day to get your things and see what I finally see.” I sit down on the edge of the bed, her side, where I’ve been sleeping this week because it still smells faintly like her shampoo.
“I’ve asked the groundskeeper to assess the damage this morning.
He’ll check the drainage and the winter coverings before anything else.
That work belongs to you, Chiara. Whether you come back or not. ”
“Do you want me to come fix your dying plants?” I almost start listing the damage, then hear what she’s actually asking. “Is that what this is? The botanist would be useful, so suddenly you understand what I gave up?”
“I wanted you before I saw the notebooks.” Yesterday’s wet clothes are still on the chair.
I have no intention of making them evidence in my favor.
“I came to the cottage because I needed to tell you I believed you. Standing in the rain afterward was another mistake, and you were right to call it one. I didn’t know what was in the journals then.
I didn’t know about the trial strip or the drainage work or any of it.
I just knew I’d lost you and it was my fault. ”
“Then why does the garden matter?” The question brings me back to the notebooks. She’s asking what changes now that I’ve seen them, and I owe her more than another apology.
“Because it shows me what I missed.” I pick up one of her notebooks, feeling the weight of it in my hand.
“You built something real here. Something valuable. And you owed me nothing, Chiara. If you’d never touched a plant on this estate, never lifted a finger for the land, you still would have deserved a husband who stood beside you and said you were innocent.
The garden isn’t why I’m asking you back.
It’s why I finally understand how much I failed to see. ”
She doesn’t answer immediately. I let her have the silence without trying to tell myself what it means.
“I was going to ask about reviving my blends.” I leave my pen still against the envelope. This is something she’s choosing to tell me; I don’t want to interrupt it. “After the launch, if it went well. I wanted to use some of the estate’s botanical resources. Build something that was mine again.”
“You shouldn’t have needed the launch to go well.” I set down the notebook. “You shouldn’t have needed permission. The marriage was never supposed to cost you your work.”
“But it did.” I look at the formulas again. There are names beside some of them that I don’t know, people she worked with before this marriage. “It cost me my business, my independence, my sense of being useful. And I was trying to build it back, piece by piece, without anyone noticing.”
“I notice now.” I close the notebook, careful with a loose photograph caught between its pages. “I can’t give you back the years you lost. But I can make sure the work you did here doesn’t disappear. And I can support whatever you want to build next, whether it’s here or somewhere else.”
“If I come, it’s for one day.” I almost answer too quickly, then catch the condition at the beginning. “To collect my journals and see the gardens.”
“Just that.” I leave the invitation there instead of reaching for a date. “You can bring someone you trust if you want. And you can see the records we have for the inquiry. I won’t decide what you’re allowed to look at.”
Another long pause. I wait, not pushing, letting her decide.
“I’ll think about it.” I set the pen down without writing a day on the envelope. “That’s not a yes. I’ll let you know.”
“All right.” I look at the note I made about the investigators. I already have something to do that doesn’t depend on her coming. “Take whatever time you need.”
She ends the call without saying goodbye.
I write the account she asked for while the groundskeeper checks the beds: the restriction I gave, when I gave it, and the instruction I issued this morning.
I send a copy to Ferro as well as Chiara, asking him to confirm it directly to her lawyer.
There is no apology in the message to soften what I did.
She can read it without having to take care of my remorse.
When I reach the kitchen garden, the groundskeeper has pulled the loose covering clear of the path.
He points to the blocked outlet beside the rosemary, explaining what he wants to check before disturbing the bed.
I listen until he’s finished. Chiara may never choose to stand here beside me again, but the work doesn’t get to wait for her answer.
I take off my coat and kneel in the mud.