14. Chiara
— ? —
Chiara
Lorenzo leads me down the path that runs along the edge of the formal gardens, past the arbor where we secured the jasmine three days ago. The morning light is softer than yesterday, clouds building in the west, and I can smell rain coming though yesterday’s puddles have mostly drained away.
The plot catches the morning sun and has a low wall to shelter it. I walk its length, imagining growing tables and benches, a place where I could work with the door open on warm days.
“The dimensions are on the survey.” Lorenzo stops at the edge of the marked area, giving me room to walk the perimeter. “But you’d know better than I would whether this is the right size.”
I crouch and let a little soil run through my fingers. Better drainage than the lower garden. I could work with this.
“Would it do?” he asks.
“It might.” I stand, brushing my hands together.
I stand up and brush the dirt from my hands. The folder is still tucked under my arm, the unsigned application waiting for a decision I’m not ready to make.
“I’m not agreeing to anything today.” I keep the folder closed instead of reaching for the pen clipped inside it. “I need to think about what I want to build before I decide where to put it.”
“I know.” He walks back toward the path, leaving me to take one last look at the plot. “Take the plans with you. Look at them when you’re ready. The offer doesn’t expire.”
I nod and turn back toward the main garden, where there’s still work to do on the drainage and the trial strip needs monitoring. I put the greenhouse papers in my bag before following him, careful not to bend the sketch.
As the morning wears on, we return to the garden work that has brought me here for four days.
Lorenzo helps where I direct him, carrying tools and clearing debris without complaint.
The groundskeeper stops by to report on the drainage channel, which held through yesterday’s light rain.
The rosemary looks slightly better, its needles less drooped than they were yesterday, though it’s too early to know whether the recovery will last.
By midday, the clouds have thickened and the wind has picked up. The groundskeeper checks the sky before putting his tools away. Whatever is coming, he wants the work secured before it arrives.
“We should check the winter coverings before it hits.” I close my notebook and look toward the herb beds. “Make sure everything is secure.”
“I’ll get the extra stakes from the shed.” Lorenzo is already moving. “What else do you need?”
We secure the coverings before the rain reaches us. Lorenzo handles them more carefully now, remembering where the ties go without needing me to show him again.
The first drops of rain start falling just as we finish securing the last cover. They’re fat and heavy, the kind that precede a real downpour, and I can hear thunder rumbling in the distance.
“We should get inside.” Lorenzo takes the spare stakes back under cover while I close my notebook. “This is going to be a bad one.”
I think about my car, parked in the courtyard, and the drive back to the cottage. If the storm hits as hard as it looks like it will, I’ll be trapped here for hours waiting for it to pass.
“I need to check something in the cellar first.” I pull the folded message from Ferro out of my notebook. “Ferro sent a new account statement from Livia. I want to check the dates against the handling records.”
Lorenzo sets the last stake down, then waits while I put the document safely in my bag. “The originals are back in the archive room. I’ll take you down.”
“Then let’s do that before the storm gets worse.” I gather my bag and my notebook, making sure I have everything I might need if I end up stuck inside for a while.
I tell one of the kitchen staff we’re going down to the cellars before I leave.
The entrance is on the far side of the main house, a heavy wooden door set into a stone archway that leads down into the older storage areas.
Lorenzo unlocks it and leads me down a narrow staircase, the air growing cooler as we descend.
The walls here are rough-hewn stone, much older than the polished surfaces of the main wine storage areas.
“The archive is through here.” He turns down a side corridor that I don’t remember seeing before. “The old tasting room. We keep the completed cellar records in there now.”
The room is small, with a heavy tasting table in the center and labeled boxes on the shelves. A candleholder has been left beside the doorway. Lorenzo opens the drawer beneath it to check for a pencil, revealing a packet of candles and a box of matches. He takes a pencil and leaves the rest.
“The records from the gala period should be in here.” Lorenzo pulls a box from one of the upper shelves and sets it on the table. “What specifically did Ferro ask about?”
I lay Livia’s bank statement beside the handling records. She supplied it to explain her purchase from the supplier, but Ferro has questions about several cash deposits before the gala.
“We don’t know where that money came from,” Lorenzo says.
“Then let him ask her. I don’t want another explanation invented for her before she’s given one herself.”
He leaves the statement in front of me. I compare the dates while he waits.
Thunder rumbles overhead, closer now, and I hear the rain intensify against the stone walls. The lights flicker once, then steady.
“We should take these upstairs.” Lorenzo closes the archive box and reaches for the statement. A door bangs somewhere along the outer passage, and a cold draft catches the loose page between us.
The lights flicker again, and then the heavy wooden door to the archive room swings shut with a bang that makes us both jump. The sound echoes in the stone chamber, followed by a grinding noise that I recognize with a sinking feeling in my stomach.
Lorenzo is at the door before I can move, pulling at the handle. It doesn’t budge.
“It’s jammed.” He puts his shoulder against the wood and pushes. Nothing. “The bottom edge has caught against the frame.”
Neither phone has a signal. I try a call anyway while Lorenzo holds his near the doorway. Both fail.
“Someone will come looking,” I say. “Rosalia knows I’m here. I told the kitchen we were coming down.”
He pounds on the door and calls out. We listen, but only the storm answers.
Then the lights go out.
Lorenzo switches on his phone’s flashlight. He holds it over the drawer near the door while I lift out the candles and matches. He lights three candles and sets them in the holders on the table, then switches off the flashlight to save the battery.
“We should try the door together.” I put my bag on the far corner of the table, away from the flames, and return the estate records to their box on a dry shelf. “Maybe it just needs more force.”
We stand side by side, Lorenzo gripping the handle while I brace my shoulder against the lower panel. He lifts the latch and pushes while I add my weight to his. The door groans but doesn’t move, the frame swollen tight against the edges.
Lorenzo checks the lower edge, then steps back. “We need tools. It won’t move.”
I pull out my phone and check the signal. Nothing. I write a message to Rosalia naming the old archive room. It stays unsent after I tap the arrow.
“Still nothing.” I leave the message queued and set the phone where I can see it. “At least she’ll get this if we catch a signal.”
He knocks on the door, then raises his voice. “Hello? Anyone out there?”
We both listen. The storm roars overhead, muffled but unmistakable, and no answering voice comes back. The old cellar is deep beneath the main house, far from the areas where staff would shelter during weather like this.
“They won’t hear us over the storm.” I stop beside the table, listening for an answer that doesn’t come. “We wait.”
I take the chair nearest the table. Lorenzo stays by the door for a moment, listening for someone who might have heard him, then pulls out the chair opposite mine.
My bag holds the greenhouse offer; Livia’s bank statement lies beside it.
Apparently I can put my whole miserable marriage on this table and still not know what to do with it.
“You’re going to tell me again that you’re sorry.” I slide the statement back into its folder. I’m tired of looking at her name while I wait for him to speak. “That you never meant for any of this to happen. That your father taught you love was something you provided instead of something you said.”
His expression shifts, something like surprise crossing his face before he controls it.
“I know what your father taught you.” I lean forward, holding his gaze. “I’ve heard it. On the boat, and again at the cottage. What I’m asking is what you chose to do about it.”
“I chose to keep you at a distance.” He leaves his chair pulled out, but doesn’t sit. The apology he looked ready to offer never comes. “Not because I didn’t see you. Because I did, and it terrified me.”
“That’s not an answer.” I stand up, unable to stay seated. “Terrified of what? Of actually having to be present with someone instead of managing them?”
“Of needing you.” He stays behind the chair. “With Livia, I knew what was expected of me. I protected her, and she was grateful. It was easier than admitting what I wanted from my wife.”
“And with me?” I look down at the work gloves sticking out of my bag. I brought everything I needed to be useful today. I’m so tired of wondering what I need to bring to be wanted.
“You wanted a husband.” His hands tighten on the chair. “And I kept giving you reasons I had to be somewhere else.”
“And that was harder.” I think about the meetings he can lead without hesitation, the authority he carries into every room. Somehow I was the person he couldn’t manage a conversation with.
“It was.” He looks down. “If I tried and still disappointed you, I couldn’t blame being busy.”
For a moment I don’t know what to say. I had spent so long wondering why he wouldn’t try. Hearing this makes me want to shake him.