18. Chiara #2
“I’m asking you to read it when you’re ready.
” He meets my eyes, and I see the want there, the hope he’s trying not to let show.
“I’d like to know what you think. I’d like to know if any of it makes a difference.
But I’ll wait until you choose to tell me, and if you never choose, I’ll accept that too. ”
“That’s very restrained of you.” I turn the envelope over, examining the seal. Unbroken, unmarked. “The Lorenzo I married would have wanted an answer before he left the room.”
“The Lorenzo you married made a lot of mistakes.” A faint smile crosses his face, self-deprecating in a way that looks genuine rather than performed. “I’m trying to make fewer of them.”
I set the envelope down beside my notebook, next to the line of herb jars Rosalia arranged before she left. He follows the movement, waiting for me to decide.
“I’ll read it tonight.” I don’t know if it’s a promise or just a statement of intention. “After I finish updating this recipe.”
“Then I’ll let you finish.” He starts toward the doorway. He manages not to ask again.
He leaves the way he came, quiet footsteps through the entryway, the soft click of the front door closing behind him. A moment later, I hear his car start and pull away down the driveway.
The envelope sits on the counter, waiting.
I open the notebook again and turn back to the bergamot ratios, making myself focus on the work in front of me. The letter will still be there when I’m finished. For now, I have lavender to measure and chamomile to consider and a recipe that’s been waiting six years for me to get it right.
The letter can wait another hour.
***
An hour later, I have a bergamot ratio worth testing.
I write the last measurement in my notebook and close it with a satisfaction that feels almost normal. I still need to brew a sample before I can judge the changes, but I’ve done the work I meant to do today.
I carry the envelope upstairs and sit on the bed beneath the reading lamp. For a moment I hold it unopened. Then I slip a finger beneath the flap.
Three sheets of paper, filled in Lorenzo’s hand. No formal heading, no date. Just my name at the top of the first page, and then the words he couldn’t say out loud.
“ Chiara,
I’ve started this letter four times. The first three versions were apologies, and I threw them away because you’ve heard me apologize.
You’ve heard me say I was wrong, that I should have listened, that I failed you. All of that is true, but saying it again won’t change anything. You already know I’m sorry.
What I still need to say is about you, and the life I want with you. I keep getting as far as admitting what I did wrong and stopping there.
I shift against the pillows, settling in. This is going to take a while.
“ I knew you were innocent. I protected Livia from the inquiry anyway, because I didn’t want to admit I might have trusted the wrong person.
You paid for that decision. I have put it in the record, where you and anyone investigating can challenge my account.*
I rest my thumb beneath the paragraph. He has told me this, and I have the documents.
Tonight I want to hear what he hasn’t said yet.
So I read on.
“ I keep thinking about the boat.
The afternoon we anchored in the cove, the strawberries, the way you laughed when I asked if you were enjoying the view and you pretended to study the shoreline. ‘Excellent trees,’ you said. ‘First-rate water.’ Like you were reviewing a hotel instead of admitting you’d been looking at me.
A sound escapes me, half laugh and half something else. I remember that day.
The water so clear you could see the bottom twenty feet down. Lorenzo’s shirt sleeves rolled up, his hands steady on the wheel as he brought us into the cove. The way he looked at me when I stopped pretending to be interested in the scenery.
“ I enjoyed being alone with you that afternoon. I wanted to keep you talking, even when you were teasing me.
You didn’t agree with me just because I was the Don. You didn’t arrange yourself to fit what I expected. You had opinions about everything from the wine service to the harvest schedule, and you weren’t afraid to tell me when you thought I was wrong.
I loved that about you. I still love that about you.
Yet when you questioned what I didn’t want questioned, I discussed you with Livia instead of listening to you.
I reduced two years of being your husband to what our families wanted from us and I gave you a reason to question every time I’d reached for you, and I can’t demand that you remember those moments kindly just because I do.
You left your home and trusted me to make another one with you. I kept reminding you how much there was to learn here without asking how much I still needed to learn about you.
But I love you, Chiara. I want to say it where you can look at me and ask whatever you need to ask. You don’t have to hurry to believe it. I know you will remember the answer I gave her, and you shouldn’t have to hide that hurt to make hearing these words easier for me.
I lower the page.
On the landing, I had wanted him to say yes so badly that I stayed after I should have gone. Even when he began talking about our families, I waited for him to tell her the arrangement had become more than that.
Now he has written the answer himself.
I want to hear him say it to me. Then I want to know that he means it on the days when loving me requires more than saying so.
I lift the page and keep reading.
“ I knew you had left work you loved in Lyon. I didn’t understand the extent of what you had been doing in the gardens until after you left me.
Reading the journals you let me open was overdue attention, not a discovery that you had a life of your own. You had already told me that. You should not have needed pages of results to make me pay attention.
I miss having you beside me without needing a reason to ask for your company. I miss being the person you want to tell something to. I want to hear about a day that has nothing to do with my estate, and I want you to be able to tell me it was a good one.