1. Solenne #3
This is the man I married. Whatever comes next, I get to keep this.
At midnight he takes my hand and leads me to the edge of the rooftop.
“One more look,” he says, pulling me close against his side. “Before we go.”
We stand there together, shoulders touching, and watch the lights of the city stretch out to the horizon.
Somewhere out there Summer is asleep in Odette’s guest room, dreaming whatever four-year-olds dream about.
In six days we’ll be on a plane. In seven we’ll be standing on a terrace overlooking a different sea, starting a different life.
“Ready?” He turns to look at me, his arm still around my waist.
“No,” I admit, leaning into him. “But let’s go anyway.”
He smiles and lifts my hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to my knuckles. “That’s my girl.”
***
Six months later, I’m approaching Los Angeles with my daughter asleep against my shoulder and the entire width of the world between me and the man who made that promise.
Summer shifts in her seat, her small body heavy with exhausted sleep, and I stroke her hair automatically while I stare at the seatback in front of me.
The cabin is dim, most passengers dozing through the last stretch of the flight, and I should be sleeping too but my mind won’t stop moving. It keeps circling back to the same image, wearing a groove in my memory.
The way Ginevra’s arm slid through Valentin’s at the fiesta. Her head tilting onto his shoulder. The photographer positioning them in the center of the frame while Summer and I stood invisible in the crowd, watching the perfect Caruso family smile for the cameras.
I close my eyes and make myself breathe.
Once we land, Odette will be waiting at the curb and I can stop thinking about anything except getting Summer into a bed and figuring out what comes next.
I’ve already started making lists in my head. Lawyers to call, accounts to check, all the practical machinery of deciding what happens now. It helps to have tasks. Tasks don’t require me to feel anything.
Summer stirs against me, her stuffed rabbit clutched to her chest, and I look down to find her blinking awake.
“Mama?” She lifts her head from my shoulder, searching the dim cabin.
“I’m here, baby.” I smooth her hair back from her forehead. “We’re almost home.”
She looks around the dim cabin, taking in the sleeping strangers and the closed window shades, and her lower lip trembles slightly. “Where’s Daddy?”
The question hits me somewhere I wasn’t braced for. I had six months to get used to questions like this, and they still catch me off guard.
“He had to stay in Sicily for a while,” I say carefully, keeping my voice soft. “But I’m right here. And Odette’s going to pick us up at the airport, remember? She’s so excited to see you.”
“Is Daddy coming soon?” She hugs the rabbit tighter, her dark eyes, Valentin’s eyes, searching my face.
I want to say yes. The word is right there, easy and comforting, and Summer would believe me because she’s four and she still thinks parents tell the truth.
“He’s coming soon,” I hear myself say, and immediately my chest tightens because I don’t know if that’s true. I don’t know anything right now except that I couldn’t stay and watch myself disappear for one more day. But she’s four, and frightened, and she needs her mother to be steady.
“I miss him.” Summer tucks her rabbit beneath her chin and settles against me again.
“I know, sweetheart.” I pull her closer, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “Try to rest a little more. We’re almost there.”
She’s asleep again within minutes, her breathing evening out into that deep, trusting rhythm. I hold her and watch the flight tracker inch us toward California.
I reach into my bag for my phone. During our connection in Rome, I checked Odette’s confirmation of our arrival time before putting it back in airplane mode for this flight. I haven’t looked at it since.
Now I wake the screen to reread Odette’s message, reassuring myself she’ll be there. I should put it away once I’ve checked. Instead, I open the recent calls.
Fourteen missed calls from Valentin.
They’re timestamped from those first hours after I left Sicily, when he must have finally come home to empty closets and silence.
I’d seen the number climbing before I blocked him in the Rome airport, watched his name appear again and again while I sat at the gate with Summer coloring beside me and tried not to think about what I was doing.
The captain’s voice comes through the speaker, announcing our initial descent into Los Angeles. The cabin lights brighten slightly, and around me people start stirring, gathering their things, returning seats to upright positions.
I look down at Valentin’s name beside the calls I never answered.
For a moment I imagine calling him back. Listening to whatever he wants to say.
But I can still hear the promise he made on that rooftop, sincere and certain, and I can’t bear to hear his voice make another one. Not now. Not until something actually changes.
I power the phone off and slip it back into my bag.