9. Solenne #2
In the bedroom, I pull my phone from my bag and open the airline app. There’s a flight to Rome leaving in three hours, and a connection to Los Angeles tomorrow morning with a layover long enough to rest at an airport hotel. I book both, my fingers moving quickly over the screen.
Then I text Odette. Coming to LA tomorrow. Flight lands afternoon your time. Can you pick us up?
Her reply comes within a minute. Yes. Send me your flight info. I’ll be there.
I send her the details and put the phone away.
The overnight bag is still in the closet, behind the winter coats where I left it six days ago. I pull it out and open it on the bed, then grab a larger suitcase from the top shelf. The overnight bag isn’t enough for what I’m taking.
I pack quickly, not bothering to fold anything properly.
Clothes for me, clothes for Summer, the essentials we’ll need for however long this takes.
Summer’s favorite books, a few of the stuffed animals she sleeps with besides Bunny.
I leave the rest. We can’t carry everything, and there’s no time to sort through it all.
The passports are in the nightstand drawer. I tuck them into my handbag with my wallet and phone.
When I come back downstairs, Summer has eaten half the food on her plate and is leaning against Delfina’s shoulder, fighting sleep. Delfina looks up when I enter.
“You’re really going.”
“I am.” I set the suitcase by the door and cross to where she’s sitting. “I’ve booked flights. Rome tonight, then Los Angeles tomorrow.”
“And Don Valentin?”
“I’ll text him once we’re at the airport. I’ll tell him Summer is healthy and that we’re safe.” I take a breath. “When he comes home and asks what happened, tell him the truth. All of it. Everything you saw, everything you heard. Don’t let his mother explain it away.”
“He may not believe me.”
“He might not. But at least he’ll have heard it from someone who was there.”
Delfina rises, shifting Summer into my arms. The little girl is heavy with exhaustion, her head lolling against my shoulder.
“I should have said more, sooner.” Delfina’s voice is rough. “I watched and I stayed quiet because I was afraid. That was wrong.”
“You helped me when it mattered.” I reach out with my free arm and pull her into an embrace, awkward with Summer between us but real. “That’s what I’ll remember.”
She holds on for a moment, then steps back, her eyes bright. “Safe travels. Both of you.”
“The plate,” she says, turning back to the table. “Let me wrap what’s left. She’ll be hungry later.”
She bundles the remaining food into a cloth while I text Marco that we’re ready. A minute later he appears at the kitchen door and takes the suitcase without comment.
I carry Summer out to the car and settle her into her seat. She doesn’t wake, just curls around Bunny and sighs. Marco loads the suitcase into the trunk and gets behind the wheel.
“The airport?”
“Yes.”
As we pull away from Villa Belmare, Summer’s cardigan slips off one shoulder. I reach back to cover her before the road bends and the house disappears.
***
The airport is crowded even at this hour, families and businesspeople and tourists all moving through the terminal with the particular urgency of travel. I check the suitcase at the counter and carry Summer and the overnight bag through security myself.
She wakes halfway through the process, confused and cranky, and I buy her juice and a pastry from a kiosk to settle her while we wait at the gate.
My phone is on silent. I haven’t looked at it since we left the villa.
Now I take it out and compose a text to Valentin. I delete the first version, then the second. Finally I settle on something simple.
Summer is healthy and safe with me. She was never sick. We’re going to LA, staying with Odette. I need time. Please don’t call tonight.
Before I can send it, his name appears above a message.
Just got home. Where are you? Mother says Summer’s fever broke but I can’t find either of you. Call me.
I read it once. Across from me, Summer peels the paper from her pastry, perfectly healthy, getting crumbs on the yellow flowers of her dress.
I send my reply.
His call comes before I’ve put the phone down. I silence the vibration and set it face down on my knee.
Summer offers me a piece of pastry. “You can have the middle.”
“That’s your favorite part.”
“I’m sharing.”
I take the small, sticky piece from her fingers and eat it. She watches until I swallow, then returns to picking the edges off her own half. I brush a crumb from the cardigan and find a napkin for her hands.
The phone lights up again. I lift it from my knee, and his name fills the screen. For months I’ve kept this thing within reach, taken it into the bathroom, checked it beneath dinner tables, hoping he might have a few minutes for me.
Now I have to turn it over to finish wiping my daughter’s fingers.
I leave it on silent until we board, then switch to airplane mode.
The flight to Rome is short, barely long enough for Summer to fall asleep again.
We land close to midnight and make our way through the nearly empty terminal to the small airport hotel I booked.
The room is basic but clean, with a cot set up beside the bed for Summer.
I transfer her from my arms to the mattress without waking her, then collapse onto the bed myself.
I take the phone out of airplane mode and leave it on silent beside the bed. More calls appear while I take off my shoes, then while I wash my face. I let them ring out.
Sleep doesn’t come easily. I lie in the dark and listen to my daughter breathe and think about everything I’m leaving behind. The house on the cliff. The garden where Delfina grows her herbs. The man I married, who was home before our first flight left.
He’ll have gotten my text. He’ll know we’re safe. That has to be enough for tonight.
Eventually exhaustion wins, and I drift into something like sleep.
***
Morning comes gray and early. Summer wakes hungry, and I give her Delfina’s remaining biscuits, then shower and dress while she eats. We make our way back to the terminal with time to spare before our flight.
The gate area is busy with passengers waiting for various departures.
I find two seats together and settle Summer with a coloring book and crayons I bought from the hotel gift shop.
She chooses the seat closest to the window and places Bunny beside her, then asks me to hold the crayon box so none will roll away.
I take out my phone. Thirteen missed calls, all from Valentin. The last came while we were getting dressed at the hotel.
Odette has confirmed our arrival time. I’ll be there. You don’t need to figure anything else out before you get here.
I type Thank you, then erase it and write, I left him.
The words sit there for a moment before I send them.
Her reply is short. I know. Come home.
I press the phone against my knee. Summer is trying to decide whether the cat in her coloring book should have orange stripes or purple ones. She holds up both crayons for my opinion.
“Either would be good,” I tell her.
“Purple cats aren’t real.”
“This one’s yours.”
She considers that, then puts the orange back in the box.
I watch her fill in one crooked stripe. My phone begins to ring again, silently, Valentin’s name covering Odette’s message. I wait until it stops.
Fourteen.
Summer keeps coloring beside me while I open his contact. The photograph is one I took in Los Angeles, before we left. He’s reaching toward the camera, laughing at something I can’t remember now.
I can remember the room, though. The light on the floor. Summer asleep down the hall and his shoes abandoned beside mine. There was nothing special about that afternoon. I didn’t know I would miss it.
My thumb rests against the edge of the screen.
“Mama, hold this one too.”
Summer gives me the purple crayon and bends over the book to inspect her work. I set it in the box with the others, then block his number.
When they call our flight, I help her gather everything. She insists on carrying the coloring book herself. I check that Bunny is under her arm, put my phone back into airplane mode, and take her free hand.
At the entrance to the jetway, she stops to look through the glass at the enormous plane waiting outside.
“That’s ours?”
“That’s ours.”
She steps forward with me.
For six months, I waited for my husband to come home.
Tonight, he can wait for me.