Chisa
I FELL ASLEEP IN MY husband’s house.
That’s the first thought I have when I come awake in a blue sitting room I used to know, with my glasses sliding off my face and under a blanket somebody put over me while I was too far gone to notice.
Then I remember why I’m in it, but by then my whole body has already gone cold.
“Mama, there’s a ROOM for me!”
My daughter comes thundering down the corridor in her socks, skids through the doorway and nearly takes out a side table.
“With my name on the door! In gold! It’s got a window seat, a bed with a roof on it, and a whole shelf of books I haven’t read yet, which is basically impossible, Mama, because I’ve read almost everything.”
“A bed with a roof on it?”
“It has curtains. You pull them round and it’s a tent.” She climbs onto the arm of my chair. “Also this house has eleven toilets. I counted! Who needs eleven toilets? Where do they all go?”
She’s fine. That’s the thing I can’t get over. Six hours ago two men came out of a van at her, but she’s up here counting bathrooms.
“Baby.” I catch her hand. “How’s your hand?”
“It’s got a plaster with a duck on it.” She shows me. “Nonna Ana put it on.”
Nonna Ana.
Eight years, and my daughter has walked into this house and handed out a family name to a woman she met this morning. As if she’s been waiting all her life for somebody to let her.
“She’s very like you,” a voice observes from the doorway.
Ana Lucia Bastianelli stands in the hall with her toothless old terrier Ronnie under one arm, and she looks exactly the same.
“Mrs. Bastianelli!” I scramble up out of the chair with the blanket going everywhere. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep in your—I’ll fold this, I’ll—”
“Leave it, cara. Sit.”
She comes in and sits across from me, very carefully, the dog on her knee.
“You’ll eat at seven,” she informs me, in the voice of a woman who has never once in her life been asked whether a thing suits everybody. “Soup first. You’re too thin, and don’t tell me you’re not. I buried a husband and raised four boys in this house, so I know what too thin looks like.”
“I’m honestly fine—”
“Vico brought you here in the car, I hear.” She says it lightly, stroking the dog. “He was always fond of you.”
“He was the first person in this family who was ever kind to me.”
“Mm.” The old woman’s hand goes still on the terrier’s ears. “My sister’s boy. He came to me at nine years old with a cardboard suitcase.”
“I d-didn’t know that.” Vico is the only Bastianelli whose first impulse is to smile rather than scowl, and to fire a compliment rather than a gun. And so for him to have such sad beginnings...
“Since all of my boys were younger than him, they should have looked at him as a big brother, but...” The older woman lifts her shoulders in a shrug. “You know how it is in our world. Camillo has been chosen to lead, and so it’s Camillo everyone listens to, not Vico.”
“I don’t think he seems to mind.”
“No, he doesn’t seem to, does he? He’s quite understanding, just like you.”
To say that I’m surprised would be an understatement. She’s never talked to me like this before, and I just...
“I...I’m not sure why you’d think that,” I admit awkwardly.
“You have a child with Marcello.”
Well, that’s very obvious, but...
“In our world, we don’t trust outsiders even when they happen to carry our last name by marriage. We like to wait for...a sign, if you will. And now that you’re still here, and I’ve seen how well you’ve raised Rica...that makes you family.”
Oh.
“So from now, you must also call me Mama.”
My eyes tear. I never even thought of calling her that. She’s always been so aloof, I used to think she hated me. Or disapproved of me at least.
“And now that we’ve cleared that up...”
Ana gets me to eat, like she used to do in the past. And afterward, even though it never even occurred to me to ask—
“He’s in his study.”
Eep!
How does she know I’ve been wondering all this time about where Marcello is?
“He’s probably busy updating security protocols,” Ana adds. “You know how much he takes your safety and Rica’s seriously.”
I’m not sure he cares that much about me, but Rica? Definitely. And so I try to convince myself that what Ana’s saying is true. Marcello being busy is better than Marcello being unable to bear the sight of me. It’s just like how a half-full-cup perspective trumps a half-empty one—
“You haven’t changed at all, cara.”
The way Ana sighs these words out makes me look at her in surprise.
“It is the worst thing about you,” she says with another sigh while stroking her terrier. “And it was always the best.”
Then she straightens, and when she speaks again, her earlier old-woman-tone has been replaced by the tough bark of a matriarch who’s seen it all.
“Stop overthinking. Not just about Marcello, but about your past here. Whatever you think of this house, you’ll let it look after you tonight. After today. For the little one’s sake, if not your own.”
“Yes, A—I mean, Mama.” I mean it when I say this, but when she leaves, and I find myself wandering around the house...
Oh no.
Every room just makes me want to cry. There are too many memories, and they were all good memories...except for that one night.
“Signora...”
My eyes tear up as soon as I hear Curzio’s familiar voice. He’s standing at the other end of the hallway, but when I walk forward to give him a hug—
He shakes his head. “I need to tell you something first.”
I can’t help but jerk. That...that sounds painfully familiar, too. Don’t tell me he’s kicking me out again—
Curzio seems to understand where my thoughts have spiraled to, and he says hastily, “No, signora, it’s not that. You and the bambina are not going anywhere until this threat is addressed.”
I manage a smile...even as I hate myself for feeling so relieved.
“But I’m afraid what I have to say...”
Curzio’s voice is full of remorse as he tells me about how the security that was supposed to look after Rica and me were his men, and how he considers it completely his fault that they had failed to realize the danger my daughter was in until it was too late.
“Oh, Curzio...” This is so like him. Eight years ago, he was like this, too. He kept apologizing to me like it was his fault that my marriage ended. “You need to stop blaming yourself like this.”
“But it is my fault—”
“Do you think I’m not aware of all those times you joined your men to watch over Rica and me, even if it means having to stand out in the rain for two hours?” He cares for Rica and me like family, and so there’s no way I could ever blame him for what happened.
“It was half a second, Chisa...”
I look at him in confusion. “What is?”
“The men who tried to abduct Rica,” he says grimly. “It was almost like they knew exactly where my men would be posted, and so they knew the exact perfect moment to strike.”
THE REST OF THE DAY moves painfully slowly.
Rica is with her grandmother, Curzio has left, and I’m all alone with my thoughts.
If my mind isn’t tormenting me with memories of Rica nearly being abducted, it insists on bringing up other memories that are equally bad, like how happy Marcello and I used to be... until we weren’t.
In the end, I find myself taking a walk through the landscaped gardens at the back, and that’s how I end up bumping into Marcello’s brothers.
“Chisa, welcome back.”
Daniele comes through the gap in the hedge first, in his shirtsleeves with a pair of ear defenders hooked round his neck. Marcello’s younger brother is charming like always as he pulls me into his arms with a warm smile.
“I’m glad my fool of a brother has regained his senses.”
“Um, actually...”
“Stop putting her on the spot, Daniele.” Camillo’s tone is exasperated, and he’s still fitting a pistol into the case under his arm as he says it.
But when he turns to face me, his normally austere expression softens.
He’s the firstborn heir, and even more serious than Marcello. “We missed you, little sister.”
And just like that, I’m fighting back tears.
When Marcello banished me, it meant losing contact with his entire family. That’s just how things work in their world, and that’s why I never held it against them, when neither Ana nor his brothers made any attempt to see me.
But the truth is...
“I missed you all, too.”
The two men smile as I end up mumbling this while pinching my cheeks. This is my last resort; it’s silly but it also works, and after a moment, the urge to cry finally passes.
“What about me?”
A familiar third voice chimes in, and I can’t help but smile as Vico comes to join us. Vico, Marcello’s first cousin, was a witness at our wedding, and like always—
“Vico!”
He gives me a bear hug before spinning me around.
Daniele clucks his tongue. “You’ll make Marcello jealous if he sees you doing that.”
Vico sets me down with an unrepentant grin. “That should make things interesting.” He then ruffles my hair, asking, “How have you been, Professor?”
I make a face. “Stop that.” I’m not a professor in any way, but it’s what Vico likes to call me because of my glasses.
“You look like you haven’t aged at all,” Vico comments.
I wish I could say the same, but the thing is...
Vico looks like he’s aged a lot in the past eight years.
But since never in a million years would I ever say something so rude, I decide to change the subject, asking them how they’ve been, and why all of them have yet to marry.
Camillo checks his watch. “I just remembered I have a meeting.”
Daniele looks at his older brother in amazement. “What a coincidence. I remember the same thing, too.”
Vico throws an arm around each man’s shoulders. “The same goes for me. Shall we head back to the house?”
That was, quite possibly, the most horrible acting I’ve ever seen in my life. All I can do is shake my head with a laugh, but as I watch them walk away, I can’t help feeling a little grateful, too. In those few minutes with them, I was at least able to forget the most painful thing of all.
Everyone in this home seems glad to see me back.
Everyone, that is...except for my own husband.
I’M HALFWAY BACK TO the house when Vico catches up with me.
“Professor. Give me those.”
“Give you what?”
“Your glasses. They’ve been sitting crooked on your face all afternoon and it’s driving me mad.”
So I hand them over, and this enormous man sits down on the low wall by the roses, takes a little folding tool out of his pocket, and bends over my glasses like a jeweller.
“How are you doing after everything that’s happened?”
“I’m...just more concerned about Rica.”
Vico nods. “We all are. But that’s not my question. How are you holding up? Being back here...after everything?”
“I’m adjusting.”
“Mm.” He works the screw. “I want to tell you something, and then I’ll never say it again, because you’ll cry, and I can’t stand it when women cry.”
“Vico—”
“Nobody in this house ever believed it.” He holds the glasses up to the light, squints, bends them a fraction more. “Whatever the paper said. Whatever he decided. There isn’t a person under this roof who looked at you and thought, yes, that’s a woman who’d sell men to die.”
My eyes fill so fast I have to look at the roses.
“There. Straight.” He hands them back and stands up, and he’s cheerful again, as if none of it happened. “Now go and eat something before my aunt starts on you.”
Marcello is still absent when we all come together for dinner. Rica asks where he is, and it’s Ana who says that her Papa is still at work. I nod and smile, just so my daughter has no reason to doubt her grandmother’s words. I mean...it’s possible, right?
That night, as Rica and I brush our teeth side by side, she looks at me and asks, “Is it okay if I sleep with you tonight, Mama?”
And it’s funny, really...
With everything that’s happened today...
Seeing Marcello...
Rica almost getting abducted...
Being back in this house...
None of those things managed to make me cry, but when I hear my daughter ask this...
My daughter who’s usually fiercely independent and does everything she can to prove she’s a big girl...
I find myself pulling her into my arms and hugging her so tightly to me that it makes Rica squeal and wriggle.
“Mama!”
But I don’t let her go because I don’t want her to see me crying.
I almost lost her.
My baby girl.
I almost lost her, and Rica...
She knows it, too, and that’s why she’s asking to sleep with me tonight.
Because as much as it kills me to admit this...
My baby girl now knows what it means to be scared, and while that thought makes me want to cuff my daughter to my side for eternity...
Please, God.
I find myself praying for the first time ever.
Please just keep her safe.
Please.
RICA AND I ARE ASLEEP in her bed, the one with a roof on it, when something wakes me up, and my eyes just fly open. My first instinct is to grab my daughter and make a run for it—
But then my eyes gradually adjust to the darkness, and that’s when I realize it’s my husband who’s woken me up.
Because Marcello...
He’s here.
On the same bed.
Rica between us.
He’s on his back on top of the covers, still in his shirt, one arm behind his head, and when it seems like he’s about to turn to look at me...
I quickly squeeze my eyes shut to pretend that I’m still sleeping.
“I know you’re awake.”
But sadly, my acting seems to be just as bad as his brothers’.
“Rica wanted to sleep with me tonight.”
I turn to my side so that I’m facing the wall as I answer him.
“That’s what Rica told me, too.”
“Then it’s how it should be.”
I know he’s right.
Rica should be our priority right now.
Whatever makes her feel safe, whatever makes her less afraid...
That should be our top priority.
And yet...
“Stop.”
It comes out of the dark from the other side of my sleeping daughter, so low I feel it more than hear it.
I go rigid. “I’m not doing anything.”
“Chisa.”
“I’m not making any noise,” I whisper. My voice cracks straight down the middle of it, which rather proves his point.
For a long time there’s nothing. Just the rain, Rica’s breathing, the lamp.
And it’s exactly as I say it is.
My tears don’t make any noise at all. But somehow he knows.
“No,” my husband says finally. “You never did.”
Somehow, he always knows.