Chapter 64

Alessandro.

Alessandro’s mind reels.

“I killed him?”

He’s killed so many people that he’s lost count, and now his mind sifts quickly through all the ones he can remember. There are quite a few men of the right age, and Rosalia’s husband could be any of them.

But there’s one problem. All the men Alessandro has killed were from rival clans. Rosalia cannot be from a rival clan or his mother would have never even spoken to her, let alone send her to her son with food parcels.

And if Rosalia is from their clan, she couldn’t have married someone from a rival clan. Cross-clan unions are not tolerated. Not even a one-night stand.

Rosalia looks at him, probably waiting for a spark of recognition in his eyes, but Alessandro is still dumbfounded.

“You don’t know who my husband was, do you?”

“No.”

“He was the man you killed together with your wife.”

“My wife’s lover?” Alessandro spits out, the shame and anger of the betrayal welling up again.

“Or you could say that your wife was my husband’s lover.”

No. Alessandro doesn’t see it that way. He only ever sees everything from his point of view.

“Only, I didn’t kill your wife, while you happily killed my husband,” Rosalia says in a steely voice.

Now Alessandro fully understands why his mother has sent Rosalia to him. That cunning old fox couldn’t have found a better way to make him feel sorry about that double murder—which she never approved of—than sending him the widow and letting them become friends. Over their weekly meetings, Alessandro has grown attached to her to the point that now he feels guilty and sorry about killing her man.

“I am sorry,” Alessandro says.

The word “sorry” had never passed his lips before meeting Rosalia. Since she’s come into his life, he’s already said it a few times.

“Unfortunately, this is not going to bring him back. You can take people’s lives, but you haven’t got the power to give them back,” she says wryly.

“But I don’t understand. He cheated on you,” Alessandro says.

“Am I not allowed to wish that the father of my sons were still alive? Am I not allowed to forgive him? You took that choice away from me by killing him.”

“So you’ve forgiven him?”

“I knew that he was sleeping with your wife and I forgave him long before you had the faintest idea what was happening.”

Alessandro bristles. Did the whole clan know that this dickhead was fucking his wife when he knew nothing? Was he the last one to find out?

He feels humiliated. He springs up to his feet and clenches his fists. He has just enough self-control not to slam the phone’s handset onto the table or punch the glass.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Goodbye,” he says, and storms off.

***

Claudia.

I shouldn’t have done it. Having sex with Gianluca has undone all the careful, hard work I had done to get over him. And now I’m back to square one—missing him, pining for him, wanting him so much that it feels like an addiction.

Maybe I had never got over him, and never will.

I see the shape of Gianluca’s eyes in our baby’s eyes, the same dimple on the cheek, the same shape of the mouth. Will I ever learn to see our baby for himself, for who he is, or will he always remind me of his father?

And now that we’ve broken the barrier of physical touch again, it’s harder.

The intercom rings and I open. It’s Gianluca of course. My heart leaps but I remind myself that he’s come to see his baby, not me.

I leave the door open and return to my washing up in the kitchen. The baby is asleep.

I hear Gianluca’s steps fast up the stairs—probably taking two or three steps at a time—then the door clicks shut.

“Hello!” he greets me loudly from the door.

I can’t shout back or the baby might wake up, so I rush out of the kitchen and make a sign with my finger on my lips.

“Oh yes, sorry,” he whispers.

His shoulders slump a little and tenderness comes over me. I’m a hopeless case. When it’s about Gianluca, I’m a sitting duck for Cupid’s arrows. And this is why we need to talk about sex.

“I know I should be offering you at least a glass of water and a chair before launching into a serious conversation, but the baby is asleep now and might wake up any moment.”

“Is this ‘serious conversation’ not suitable for minors?” Gianluca asks, waggling his eyebrows.

I fear that he imagines that “serious conversation” is a code word for sex.

“We need to talk about what happened last time,” I clarify.

“Nothing ‘happened’...” he says.

I’m relieved to hear that. If he’s going to ignore it and carry on as if it never happened—and never will again—I'm happy with that.

"...we made it happen,” he finishes the sentence.

That’s not what I wanted to hear.

“Exactly. And we must not let it happen again,” I say.

“Why, Claudia? Didn’t you enjoy it?”

I feel my cheeks warm up.

“That’s not the point. It wasn’t right. We’re not together anymore and having sex makes it harder to remember that.”

“Why do we need to remember? Why does it even have to be like that?”

I roll my eyes.

“Let’s not go over it again. I’m tired of it.”

“Quite. So the easiest thing for you to do is give up and get back with me.”

He looks at me hopefully. He’s so cute that I want to kiss him, but I can’t. He’s pushing very hard to get back together and, unless I’m strong, I’ll be sucked back in with him.”

“Sit down, Claudia, and listen to my proposal.”

“We’ve already done proposal and marriage. All we need now is the divorce,” I joke lamely.

A smile curls his lips.

“I disagree. Just hear me.”

I sit down on the sofa and he sits next to me.

“This is too close,” I say.

He looks hurt.

“If I can smell your aftershave and feel the heat of your body, it’s definitely too close,” I clarify.

He moves to the armchair, but the smell of his aftershave lingers. I notice that he’s put on more today than last time. He’s clearly come ready for a battle to conquer me again. But I must resist.

“You don’t want to stay married to me because, you say, you don’t want me to be your carer, am I right?”

I nod. That’s all I can do because hearing the words is more painful than saying them.

“But this problem is easily solved. When the time comes, I will pay professional carers to look after your daily needs.”

He grins and looks at me expectantly.

“Gianlù, it cannot be that simple.”

“Why not? Money can’t buy love but it can help with many things. I’ll do the loving and paid people will do the physical care that you don’t want me to do.”

“This is exactly the problem: you will be able to ‘do the loving’, but I won’t be able to do the same back to you.”

“Why not? Don’t you still love me?—wait, no, I don’t want to know the answer. Let’s assume that you still love me.”

He looks a little hurt and unsure, and my heart squeezes. I don’t want him to feel unloved.

“I do love you, Gianluca.”

“Phew.”

He smiles.

“But this is exactly the problem, Gianlù. This is why I keep sending you conflicting messages. I shouldn’t have had sex with you yesterday.”

He winces a little but immediately recovers himself.

“We’re not going to discuss the past. We’re going to discuss the future,” he says with an optimistic, encouraging smile.

“What’s this great plan you’ve got for our future?”

“That I will pay for carers to do the caring and I will just do the husband’s job—although, I think that caring for a disabled wife can easily be a husband’s job, but you seem to think that it’s not, so let’s go with your thinking.”

I sigh. “Gianluca, your idea sounds flawless but it’s very flawed. You want to do the ‘husband’s job’ but I won’t be able to do the ‘wife’s job’ for you.”

“Why shouldn’t you be able to be kind and loving and supportive towards me?”

“I will be able to do that, but I won’t be able to be your lover. And I definitely couldn’t live with you subcontracting that to someone else!”

“I’m sure we can think of ways of making love without hurting you. We managed to do it yesterday, despite the birth’s wounds.”

“But what if one day we won’t?”

“We can’t deprive ourselves of the present for a remote chance that, one day, in a distant future, things won’t work out. People don’t stop being husband and wife if they lose their libido or they can’t get it up anymore. At least, I hope you wouldn’t leave me if I became impotent.”

“My RA is not normal aging.”

“Claudia, there are lots of married people in the world with lots of health problems. Being able to have sex is a blessing, not a right. We can still be husband and wife and be unable to have sex. Our wedding vows did not say ‘until sexual inability us do part’.”