“In fairness, I’d forgotten how much I love your cooking,” Alyssia laughed. “You haven’t cooked in so long ...”
“I know, and I’m truly sorry. I’m going to do my utmost to be home more to cook for you. You and the baby deserve the very best.”
Alyssia’s face clouded over, and she looked down at her plate for a moment before speaking. “This doesn’t change anything, Antonio. I still think we should divorce.Fancy table decorations andbraciolewon’t make up for the fact that you slept with thirty other women.”
He swallowed the last bite of his dinner and put his cutlery neatly on the plate, trying his best not to cry. “I know that, but I just … I can’t. I love you so much, and deep down, I think you do too. You must do, or you’d have just divorced me ... right?”
“I never stopped loving you! You were, and always will be, the love of my life, but I can’t put myself through the worry of this shit again! It’s not fair, and you know it – not fair to me, or the baby, or anyone else!”
“Look, I know nothing will ever undo what I’ve done,caro mio. All I want is for us to keep trying. I want us to date again, to … to fall in love again … to befriendsagain, like we were in the beginning. You deserve better than me, and I know that, but I can’t just roll over and die.”
Alyssia sighed and sipped her water, suddenly feeling incredibly weary. She’d heard from both her father and William, who’d both said her husband had taken his punishment well. For that, she supposed she had to give him credit, although moving offices had been theleastof the punishments she’d wanted to give him. As her father had said, though, the fear of divorce had been more than enough to begin with.
“OK,Antonio.” she finally said, setting down her now empty glass. “I will give it some more thought.”
“Thank you.”Antonio said, only to be stopped by his wife’s imperiously raised finger.
“That doesn’t meanI’mgoing to let you off lightly. I’m not going to sleep with you, inanysense of the phrasing, I’m not going to carpool with you when we visit our families, and we’re no longer hosting Thanksgiving. My dad will be hosting instead.”
Antonio nodded, swallowing hard. His wife was a beautiful woman, and a terrifying one, but whatever she wanted to put him through was worth it. The guest bedroom was growing colder and more unforgiving by the day, and sleeping alone was a unique form of torture, but none of that compared to the pain he’d put his wife through.
The rest of the night passed in silence, and eventually they found themselves drifting away to their rooms. Antonio sat on the bed for a long time, staring at the floor in a haze of depression. He wondered how many nights Alyssia had spent doing the same thing, wondering where he was or why he hadn’t sent her a message.
“I’m so sorry, Alyssia,” he whispered to the darkness, tears rolling down his face. “Oh God, please forgive me someday.”
6
The next day, Damon turned up at the house, two shovels in hand and an evil grin plastered on his face. Antonio had just started drinking his coffee when he heard his brother-in-law stomping down the hallway, and he hurried to fetch a clean mug.
“What’s up, scumbag?” Damon nodded to him, marching into the kitchen and taking the steaming coffee gratefully. “Ooh, you’ve got thegoodstuff! From Italy, right? I gotta get Alyssia to give up your supplier. Something this good doesnotdeserve to hide in your kitchen forever.”
“We buy it from the wholesalers directly,” Antonio replied, taking a mouthful of his own. “Sorry, why are you in my house?”
“Today’s your day off, right?”
“I’m guessing it isn’t any more?”
“You would be correct.”
Antonio stared at him, wondering what on earth his brother-in-law had in store for him. The last job he remembered Damon having was as a security guard at a local nightclub, although that job had fallen through whenthe owner was arrested for running an illegal gambling ring out of the back office. They’d all laughed at that – not the fact that the guy was running an illegal gambling ring, but more the fact that he was dumb enough to get caught.
“You need shovels to do a security gig?” he asked eventually, gesturing to the tools with his mug.
Damon looked down at them, an evil grin slowly spreading over his face. “Not exactly. More like … we need shovels to go and dig graves for a living. We’re a man down, and you’ve got the day off, so ...”
Antonio groaned, aching at the mere thought of his workload. Gravedigging might not be entirely difficult, since most people used machinery to do the heavy lifting, but it was still more than a little depressing.
“Tell me I’m not digging my own grave, Damon. That’s cruel, even for you.”
Damon snorted with laughter, finishing his coffee and leaving his cup in the sink. “Don’t tempt me.”
His coffee finished, Antonio washed the mugs and left them on the draining board before heading upstairs to get changed. He dug out some old clothes from when he’d last done some interior decorating, and then hunted around for his hiking boots, which thankfully weren’t in too badshape. It was a far cry from his usual outfit of a pressed suit, crisp white shirt and navy tie, but it would do for now.
Once dressed, he clattered back downstairs, where Damon stood waiting for him. The two men headed to the van, which Damon had parked on the front drive, and drove to the local cemetery. It was eerily quiet, apart from a funeral that was taking place, the mourners’ stifled sobs hanging in the air like dewdrops. It was a weird thing, grief – raw at the beginning, then slowly less and less painful as time went on. He remembered losing his mother, and how debilitating the grief had been to begin with. Now, years later, that pain was a dull ache, and even though it still twinged from time to time, it was nowhere near as painful as it had been.
“Don’t worry about your clothes,” Damon grinned, noticing his unease. “I never dress smartly unless I’m part of proceedings, and that’s a rare occurrence.Ourwork takes place before any of the formalities. So they say goodbye to whoever in peace, come out, and then lower the coffin into our neatly dug hole.”
The graveyard itself was quite pretty, as graveyards went. All the graves were clean and tidy, even the old ones from centuries ago, and there were trees dotted about to provide shade in the summer months. In the middle of thegraveyard was a roundabout with the chapel where funeral Masses were held in the centre, with a small drinking fountain outside by the far wall. The gravel driveway was imposing, and every spoke on the roundabout’s wheel led to a different quadrant of the graveyard.
