In the cell, I sat on the edge of the rack, and the mattress was thin and loud. It crackled when I leaned forward and pressed my knuckles to my eyes. Not long—ten seconds, maybe twelve—just enough to let the heat bleed off, and I could lift them again. I whispered her name once, the old way—Carlotta—then the new one—Charlotte—so quiet it disappeared before it reached the bars.
A smile breaks out on Elena’s face. “Charlotte is a little diva, that’s for sure. She and Sofia are characters. In a good way, I mean,” she adds quickly. “Sofia’s a sassy little thing.”
“I know what you mean,” I assure her. “She sounds a lot like Caterina. And Carlotta.”
Elena nods, and I know she’s put together that Charlotte is named after my late wife.
“She looks a little like your… wife,” Elena says after a breath. “I’ve only seen some pictures, of course, so I could be wrong about that. I don’t want to assume—”
She shakes her head and looks down.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “I don’t mind. Please go on.”
“It’s the eyes,” Elena continues. “Not the color. Those are Lucia’s—yours too. But the shape is like your wife’s.”
My hand tightens around the fork. She has my eye color. I didn’t know that.
“Sofia looks a lot like her dad. Intense until she laughs, then she becomes a different person.”
The picture Elena is drawing forms in my mind a happy little family. One I’m not part of.
Elena must sense my mood because she’s stopped talking and is dragging her fork through the torta, a frown line between her brows.
Inwardly, I curse myself. This is not what tonight was supposed to be. Tonight was supposed to be about Elena and this child. About showing her I can carry weight, not hand her my baggage.
Here I am trying to convince her I can be present and a good father, a good provider, and all I’ve done is tell her how much I’ve missed.
That I haven’t seen my oldest daughter in over a decade because my pride was more important than being her father. That I sat behind glass and could only watch as the woman I loved got sicker and sicker, then finally passed away without me there. That my other kids were left to fend for themselves, and that my brothers had to step in and do my job for me.
I set the fork down, palms flat on either side of the plate like I’m steadying the table, or myself. “This isn’t what was meant to happen tonight,” I say, trying to stay calm. “I’m sorry.”
Her frown eases a notch. She waits.
“I don’t get to rewrite any of that,” I go on, forcing myself to hold her eyes. “Not the parts where I failed. I won’t pretend I didn’t. It would be insulting to us both. But I decide what I do and who I am from this minute forward. For you. For…” My gaze flickers, just once, to the place where her shirt rests over a new, secret life.
I sit very still and think about all the ways I am not allowed to touch her, and about the one way I hope I already have.
“What do you want, Luca?” she asks again, softer. “If I keep it.”
I don’t give her a speech. I don’t offer guarantees I can’t keep.
“I want to be there,” I say. “In whatever way you allow. To build a life that doesn’t make you choose between what you are and what we’ve made. To give you real reasons to trust me.” I let out a breath and just go all in with the rest of it.
“And I want to sit at this table with you and our child and all the rest of them and the chaos they bring.” But I realize that is likely a pipe dream.
A laugh startles out of her and lodges right in my heart. She shakes her head, and when she looks up, her eyes are watering.
“And if I don’t?” she asks, and the question is a blade she turns on herself as much as me.
“Then I will carry that,” I say. “And you. As long as you need.” I meet her eyes because the one thing I owe her is that. “But I’m asking you not to.”
The quiet that follows is heavy. Somewhere, a nightbird warbles its first note.
“You said you’re not a different man from the one described in the reports,” she says finally.
“I’m not,” I answer.
“Then you know what I’m afraid of.”
