Beni nodded. “After his initial treatment, he refused anything else. He held a vigil at your bedside. Once your eyes opened for more than a few seconds and you asked for him, he collapsed in the hallway.”
If I hadn’t been sitting down, I would’ve had to.
I refused to leave his side.
I could see how irritated everyone around us was. They wanted to help, but it seemed like out of the entire world, we could only truly help each other. And I understood why he’d held out for me.
I was holding tight to him.
I’d even called Lucila and asked her to sing softly to him over the phone. She wanted to tell me how ridiculous that sounded, but when the tears fell from my eyes, she seemed to sense it. And when I told her how much her voice used to help heal me when I was little, and it could help heal him too, she cleared her throat.
“Okay. What do you want me to sing?”
I gave her the name of the song, and in the background, I heard the piano. Lilo.
Nazzareno and I didn’t get a first dance, but when we were in Cairo, I had played the song for him in our room, and he’d danced with me to it. The song was about the woman in me needing the man in him. It was vulnerable, and I wasn’t usually that. But with him…I had always been split open.
It felt like my weary soul had sighed when he’d come to get me at the palazzo in Venice, and nuzzling up next to him, had closed its eyes and rested its head on his rock-hard shoulder.
I rested my head on his arm, his skin hot, and let my cool tears fall.
People came and went. Even his mamma. But I said nothing to any of them.
“Your father has gone back home?” a nurse quietly asked me one night.
I lifted my eyes and blinked at her. I shook my head because I had no idea what she was talking about.
“I saw him before I came in. He stood by the door with a bag.” She shrugged. “I thought maybe he was leaving.”
She left, and my head came down to Nazzareno’s arm, my fingers entwining with his, and I cried harder, silent tears.
Once they slowed, they continued to slide down my cheeks, even when I’d fallen asleep.
“Tell me who did this.”
I sat up straight, my head spinning some, and met his eyes. He wasn’t fully awake, but he was concentrating on me, talking to me.
I flung myself on him, and he groaned, but he kissed the top of my head.
“It is good to see you too, my beautiful bird,” he hoarsely whispered against my hair.
I smiled and lifted some, too choked up to say anything.
He set his hand against my cheek. “Who did this.”
I set my hand over his and closed my eyes. “Who did what?”
“Made these fall out of sadness.”
“You.”
“I must kill me then.”
Our eyes met, and we both started to laugh. It was awkward how we were trying to kiss and hug, but neither of us cared.
Together, we had survived a battle in this war and lived to talk about it.
FORTY
