“Maybe it’s not one person,” I threw out there, “but two?”
“The men claim to have seen Rosaria Caffi.”
Yeah, that was the problem, wasn’t it? The seed from which this entire mysterious tree sprouted. We were all seeing her, and she was supposed to be dead.
“Rocco,” I whispered. “Did you, ah, did you see her body? After the crash, I mean?”
“No.”
The one word was whispered, but my mind heard the rest of the sentence loud and clear.
No,there was nothing of her left to see.
“Once I was told of the details, I turned the funeral over to her parents.”
Yes, the funeral/production. (I added the production part.)
“If you would have been able to see Rosaria after, what would you have said to her? In the stillness—in truth?”
He was quiet for so long that I wasn’t sure he was going to answer. I looked in the opposite direction, hoping it would make it easier on him. I just thought…maybe he had never properly said goodbye to her. Maybe that was why she was stuck here. Unfinished business.
We arrived atCastello Sul Mare,and he pulled straight into the garage that housed all the vehicles. Rocco put the car in park and turned it off, and we sat in silence, save for the occasional voice of a solider, a bird twittering and flittering, and the constantrush of the sea.
He lifted his hands from the steering wheel and allowed them to drop back without a sound. “‘I understand.’ This is what I would have said to her.”
Oh, their understanding. His way of saying…I understood why you ran. I understoodyou.And in their own way, forgiveness of all the misunderstandings at the end of their arrangement. I would have titled their relationship a marriage, but in my heart, or in Rocco’s, the title didn’t seem to fit. Because it was never what he considered a marriage, even though he’d called her wife—an honor, in my opinion.
He told me it was the greatest honor of his life to be married to me—to have the right to call mehis(he had emphasizedmy) wife. I felt the same. It was the greatest honor of my heart to be married to him. To call himmyhusband.
We sat for a minute before he stepped out of the car and opened my door for me. We walked hand in hand toward thecastello, lost to our own thoughts. A few steps away from the door, it seemed like a huge hand had covered the sun and shadowed the earth around us. The water turned dark, and lightning streaked across the sky, thunder rumbling not far behind it.
I closed my eyes for a second, the sight of it pulling the image of Rosaria from my thoughts, like she had imparted herself on my retinas.
“Rocco?” I whispered.
His eyes snapped to mine.
“Remember our first time together?”
“If I ever forget, it is time for me to leave this earth.”
That was a bit dramatic, but…Rocco Piero Fausti. I wasn’t mad at it.
“Grazie,” I whispered. “But it was more of a rhetorical question. I wanted you to know what night I was talking about when I say this.”
His eyes searched mine.
The truth was already to my mouth. “I should have told you this. I didn’t want her to have a part of our night. Anyway. I sawher. Rosaria. Below the balcony when you went inside the apartment for what we thought was the burningfoccacia. She and I…we locked eyes. The night on the cliffside, she made this motion at me when she told me to stay away from her husband.” I made a slicing motion around my throat.
“Your husband,” he said.
“Now my husband. You.” I smiled at him, even if it was kind of weak. “But that night. When I saw her. She did the same thing.” I made the same motion around my throat.
He took my hand, stopping me, his eyes almost possessed by whatever thoughts streaked across his mind. It seemed like his eyes were reflecting the charged atmosphere—his greenish gold irises were almost glowing, the black ring around them severe in contrast. He set me behind him, his back to my front, like he was looking for her, and when she didn’t appear, he made a frustrated sound in his throat. It was mostly a warning growl.
I ran my hands along his back. “Let’s go inside,” I whispered, the first heavy drop of rain landing on my forehead and streaming down my nose.
He turned to me, and I set my hands around his neck, protecting it for some reason. I wished I had ten hands to set on him. A suit of armor. His reaction was freaking me out some. He set his hands on my shoulders, though, and I dropped my arms. I could feel the tremble of his bones. He was keeping all this uncertainty locked there. The outside world could have never known by just looking at him.
