He grinned. “I can’t ask you to do that, Maya.”
“What else am I going to do… Stay here with Dante and Giulio and just hope everything magically gets better?”
“Maya.” That was all he said, my name, his voice muffled, moved, as he pulled me into his lap and embraced me. We didn’t do anything more, and yet it was the most intimate moment the two of us had ever shared.
45
The next morning, we packed our bags and called a taxi to take us to the bus station. I know I shouldn’t have, I know it was selfish and cowardly, but I asked Lucas if we could go without saying goodbye to anyone. I didn’t know if what had happened between Giulio and me was going to stay buried, as he’d said, or whether everyone might already know.
I’d made a mess, but I wasn’t ready to face up to it.
Once we were in Naples, waiting for the train to Rome, Lucas called Catalina and told her why we had stolen away like that. What he didn’t tell me was her response. And I didn’t ask.
We got tickets for an evening flight taking off at nine.
We took off on time and landed in Madrid around midnight.
It was weird to be back in the city I’d always called home. Only a few months had passed since I left, but they felt like an eternity. I felt so distant from everything around me and from myself. The Maya who had come back there was nothing like the Maya who had left. There was something different inside me, and even the air felt different on my skin.
We caught a taxi. Lucas rested his hand on mine, and I squeezed his to reassure him. At that moment, he mattered more to me than anything else.
The taxi stopped, he paid, we got our things out of the trunk, and we walked toward the door of his building. He’d inherited the apartment when his grandfather died, and had lived there from the time he began his studies until the day he left with no turning back. No one had been there for two years.
We took the elevator to the top floor and he announced, “Here we are.” He turned the key in the lock, and the door creaked as it opened, letting out stale air as Lucas entered, feeling around for the switch and turning on the lights that illuminated the hallway in front of us. “Home sweet home,” he said.
I followed him to the master bedroom, where we dropped our bags. The place was an old two-bedroom with a living room, kitchen, and bathroom. The furnishings were simple and functional, and there was no decoration apart from a couple of framed pictures on the wall above the sofa. It amused me to think Lucas and I had lived so close to each other for several years. We might have even crossed each other on the street without knowing we would one day share so many tender moments.
Lucas opened the windows, and fresh night air filled the apartment. Used by now to the silence of the villa where we lived, I found the sounds of so many voices and cars unnerving.
“Should we order takeout? I’m hungry,” he said.
“Isn’t it a little late?”
“This isn’t Sorrento. There will definitely be something open.” He yawned.
I frowned. He was right. It wasn’t Sorrento. And I already missed it.
The next morning, we got up early and went to the hospital.
“Are you sure you want to come?” he asked. We were waiting for the subway, and in the ten minutes it took for the train to arrive, he had asked me four times.
“If you weren’t squeezing my hand so tight, maybe I’d say no,” I responded, and when his grip loosened slightly, I added, “Don’t be silly, Lucas. I’m not going to leave you alone.”
He nodded and exhaled. He seemed to have been holding that breath in a long time. He was nervous. I was, too. After all he’d told me about his family, I knew it wasn’t going to be an easy reunion for him, but I swore to myself I’d be there for him, no matter what happened.
When we got to the hospital, we headed to the cafeteria, where Lucas’s sister had agreed to meet him. I asked him if he could see her, and he gazed around the room, which was full of people eating and drinking coffee. After a few seconds, he spotted her.
“Yeah, come on, she’s in the back.”
We zigzagged between tables and he stopped next to a brown-haired woman, her hair pulled up in a bun, absorbed in whatever she was typing into her phone.
“Hey, Lucía,” he said.
She looked up, and I noticed her eyes were identical to his, light blue bordering on gray. She stood and rubbed her hands on her stomach. They were both tense, uncertain, as if neither knew how to act around the other, and only after a few apprehensive smiles did they lean in and give each other a kiss on each cheek.
“You look good,” Lucas said.
She looked back and forth between us before answering, “You too.”
