I follow her gaze and feel my blood turn to ice. She’s staring at the handcuffs, still attached to the headboard where Carlo should be but isn’t. The chains gleam in the artificial sunlight, impossible to ignore or explain away.
“They’re...” I start, then stop. What can I possibly say? How do I explain restraints attached to my bed to a woman who already thinks I’m twisted and abhorrent?
“They’re for art. An art installation. Very avant-garde. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Art?” The word comes out like she’s tasting something rotten. “Giovanni, these are restraints. Actual restraints. What on earth have you been doing down here?”
“Nothing,” I say quickly, too quickly. “Just experimenting with different mediums. Exploring themes of captivity and freedom. Very conceptual. Very modern.”
Mama’s face goes through several expressions in rapid succession. Confusion, horror, disgust, and finally that particular brand of resigned disappointment that I know so well. The look that says I’ve once again confirmed every terrible thing she’s ever thought about me.
“Art,” she repeats flatly. “You’re calling this art.”
“Conceptual art,” I insist, struggling to sit up properly while the room keeps tilting around me. “The kind that challenges conventional thinking. The kind that makes people uncomfortable because it forces them to confront difficult truths.”
“The only truth this confronts is that you’ve completely lost your mind.” Mama’s voice is getting shriller, more panicked. “Giovanni, this is... this is not normal behavior. Even for you.”
Even for you. As if my ingrained wrongness is so established that she has to qualify which particular variety of madness this represents.
“Where have you been?” she continues, beginning to pace at the foot of the bed in that agitated way she does when she’s building up to a real tirade. “We’ve been calling and calling. Papa tried to reach you three times yesterday. We were worried you’d done something...” She pauses, her gaze flicking meaningfully to the restraints. “Something foolish.”
Yesterday. She’s talking about yesterday like it was recent, but yesterday feels like a lifetime ago. Yesterday Carlo was here, warm and solid and real. Yesterday we had our beautiful romantic dinner, our perfect last evening together. Yesterday I thought I’d found the solution to all our problems.
But where is he now? If the pills worked, if we both took the journey into eternal sleep together, why am I here alone? Why is Mama yelling at me instead of mourning my beautiful, tragic death?
“You look terrible,” she continues, settling into the chair beside the bed like she’s preparing for a long conversation. “Pale and thin and...” Her nose wrinkles in distaste. “When did you last change these sheets? This whole place reeks of... I don’t even know what. Desperation? Madness?”
The words hit like physical blows, each one confirming what I already know. I am terrible. I am pale and thin and desperate and mad. I am everything disappointing about the Torrini family legacy rolled into one shameful package.
“I’ve been fine, Mama,” I lie, pulling the silk sheet up to my chest like armor. “Just working on my art. Exploring new themes. You’ve always said I should find productive outlets for my creativity.”
“Not this kind of creativity.” Her voice drops to the particular tone she uses when she’s about to deliver devastating truths. “Giovanni, look at yourself. Really look. This isn’t art, it’s a cry for help. And frankly, I’m not sure we can keep helping you if you insist on...”
She gestures vaguely at the room, at me, at the general disaster of my existence. The gesture encompasses everything from the candle wax on the nightstand to the restraints on the bed to my too-long hair and sick complexion.
“If I insist on what?” I ask, though I’m not sure I want to hear the answer.
“On being this way,” she says simply. “On refusing to get better. On wallowing in whatever this is.” Another vague gesture. “We’ve tried therapy, medication, institutions, everything. But you just keep getting worse.”
The words settle over me like a shroud. Getting worse. Yes, I suppose I am getting worse, aren’t I? Normal people don’t kidnap the men they love. Normal people don’t drug their perfect romantic dinners with sleeping pills. Normal people don’t wake up alone and confused, wondering if they’ve died and gone to hell.
Maybe that’s what this is. Maybe everyone was right about me ending up in hell. Maybe the sulfur smell they always talked about isn’t literal fire and brimstone, but the stench of my own disappointment. Maybe hell is just this. Waking up to your mother’s disapproval for eternity, alone in a basement that used to feel like paradise.
“Where is Papa?” I ask, desperate to change the subject from my obvious moral failings.
“Upstairs, checking the house. Making sure you haven’t destroyed anything else.” Mama’s mouth forms a thin, disapproving line. “He’s very disappointed, Giovanni. We both are. We left you here trusting that you could manage on your own for two weeks. Clearly, that was a mistake.”
Two weeks. Has it really been two weeks? Time moved so differently when Carlo was here. Days flowed into nights in a seamless rhythm of meals and conversations and perfect domestic bliss. But now, trying to count backwards, I realize shemight be right. Two weeks of the most beautiful happiness I’ve ever known, and it’s all gone like it never existed at all.
“I haven’t destroyed anything,” I protest weakly.
“Haven’t you?” Mama’s eyebrows climb toward her hairline. “Those restraints didn’t install themselves. And this place...” She looks around with visible disgust. “It looks like a brothel. Candles everywhere, wine glasses on every surface, the smell of...” She pauses, trying to identify something that clearly disturbs her. “The smell of sex and desperation.”
Heat floods my cheeks. Can she really smell that? Can she tell what Carlo and I shared in this room? The thought that our beautiful intimacy has been reduced to something sordid and embarrassing makes my chest ache with fresh grief.
“It’s not what you think,” I say quietly.
“Then what is it, Giovanni? Explain it to me. Make me understand why my youngest son has turned his bedroom into some kind of... of dungeon.”
