“Linda,” I call, ready to run after her, but Michael holds me by the wrist.
It’s not the firm and gentle grip I’m used to. It’s a grip of steel, which crushes my bones and stops my circulation.
“You know, Elisa, no one has ever made me feel as excluded as you have right now.”
“Then you must have had an easy life,” I reply.
“Maybe, but I’m your family too, and you took away my chance to be a part of it.”
“Part of my family? The family whose house you’re taking away? And Giada, whose relationship you ruined just to facilitate a transaction? You, Michael, don’t deserve to be part of my family, even if wedon’t live with the comforts you’re used to. Now, excuse me, but I have to talk to my daughter.”
“Well done, it’s about time you started,” he replies sharply.
“I don’t accept lessons in courage from someone who until the day before yesterday didn’t even have the guts to tell the two women he fucked that he was using them.”
“Again with these women? You fucked my brother and didn’t even bother to mention it to me. Do you truly think you’re any better?”
“I didn’t fuck your brother. If anything he fucked me, and believe me, specifying who fucked who makes a big difference.”
“Really? Because the outcome seems the same to me.”
Enough, I can’t stand it any longer. “Perfect: You hid things from me. I hid things from you. It’s clear that neither of us trusts the other. We were both just hiding. Thank goodness this farce came to light.”
“Thank goodness.”
“I thank you for your kind offer, but you can keep your high-class life and continue to hang out with the people who matter without me and Linda.”
We’re facing each other, just inches apart, but it’s as if there are miles between us.
Where before there were burning embers, now there’s only ash. It will only be a matter of seconds before the wind blows away every trace.
We were friends.
We were enemies.
We were lovers.
Now we’re absolutely nothing.
49
Michael
I go up to my room, where, ironically, I find my suitcase waiting for me—the one I left in the taxi when I arrived.
I put on my suit, the only one I’ve had with me this whole time, and which, among other things, I wore for the evening in Florence with Elisa.
I can still smell her perfume on my shirt.
It’s so intense and penetrating that it takes my breath away.
I’m practically wearing our love story, but it doesn’t feel like mine.
I could change and wear one of the T-shirts I bought here, but in the end I close the armoire. Those clothes belong to a Michael who isn’t me anymore. In London, I wouldn’t know what to do with them.
I think of Elisa and me together and then, immediately, picture her with George. A pang tears through my chest. I slam my fist against the bathroom door, and the sound resonates across the ceiling, while the door swings on its squeaky hinges.
The taxi that Donatella called arrives earlier than expected. I don’t have time to put on my tie. I dunk my face under freezing water. I don’t even dry myself. I take my never-opened suitcase and leave.
