“Your mom asked me to help.”
Benito glances around at the copious amount of hired help. “I can see why.”
I smirk. “Maybe this was all an elaborate setup by your mom. She’s using forced proximity to get us to make peace.”
Benito shifts uncomfortably. He reaches for a vase on the table and starts working on the floral arrangements.
“Benito, I was kidding,” I say. I walk over so I’m standing on the opposite side of the table from him. He wordlessly hands me an empty vase and I copy how he methodically pulls one stem out from each bouquet to add to the vase, cutting off the ends. “Unless I’m not?”
He sighs. “I was upset the morning after you left. I knew you left because of me, but the sight of your empty bedroom. . . it was a lot. She asked me what was wrong, so I told her about you, about us. I told her everything.”
I lose track of what I’m doing and nick my finger on a rose thorn. “Ow. Everything?”
“Everything.” He looks up at me.
“So your mom knows about that night in Lake Como? Great.” I smash my palm to my head.
Benito looks at my hand in horror. “Jesus, Izzy. You’re bleeding.” I pull my hand off my forehead and look—sure enough, there’s a stream of blood coming from where the rose pricked me. Benito picks up a napkin from my freshly folded stack and walks over to me. He takes my hand and wraps the napkin around my bleeding finger. “I told her an abridged, mother-friendly version of everything.”
He holds the napkin tight against my finger, creating pressure. He takes my other hand and gentlyguides it to take his hand’s place. When he lets go, I feel a twinge of loss. He starts to walk toward the house. “You’re just going to leave me here to bleed out?”
“Relax. I’m getting the first aid kit.”
I look back at the rose culprit, now bloodstained on its stem. How appropriate that the world’s most romantic flower stabbed me. A sign, perhaps, that I should be done with all of it for good.
Benito returns to finish fixing me up. He removes the napkin and opens up the Band-Aid, wrapping it around my finger so clinically, it’s almost like he, too, was startled by the warmth of our earlier contact and is trying to keep things between us sterile.
“Thanks,” I say, when he’s done. Benito quickly goes back to working on the floral arrangements. “Hey,” I say. He doesn’t look up. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left without saying anything. I’m sorry we fought. I’m sorry I didn’t hear what you were saying. I get it now. I really do. You were right. I can’t be nothing. I can’t do nothing. It’s not who I am.”
Benito stops what he’s doing and nods. “Thanks.” He goes back to his work, and I wonder if that’s where we’ll leave it, but after a moment, he looks up. “I’m sorry too. It wasn’t up to me to tell you how you should live your life. Especially when mine’s a mess. Izzy, please know, you don’t need to do something big with your life to be important. You being you is enough. It’s more than enough.”
My eyes lock into his and I feel immediately at ease, like the past few weeks never happened andwe’re rain-soaked in the middle of the gardens again. I snap myself out of the fantasy. “And what about you? I mean, what will you do now that you can do anything you want?”
Benito looks down again and then lets out a laugh. “I have no idea.”
We finish our work wordlessly, and when we’re done, Benito excuses himself upstairs to get ready. I find Anita directing traffic as the staff puts the last touches on the setup. As always, the house looks stunning. “I didn’t realize how elaborate an affair this is,” I say.
Anita shrugs. “It’s not every day your son resigns as mayor and your husband announces a major development deal that will completely change the town you’ve lived in your whole life.”
She fidgets with the champagne flutes on top of the welcome bar. I can’t get a read on her. Her passive attitude toward Raffaello’s actions has always been at odds with her personality, but a woman like Anita has to have a limit. “They built this town on top of a hill to defend it from invaders. A thousand years later it’s finally falling,” I say.
Anita rests a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t be too sure about that.”
As the guests start to file in, I take my place outside with a cool glass of wine. Everyone I know is here: Lucia made the trip from Siena with her husband; Vincenzo and Valeria; Giac; an older woman with him I presume to be his dreaded aunt—even Giuseppe put on a fresh T-shirt for the occasion.
“It’s hard to picture a changed La Musa,” Vincenzo says, raising his glass to meet mine.
I take in the view of the countryside against the light of the dipping sun. “I know. It doesn’t seem right.”
Vincenzo smiles. “You know Paola,” he says, pointing to Giac’s aunt. “It is rumored that she was cursed when she was a baby, and ever since, every party she enters is doomed.”
I look to him in horror. “Jesus. Really?”
He does a sign of the cross. “Yes. That’s why I invited her.”
He winks at me. Benito walks over to us, interrupting. He looks distressed. He looks great, sharp, in a pale green button-down and beige linen pants, but the top buttons of his shirt are undone, and he massages his chest with his hand. “Have you seen mymamma?”
I do another cursory look around the yard. “No, I haven’t. Why? Are you ok?”
