I throw my hands in the air. "How can I love him, Lina? You know what he is. He's a terrible man."
She nods. "Yes. What he is can be terrible, but have you considered who he is?"
"Can the two be separated?"
The older woman shrugs. "It's not easy of course, but think about it this way. Has he been terrible to you?"
"Well, he did kidnap me, force me to marry him and then refuse to let me leave," I say wryly. "So you tell me."
"Hmm." She contemplates that for a minute. "Those are terrible things of course but think about the reasons he did them. Did he do any of it to hurt you?"
I think about that for a minute and eventually concede she has a point. "No, he didn't do it to hurt me."
"Then ask yourself if you can put those things aside and build on the positives."
If I'm honest with myself, before the night he left, I'd already decided to do that.
"But I don't even know if he feels the same about me."
"Of course he does. That's why he wants to keep you safe, to protect you from the more painful things in life."
Something in her voice makes me suspicious.
"What painful things?"
Lina sighs. "I told him he should tell you, that you'd want to know, but he said he needed to deal with this himself."
Nervous tension builds inside me and I dig my fingers into the mattress beneath me. "What's going on, Lina?"
She looks at me sadly. "His Mamma died."
The room goes eerily still. I choke on a sob as I digest what she just said. Lina wraps an arm around me as I dissolve into tears.
It's silly, really. I only met her once but I cry for Beatrice, for the memory of her smile, for Lorenzo and Gabriele, but most of all for Damiano who thinks he has to shoulder this alone.
When I finally stop crying, Lina produces a white lace handkerchief from her pocket and hands it to me. I blow my nose.
"That's why he left?" I ask her.
She nods. "He's been in Rome the last few days arranging things."
"By himself?"
"Signore Lorenzo joined him this morning."
I glance at the suitcase behind me and a sharp pang of regret cuts through me.
Over the last couple of days I've thought awful things about Damiano. I've cursed him to hell and back, all because I constructed the wrong story in my head. I thought he'd walked out on me for business.
"Why didn't he tell me?"
"I think you know."
Yes, I do. He held this close because he didn't want me to return to him out of pity. If only the call had come five minutes later. He'd have heard me tell him I didn't want to leave. I don't want to dwell on that now.
"When is the funeral?"
"Tomorrow at a crematorium near Rome."
