She was so relieved she collapsed onto my lap. She was getting there. One day at a time. When she’d first seen Ada from the window, she’d flipped off all the lights and run up to me. Gone were the days when she found a way to hurt people. This was a new phase, and she was getting there. Doing it the way she wanted to. I was proud of her. I tell her that over and over again. Each time my words penetrated her a little deeper, and she slid closer to me, her hands wrapped so tightly around my neck that she was close to strangling me, but fuck if I would change it for anything. She was finally opening up, and I’d do anything she needed to get her to where she wanted to be.
Ada stopped calling out. The intervals between the knocking stretched until finally they ceased entirely. Another day had gone by that Ada would walk away in disappointment. She didn’t know it yet, but one day her eldest daughter would come back to her. I was going to make sure of it, even if it was the last thing I did before I hit the dirt. The house settled back to what it had been. The silence finally registered with her. In a flash, she sat up, and her gaze moved cautiously to the door. A white envelope sat innocently in front of it. Her eyes darted to mine. Building in panic again.
“Do you want me to get it?”
She nodded vigorously, and I dropped her gently back into the chair before I walked over to the door. When I passed the window, Ada was standing across the narrow street. When she saw me, her face fell in disappointment. She’d hoped for a glimpse of her daughter. Orietta didn’t know it, but I’d feed her mamma little bits of information to let her know how she was doing. I couldn’t leave her completely in the dark. She put her hands together, a gesture of pleading with her hands and her eyes. I gave her a slight nod. She knew I wouldn’t push my wife into doing anything she didn’t want to do. But if she wanted to reconcile, I’d be the one to hit the gas pedal on the car to get her to her home. Soon she would get to see for herself how far her eldest daughter has come. But it wouldn’t be today. With defeat on her shoulders, she climbed into her waiting vehicle, and they drove her away. My wife’s eagle eyes burned the back of my neck. I picked up the envelope and took it to her. Even though I knew its contents, I kept a poker face. This was going to be another hurdle for her. Some months had more hurdles than others. This month was going to have a shitload.
When I held it out for her, she slunk away from it, mistrust written all over her face.
“How about we open it together?”
“No.” She shook her head. “You open it.” I dropped to my knees and peeled it open with care because I knew she’d want to keep it in her box. The box of memories she thought I didn’t know about, hiding in the back of the closet, with letters from Daria and Lia she said she’d thrown away.
I took out the card and held it out to her. Her eyes misted, and she swallowed thickly. “Vitale’s getting married?” she choked out, part wonder and part shock.
I bit back my thoughts about it. I would die for my don. Vitale Di Matteo commanded respect because he’d earned it. He was a man of his word, unlike his father. But the last few months hadbeen hell with him. There was no one on the team of men who wasn’t relieved that he’d finally gotten his woman. Even if he’d had to defy tradition to wed her.
My wife slipped forward in her chair. “Ahana.” She tentatively ran her hand over the embossed gold names. It might as well have been in red for the amount of blood the don had spilled to get her. “She’s why he killedzioEndrigo?”
“Yes.”
Her lips tilted into a faint smile. “I like her already.”
I laughed. “I’m sure you do.”
“When is it?”
“The Sunday after the weekend.”
“That’s in nine days. He doesn’t want to wait,” she mused, almost to herself. “I can’t believe he invited me.”
I couldn’t help but scoff at her doubt. “Why wouldn’t he?”
Her smile dropped. “I can’t go.”
“You can if you want to,” I suggested. “Do you want to?”
She slipped back to the back of the chair and wrapped her hands around her legs. When she looked up with her head resting on her knees, doubts filled her face again. “Will you go if I don’t?”
“No.”
“Why not? He’s your don.”
I cupped her cheek in my palm. “You are my wife.”
She leaned her face against me, taking comfort in the words, but her eyes were burdened with grief. “You’ll miss the wedding.”
“There’ll be other weddings.”
She pulled at invisible threads on her dress. Lines formed on her forehead. A few heartbeats passed before she muttered so softly I almost missed it. “Not my brother’s, though.”
I knew her well enough to know she needed time. She’d think about a million different scenarios and come to her own decisionwhen she was ready. Whatever it was, she might stick to it, or she might change it. I was okay with that. As long as it made her happy. She was busy taking out her agitation on her dress. Twisting and turning it in all kinds of ways that would make an origami expert want to take lessons from her. She was ready for a distraction. I knew her patterns like the back of my hand. Maybe even better. “Want a cup of tea?”
She nodded, her gaze distracted.
I dropped the card next to her on the table and walked to the kitchen. When I set the kettle to boil and turned around, she had the card clutched in her hand. Running her fingers through it with such yearning, like she held a diamond in her palm rather than a piece of cardboard. My heart cracked yet again in her place.
My wife wasa nervous wreck next to me. With her face glued to the window, she watched the scenery through unseeing eyes. I drove along a road that should have been familiar to her, yet I could brake and come to a halt, and she wouldn’t notice it.
