I wasn’t like Laura, who couldn’t pass a fat baby in a stroller without cooing. I wasn’t even sure I liked babies. But the story of this baby made me want to weep.
“Teo went to the hospital a few hours ago, and he said it was awful.”
“I suppose he knew her?”
“Yes, of course. But that’s not why he went.” She was holding a bag of ground coffee in her hand, but I was beginning to think our espressos weren’t happening. “Antonio requested he come.”
She said this last part like I was meant to know what she was talking about, but I had no idea why a grieving father would summon a journalist to his wife’s bedside.
“This problem with the skull, it’s very rare. So the fact that there have now been two cases on one tiny island? It can’t be a coincidence.”
“What else would it be,” I said, “if not a coincidence?”
Francesca gave me a pitying expression. “Isn’t it obvious?”
I shook my head, still not getting it.
“It’s your subs.”
112.
I LEFT FRANCESCA’S APARTMENT,and instead of taking the stairs down to the street like usual, I walked up two flights to the fourth floor, where I found the apartment directly above Francesca’s. At the door, I stopped and listened. I could hear the clacking of a typewriter, and when I knocked—tentatively—the noise continued. I tried again, this time a little louder, and the typing ceased.
“Sto arrivando,” said Teo from the other side of the door, but when he opened it and saw me standing in the hallway, he froze.
“Hi,” I said with a small wave.
“Salve,” he said, and ran his hand through his hair, a nervous sort of gesture.
He was wearing a pair of slacks and an undershirt, and I tried not to pay attention to his arms, which were beautiful and had so recently been wrapped around me.
“I was just downstairs with Francesca, and I heard about the baby.”
He nodded toward the apartment’s interior. “Come in.”
“Just for a minute,” I said, and followed him inside.
His parents’ apartment was a replica of Francesca and Bernardo’s except with less clutter. No books and magazines, no framed photographs, no crystal suncatchers. It was clear that the apartment was used primarily as a vacation home; Teo’s typewriter, which sat in the middle of the dining room table, and his suitcase, which lay open on the sofa, were the only real signs of life in the whole place.
“I haven’t shopped,” he said apologetically as he went to the kitchen and examined the contents of his refrigerator.
“I don’t need anything, really.”
“Water?”
“Sure.”
While he got a glass from the drainboard and filled it at a freestanding watercooler that sat in a corner of the kitchen, I walked out onto the balcony. “Francesca’s right,” I called to him. “Your view is better.”
Teo laughed, then followed me outside. When he handed me the water glass, our fingers touched, and I tried to ignore the jolt of pleasure this gave me.
We leaned against the railing, staring out at the red roofs that sloped toward the water. “Francesca says you went to the hospital this morning?”
He nodded.
“It must have been terrible.”
“It was.”
