Matteo looks down at his glass, turning it once by the stem. “She hated wasted food. Wasted time. Wasted rooms. Wasted happiness. She used to say people made misery sacred because they were too frightened to admit they could survive it.”
For a moment, I cannot speak.
Because I hear Anna in that.
Not the words exactly, perhaps. But the sense of them. The impatience. The refusal to let anyone make a shrine out of suffering if there was life still demanding to be lived.
“She was speaking generally,” I say.
Tomasso gives me a look. “She was married to you. Nothing she said was general.”
That almost earns a smile from Matteo.
Not from me.
I lean back in my chair and study them both. “Who exactly are you talking about?”
Tomasso opens his mouth.
Matteo answers first. “We are talking about you.”
It’s a careful answer.
More dangerous than if he had lied badly.
I look between them again. “What do you think you know?”
“That there is a woman,” Tomasso says.
“There have been women.”
“Not like this.”
The room quiets again.
I do not answer.
Because he is right.
There have been women, yes. I am not a monk, and I never pretended to be one. My sons are grown men. They know this, even if none of us has ever felt the need to discuss my private life over dinner.
But not here.
Never here.
This may not be the home that I lived in with Anna. These may not be Anna’s gardens or her table or the rooms she chose, argued over, changed, hated, loved. But I chose them with her in mind when we moved here.
I chose a home Anna would love. I had this big table made with the thought of how much Anna loved filling our table at home with family. I planted her favorite flowers in the garden.
I have never brought a woman to my home, not since Anna.
Until Victoria.
Tomasso watches me with too much of his mother’s boldness. “You brought her home.”
“I did.”
“That means something.”
