Page 29

We make love, lots of love.

During the day Damiano works long hours in a restaurant kitchen while I’m trying to make my way as an editor.

At night we’re husband and wife, never getting enough of each other.

We still cook together whenever we can.

Sometimes we argue about whether Sicilian food is better than Calabrian food but always end up agreeing there really is nothing as good as Italian food.

Some days I read while Damiano watches soccer.

Other days we do absolutely nothing and I just rest on him, the rhythm of his heart like a song I came to know by heart.

Those quiet ones become my favorite nights, because he’s all the entertainment I need.

We start saving for a home.

For his Tirreno restaurant.

For my cookbooks.

For the life we’ve planned all those nights lying in each other’s arms.

Then one morning Damiano wakes up with a fever.

There’s something going around, so we think nothing of it. The doctor suspects an infection and prescribes antibiotics and rest, and one week later he’s better.

A few weeks later it happens again, and this time he needs stronger antibiotics.

Then, a week later, again.

What is wrong with his immune system?

They run some tests, and they show he’s severely anemic, so he goes to the hospital and gets a blood transfusion.

We laugh about it, making up stories about the person whose blood now runs through him. He says it was probably a scientist and he’ll finally be able to understand science better now. I tell him it was a woman and he’ll finally watch romance movies with me and cry.

We get home, and everything is fine for a few weeks.

Then the fever comes again.

And again.

Until one day the fever doesn’t leave.

I’m wheeling him through the hospital halls, following the nurse who told us he needs “more tests,” when we reach a door with the word oncology above it and my blood turns to ice.

I look down at Damiano and find him staring at it too.

When his eyes meet mine, I smile.

“It must be the only place they do these tests.” I shrug.

He nods, takes my hand and squeezes.

“Of course.”

We’re in a small sterile room when they take a sample of bone marrow from Damiano’s hip. They tell us the results could take up to two weeks and that this is just a precaution.