I sat there quietly, ruminating on his words. I looked down at my hands, folded in my lap, and for a moment, saw a ring of bruises play around my wrist.
I hadn’t told him everything. I wasn’t sure I ever would. For one, there was a part of me that worried about what he would do if he knew every side of my marriage. Matthew had a protective side. More than protective, really. Matthew looked at me like I was whole. There was no pity in his eyes, the way the people who knew even bits and pieces of what Calvin did—my housekeepers, my assistant, Caitlyn—looked at me, like I was a wounded animal who would be better put down than forced to live. I couldn’t bear it if he thought of me like that. Like I was ruined.
Even so, if what he said was true… If my secrets were a gift, why wouldn’t I want him to have them all? Perhaps he was right. Perhaps I’d never know he truly loved me until he knew them all.
“Will you tell me one of yours?” I said. “Something you’ve never told anyone else. A trade, if you will?”
Matthew glanced at me. “I’ve told you secrets. Like Iraq, remember?”
His gaze darkened. I didn’t press. The memory of him on his knees, sucking blood from my finger after I had pricked myself on the sharp pin on his Navy Cross, would stay with me always. I had listened to him tell a story that was less about the valor for which he had been honored, and more about the deep guilt he carried from the horrors of that day.
Was that when he began to love me too?
“Well, that’s one,” I said. “But you have two of mine, or you did before I gave one to your boss. You owe me another.”
He shot me a quick, green gaze, then turned back to the road. “What if it’s something you don’t like?”
“It’s fair to assume I won’t. That’s why we keep them, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe sometimes it’s to protect others, not ourselves.”
He looked at me again, and this time, we were both thinking of Olivia. Of my family. Again, the ghosts of bruises throbbed on my wrist. And my jaw. My ribs.
Sometimes I wondered if I would ever know how to let go of them completely.
Well. I was trying, wasn’t I?
“I haven’t spoken to my mother in over twelve years,” Mathew said after he passed a slow-moving Fiat. “Not since I got back from Iraq.”
“That’s a long time.” I knew that Matthew was estranged from his mother, but I didn’t realize it had been over a decade.
“Some scars really are permanent.” His hands squeezed the steering wheel. “I was just getting out of class, on my way to Envy. I had just started law school, working nights at Jamie’s bar like I am now. And I got a call from Joni. She was trying to live with Mom at the time—during one of her sober periods. Joni’s the baby, you remember?”
I nodded. Joni, Matthew’s effervescent youngest sister was full of life and naïveté that even the city hadn’t beaten out of her yet. She was easily the most effusive of all his family members. I had liked her at once.
“She always had a soft spot for our mom,” Matthew continued.
“The baby of the family usually does,” I concurred.
He grunted. “Anyway, it was seven o’clock at night, and Joni was stuck at this high school in Trenton after a soccer tournament or something. Mom was supposed to pick her up, but she didn’t show. So poor Joni, this eleven-year-old kid, is alone in a terrible neighborhood, scared as fuck and without any train fare.” He scoffed, like he still couldn’t believe it. “She just fuckin’ forgot about her. Fell off the wagon for maybe the third or fourth time.” He shuddered. “I hate to think what would have happened had she actually tried to go to Trenton.”
“Why is that?” I wondered.
“Because she was the one driving when my dad died. Not that it mattered. They were both lousy drunks, so it could have been either of them who crashed the car. I told you that too.” He looked at me as if to point out that he didn’t actually have to be telling me a secret at all. He didn’t owe me confidences.
“Yes,” I agreed. “You did.”
“Anyway, I went to pick Joni up. And by the time we got back to Belmont, I was fuckin’ livid. Because I get home, and Tino, a family friend, calls us from his restaurant. Mom’s at the bar, singing ‘All Night Long’ with the jukebox before she passes out across a couple of stools.” He shook his head with disgust. “That was it. I couldn’t do it anymore. I felt like I was the one who was eleven, not Joni. Forced to be the grown-up, getting ready to take it on the chin from my old man while my mom just watched, half passed out on the couch.”
At the thought of it, I found my own hands balling up, ready to do their own damage to anyone who had hurt this beautiful man. Yes, I understood his protectiveness very well. There was more to love than just secrets.
“I wish I was more forgiving,” he said. “But I’m really not. Not to those who hurt the people I love, Nina. And she did that. Again and again and again, she did that. So I wasn’t going to stand by and watch her do it to my sisters like she did to me. I didn’t care if she got back on the wagon or stayed there. She was out of luck.”
“So what—what did you do?” I wondered.
“Told her if she contacted me or the younger girls again—Joni, Marie, and Lea were all still minors at that point—I’d file for a restraining order. I said I was done, and I meant it.”
We sat there for a moment, thinking about the story. Matthew wished he was more forgiving? Until now, I had really considered him the soul of mercy. Now I wasn’t so sure.
“My sisters don’t know any of this,” he said. “They know Mom and I don’t speak, but not why. And not about the legal threats. Frankie doesn’t talk to her either for her own reasons, but the younger ones do now that they’re grown. And because supposedly Mom is sober. Lea sees her on birthdays and holidays. Sometimes Marie and Joni tag along. Things like that. Lea knows the whole damn family on that side.”
“Your mother is Puerto Rican, isn’t she?”
Matthew nodded. “Half, yeah. Her dad was from Santiago, but he went back before I was born. My grandmother died when I was a kid, so I didn’t know either of them, and they only had the one child, my mom. But sometimes we’d see distant cousins and stuff.”
I thought of the day at the Cloisters, when we had run into one of the cousins from that side and his wife. A whole side of his family that Matthew had given up because of this anger. I almost argued that enough time had passed. That if she was sober and trying, didn’t she deserve a second chance just like anyone else? If his sisters could do it, why couldn’t he?
But there was a steely resolve in Matthew’s eye that was utterly unwavering. And considering that I had hardly spoken to my own father in years, I wasn’t in a position to argue.
“Everyone wants to believe in unconditional love,” he said. “But you know…you’re right about one thing, baby. Love as sacrifice ain’t real love. We all have to have our limits. Our parents are supposed to teach them to us, but when they don’t, we have to find them for ourselves.” He sighed, clutching the steering wheel hard. “She crossed the line. There was no going back after that.”
He didn’t want to talk about it anymore, and I let him be, content to remain lost in my own thoughts as the Tuscan countryside sped by, blurring my past along with the winter farmland.
But my thoughts kept circling back to one constant refrain. I was glad that Matthew had worked so hard to assert his own safety in a world that damaged so many. Knowing him, witnessing that strength, had given me the courage to draw my own line in the sand. To say enough was enough, and take back freedom and dignity that I knew I deserved.
I just hoped that by the time this trip was over, I wouldn’t have crossed Matthew’s line myself. I didn’t think I could bear it if he ever looked at me and, after all the things I had done, all the secrets I’d kept, decided that in the end, I wasn’t worth his mercy.
Chapter Sixteen
Nina
The farm was not exactly how I recalled,
a fact that confused me until I remembered it was the middle of winter. Giuseppe had brought me here in full bloom of spring, when the olive trees were thick with buds, and flowers and dew shone on the gnarled branches like a layer of glistening gold.
“Holy shit,” Matthew murmured as he steered up the drive. “What happened here?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“The trees. They’re completely bare.” He shook his head. “I’m no olive farmer, but I remember the ones in Sicily having leaves year-round. I don’t think they’re supposed to look like that.”
Immediately, I knew he was right. I had explored Tuscany several times as a student—and never had I seen its famed olive orchards like this: row upon row of desiccated, barren trees, ancient and bent as if recovering from some invisible war.
Matthew pulled to a stop in front of the farmhouse, where another small white car was parked in the dirt drive. We got out and pulled on our coats, Matthew his hat. Then we faced the stone villa.
Stout and square, its construction was similar to most of the farmhouses around the region. Its walls were a mosaic of sandstone and brick, topped with a terracotta roof. The entrance was shaded by a small porch covered in vines now twisted and bare in winter, but which I remembered flush with bright green leaves and the tiny buds that would eventually become sweet green grapes.
“Has it changed much?” Matthew wondered.
“Not like the trees,” I said, only now noticing the bits of stonework crumbling here and there, the roof shingles that needed to be replaced, and the wood fencing surrounding the house that split here and there from weathering. It went far beyond “rustic.”
Giuseppe had loved this farm. It was his family’s birthright, a place they had owned for more than four hundred years, he had told me. He would have hated seeing it like this. The disrepair, like the trees, was tragic.
The front door swung open, and a young, willowy woman who couldn’t have been older than twenty appeared. She had long brown hair and eyes to match that were deeply set above high cheekbones, a slightly hooked nose, and full lips caught in a scowl.
She looked like Giuseppe, yes, with perhaps a passing resemblance to the woman I had met only this morning. But instantly, even with the darker complexion, I felt like I was seeing an older version of my own daughter, Olivia. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe.
“Jesus,” Matthew whispered, clearly seeing the resemblance too.
“Salve,” called the girl as she approached, then rattled off a few questions in rapid Italian that I couldn’t follow.
Matthew tipped his hat and answered in kind. Yet again, I was impressed by how quickly he had adapted to the language here. He said he wasn’t completely fluent, but he seemed to communicate with ease. All I caught was our names as he gestured to himself and then to me.
“I see,” said the girl in English. “You are Americans.” She sighed, as if the very thought exhausted her. “Well, I am Lucrezia Bianchi, one of the owners. My sister, Rosina, she is inside. If you want, we can show you around. The realtor is lazy—he won’t be back until tomorrow.”
“Maybe you need a new realtor,” Matthew joked.
The girl’s mouth quirked, but there was too much bitterness there for a full smile to emerge. “Follow me. There’s some mess in the kitchen from the work, okay?”
I glanced at Matthew, who shrugged, as if to say, “What else can you do?” And so, we followed the girl into the house with the acute sense of people expecting ghosts to pop out behind every corner. And why not? Memories could be nearly as frightening.
Like a lot of houses of its kind, it looked larger than it was. The thick stone walls took up more space than one might expect, and the fact that there were so few windows meant that most of the house was cast in perpetual shadow, dependent on sconces, a few dusty chandeliers, and the occasional sunlight reflecting off the warm stucco walls.
Most of the interior was still the way I remembered it—the plain, sturdy furniture, the smooth wooden sink, the beaten tile floors. I started when I spotted the old stone fireplace at the far end, complete with the rug where Giuseppe had lain me bare in the firelight. The memories were so far away—he was nothing but a ghost. But they were powerful, nonetheless. That was, of course, the spot where my daughter had likely been conceived.
Matthew took my hand as we walked into the living room. This time, I didn’t shake it away. I wanted his solid strength close.
“When was this place built?” Matthew wondered.
Lucrezia shrugged. “It’s not so old. Only three hundred years, I think. They had to rebuild after a fire.”
Matthew gave me a sly wink. I knew what he was thinking—this was such a difference between the United States and nearly everywhere else in the world. We had such a truncated view of history, so evident in things like architecture. A hundred-year-old house in the United States would be exceedingly rare and considered absolutely ancient.
“It was profitable until a few years ago,” continued the girl. “We made olive oil. We had enough to pay the caretakers, and a good yield that we sold at the markets. But then the trees got sick. More than half of them are dead now.”
“It’s a shame,” Matthew murmured as he looked around. “It’s a beautiful place.”
“Rosina!” hollered Lucrezia from the bottom of the stairs. “Dobbiamo mostrare la casa a degli americani.”
There was a clattering of footsteps, and another girl appeared who resembled Giuseppe even more strongly than her sister.
“Perché?” she demanded. “Quali americani?”
Beside me, Matthew cleared his throat. “That would be us,” he said, in English for my benefit before repeating himself in Italian.
“Oh!” said the girl. “Hello.”
“This is my sister, Rosina,” said Lucrezia. “I’m sorry she is rude. She loves the farm very much. We both do.”
The younger girl broke into a sudden spat of angry Italian, and Lucrezia immediately started snapping back at her. I couldn’t follow most of it, but it was clear they were mostly fighting about selling the house.
“Excuse me,” I broke in suddenly. “But there’s been a misunderstanding. As much as I’d love a tour of the grounds, I’m not here for the house. I’m here to meet, well, the two of you.”
The girls immediately stopped squabbling to stare at me.
“Us?” repeated Rosina, shoving a messy lock of brown hair out of her face. “Why are you here to meet us?”
“Your mother sent me,” I said. “She—I met her this morning. I, well. I knew your father, Giuseppe, a long time ago. My name is Nina de Vries.”
Their expressions didn’t change, but something else, something much more subtle did. A tiny shift in posture, a slight movement of chins. Whatever it was, it was palpable and frosty. And told me that, like their mother, they understood exactly my connection to Giuseppe Bianchi.
“Our father?” Lucrezia asked. “When did you know him? He died almost ten years ago.”
I nodded. “Yes, I know. I was very sorry to hear it. I was a student of his at the university the year before his death.”
The frost turned to ice.
“Lo sapevo,” Rosina muttered to her sister, which I did understand as “I knew it.”
I took a step forward, hands held out as I reluctantly dropped Matthew’s. “I know what you must be thinking.”
“That we’re surprised our father had an American lover?” snapped Rosina. “No, not such a surprise. Four of you came to his funeral. And you all looked like whores.”
“Rosina!” snapped Lucrezia.
I swallowed. “No, it’s all right. I—it’s all right.”
“Well,” said Lucrezia, who was, like her mother, a bit slower to speak but maybe more intimidating than her sharp-tongued sister. “What do you want, then? A keepsake? Forgiveness? We don’t have either. Babbo left us nothing but this old farm, and now it isn’t worth anything. With so many dead trees, it can’t even earn enough to pay the t
axes.”
Once again, Rosina burst into a torrent of Italian and looked like she might cry. It only lasted a few seconds until she remembered she had an audience. Then she stomped over to the mauve-colored sofa and flopped down, arms crossed.
Lucrezia sighed, then turned back to me. “Well?”
I swallowed, then pulled out my phone. “I wanted to show you this. I…” I glanced nervously between the girls. “You’re not wrong about the nature of your father’s and my relationship. And I apologize for any pain I may have caused. But I can’t say I regret it completely, because if I hadn’t known him, I never would have had my daughter. Olivia.”
I held out the phone, and Lucrezia took it. She looked like she wanted to throw it back to me until she got a good look at Olivia’s school picture from this year. All resentment was replaced by complete and utter shock.
“Cavolo,” she whispered to herself. “Rosina. Vieni qui. You need to look at this.”
Rosina pushed herself from the couch, muttering grumpily in Italian.
“What? What did she have to—figlio di puttana!” she snapped when she saw the photograph.
Matthew snorted beside me. “Technically, it should be figlia, no? Daughter of a bitch would make more sense.”
Both girls looked up from the phone.
“Ha!” Rosina barked a terse laugh.
Lucrezia handed the phone back to me, looking from me to the screen, then back at her sister. “She looks just like Rosina. Just with blonde hair.”
I nodded. “She resembles both of you quite strongly, I think.”
The girls both nodded, but then awkwardness descended again.
“Look,” I told them, ignoring the way my heart was racing now. “I realize it’s a lot to take, learning you have a half sister on the other side of the ocean. She doesn’t know about you, but she will, soon. Which is why I’m telling you about her first. Because I know my daughter. She will want to meet you. And I thought if you had some time to think about it…maybe you would consider meeting her too. One day.”
The Honest Affair (Rose Gold Book 3) Page 17
