by Lauren Kate
“I should begin again from scratch,” Mino muttered.
“Madonna,” Ana muttered. “And the cradle?”
“It’s ready,” he said, smiling to himself. Ana held their dreams in such close rein; it was rare he got to surprise her with good news.
She gasped with pleasure and fluttered across the shop.
He watched her move, her lightness still more like a butterfly than a woman with child. Turning the pegs of the violin, he added quickly, “As soon as the varnish dries.”
Ana drew her hand back in time to avoid smudging Mino’s work. She stood over it for several moments, admiring, and Mino felt proud.
“Just in time.” Ana’s voice was quieter than usual.
He looked up and his breath caught. His wife’s eyes held a bright distance he had never seen before, a joyful preoccupation.
“The baby?” he said, feeling a wash of cold sweep through his body.
“Your girl is coming.”
Mino dropped the violin and rushed to his wife. He felt the need to lift her up in his arms and carry her home, but instead of letting herself be lifted, she deftly turned his reach to an embrace. She gazed up at him with her wide smile and kissed him.
When she pulled away, Mino felt her guiding him to a chair, helping him to sit. His body felt heavy, collapsing onto the wood. Only then did he acknowledge his dizziness.
Ana lowered herself, crouching between his legs. She patted his cheek.
“Calm, Mino,” she said. “We have time. I feel well.”
He tried to speak but found no voice, and Ana laughed and rose to pour water from the jug. He downed the cup, felt thirstier. She refilled it and returned to his side.
“I’ll make dinner,” he said. “You’ll be hungry. I’ll—”
“Didn’t you smell Mamma boiling the octopus this morning? It’s what she ate with each of her babies. It’s what my sister ate with Genevieve.” She shrugged. “What choice do I have in the matter?”
“How did your mamma know?” Mino asked. Envy crept up in him at the thought of Ana mentioning her labor to her mother half a day ago, leaving Mino out. They could be like that, her family. There were things between them they thought Mino shouldn’t know.
“Because she’s Mamma,” Ana said. “Someday I suppose I’ll know the same thing about our girl. She said it has something to do with the moon.”
Mino had heard none of this—not his mother-in-law’s superstitious speculations, not the preparation of a special meal to nourish Ana during labor. The household often swirled around him, built of its own feminine energy.
“Don’t be afraid, Mino,” Ana said, squeezing his hand. She closed her eyes and her brow tensed. She was in pain.
Mino studied her, troubled. She made no sound. After a long moment, her expression cleared and she opened her eyes. She smiled at him, then rose as if nothing had happened. She lifted the violin he’d dropped, returning it to its stand near the window.
The baby made him want to finish the violin, for he could imagine walking through the Incurables doors again, this time with the news: he had a family. And in his fantasy, it was not the prioress or Laura who greeted him. It was Letta.
He turned to his wife. She cradled her belly, humming a soft, simple song. He went to her and felt the vibration of her song against his breast.
* * *
AT MIDNIGHT STELLA sent him out for ice.
“I’m not leaving,” he argued in the hall.
“What good do you think your pacing is doing?” Stella said. “She wants ice. Go and get it.”
He kneeled by Ana, who lay in bed with damp hair and bright eyes.
“You really want ice?” he murmured.
“Yes,” she said. “And more than that, I want fresh air for you.”
She kissed him, and he thought she’d never looked so beautiful. Not pretty as she always did, but with a new intensity that threw the soft contours of her face into sharper, more dazzling relief. He saw so clearly how motherhood would suit her. It made him wonder whether she saw anything like that in him.
“Ice.” He nodded and took Sprezz over the bridge toward the tavern where they’d celebrated after their wedding.
At first he hurried, but when he reached the center of the Apostoli bridge, he stopped and took in the night, knowing he would want to remember it. Clear and cold, stars winking beside the big moon at its zenith in the navy sky. Ana was right. This crisp air and the noise of carnevale were relaxing. Mino breathed more deeply than he had since his wife told him of her labor.
Her family’s calm unnerved him in the apartment, but out here, away from them, he understood. They had done this all before.
“There’s nothing more natural than babies,” Siora Costanzo had told him as she served the octopus earlier that evening.
But how could Ana’s pain feel natural to Mino? It occurred to him that this was how things were meant to go—a woman surrounded by family, bringing the next generation to life. There was a time when the only woman Mino could imagine having children with was Letta. Now he tried to imagine a night like this with her, and his chest tightened.
He never thought about that apartment he had so briefly lived in, but now, in his mind, he was in it. He was alone with Letta and a midwife neither of them knew. He was frightened. The responsibility to be everything for someone else was colossal.
It wasn’t like that with Ana. He was comforted by the fact that his wife was cared for by experienced, loving hands. He felt a new amazement at how he had entered into this family. It made him want to get down on his knees and pray. He knew in his bones his child would thrive. He found himself thinking of Letta.
He imagined her in her bed at the Incurables, and he wondered whether she was lonely. He prayed that her music fulfilled her and brought her peace. She would hate this prayer, find it pitying, but Mino meant it. He wished her joy and love.
Inside the tavern, the bartender raised his brow. He knew Ana well enough to know that Mino didn’t belong in there alone.
“What’ll it be?” he asked.
“Ice,” Mino said. “My baby is coming.”
The bartender smiled and brought out his pick. From the back room, he chipped off a brick of ice, wedging it into pieces.
“Some to suck on,” he explained, “and the larger ones to wrap and cool her skin.”
“You’ve done this before,” Mino said, taking the cloth-wrapped parcel.
“Four times,” the bartender said and waved off Mino’s soldi. “Good luck, Papa.”
* * *
HE FOUND ANA in the same position as before, surrounded by sisters and candles. She looked tired, but she smiled at him.
He placed a wedge of ice on her tongue, wrapped another in the thin cloth and brushed it around her face as the bartender had told him to do. He felt Ana’s family watching him, quietly surprised. He wanted to climb inside his wife’s body and feel each pulse she felt.
“Is it too cold?” he asked.
She shook her head, rolling onto her side, her back to him.
“Do you want another pillow?”
She moaned. Mino tried to stifle his questions. He felt her mother’s hand on his shoulder.
The siora’s gaze was clear—she wanted him out of the bedroom, away from Ana’s side. Never before had he noticed how much his mother-in-law looked like his wife. The set of their jaws were the same. He knew there would be no negotiation.
“First babies take time.” She led him to the door with Ana’s gentle firmness. She nodded at the sofa. “Rest.”
“How?” Mino protested.
“Rest, Mino,” Ana murmured from her bed. “The baby will need you in the morning.”
He obliged. He didn’t think he could sleep, but as soon as he lay down and curled into a blanket, exhaustion swept over him. The turtledoves were quiet
in their cage, nestled against one another. He would get more ice in the morning. He knew a tavern that opened close to dawn.
Rest, he heard his wife’s plea, and eventually a calming song came into Mino’s head. It was his mother’s lullaby.
He’d never liked thinking of the song that way. Even after what Letta had told him, he still felt the song was his. Tonight he felt different. Tonight this melody was the one thing he could pass down from his mother to his child.
I am yours, you are mine . . .
He sang himself to sleep.
* * *
A BABY’S CRY jolted Mino awake. He leaped to his feet, feeling the lateness of the morning, the sun warm on his skin. He spun around the living room, not knowing where he was until his eyes fell on Ana’s mother holding his child.
He saw the trembling little mouth, clenched eyelids, the tender wrinkled head swaddled tightly. Tears sprung to his eyes and he reached out, but Ana’s mother held the child fast, and when he met her eyes he froze.
“What’s wrong?”
“Your daughter is healthy,” she said wanly. “Go to Ana now.”
He rushed into the bedroom, where Vittoria sat weeping beside her sister. Stella was gathering something scarlet in her arms. Mino realized they were sheets. The bed was red with blood.
“Madonna.” Mino got down on his knees before Ana.
“She’s resting,” Vittoria said, making room for Mino.
He took Ana’s hand. It was clammy. Her eyes were closed and she was so pale. She looked tranquil and younger than she’d looked last night. And for a second, Mino smiled. She could rest now. She’d done everything she had to do.
But as he watched her chest rise and fall, he saw that it was over. That soon Ana would leave them.
“Farfalla,” he whispered. She had never taken to the nickname, but to Mino, that was what she was. His butterfly. Delicate. Busy. Fleeting.
Her eyes drifted open. “You can do this, Mino.”
“No,” he begged. “Not without you.”
“You can,” she said. “Only look for me in the sky.” She closed her eyes again.
Mino felt a deep stab, knowing he would never see their brilliance again.
“What will you call her?”
These were Ana’s last words. She was gone before he could answer.
TWENTY-ONE
VIOLETTA’S EYES OPENED slowly to the view of the Grand Canal. Soft January light streamed through Federico’s bedroom window as she lay on her side, nestled into the down pillow. She loved waking up to the view of masked, black-suited waiters serving coffee at the café across the water.
It looked cold outside. Women tightened fur-lined cloaks about their shoulders as they sipped steaming drinks and watched the gondolas glide by. It was warm in Federico’s bed. She lay nude in his pressed linen sheets. She could stay all morning like this.
“Are you awake?”
Violetta startled at Federico’s voice. His warm hand glided over her hip, and his fingertips traced a circle around her navel. She smiled.
“I thought you’d left,” she said.
In the three months she had spent waking up in Federico’s bed, she always rolled over to find him gone, breakfast waiting for her on a silver tray. He would be out most of the day, at the Doge’s Palace if the Great Council was voting, or at the casino.
In her first days at his palazzo, Federico brought back word that the governanti of the Incurables was searching for their missing lead soprano. She expected this, and yet it unnerved her to hear it confirmed. But Federico knew both spies employed in the search. He could keep them at a distance. For now, he assured her, as long as she took no risks outside, she was safe.
“I’m sorry it has to be this way,” he’d said. “It’s not forever.”
But Violetta agreed with his caution. The last thing she wanted was to be caught, returned to the Incurables, and banned forever from the coro and all singing. She did not wish to leave Federico, and she wanted to go on as La Sirena. She had spent most of her life sequestered at the Incurables, so to be confined to this palazzo was an improvement. It was really only Laura that she missed.
Federico’s staff was smaller than she expected, and upon her arrival he’d relieved any nonessential servants. They were down to Fortunato and the cook, both trusted friends, so Violetta could go about his house and his garden without her mask, as long as the gate was locked.
It was the first time in her life that she had known leisure. She spent hours before the fire with a Montesquieu novel and a chilled glass of acqaioli. She finally taught herself how to braid her own hair, though not as tidily as Laura used to do it. She missed her friend most in the late mornings before Federico returned for dinner. She longed for their conversations and easy laughter. With Federico, meals were quiet and pleasant, the two of them sitting close at his enormous table, facing the water, watching the boats, eating polenta and oranges on painted china.
On Tuesdays, and now on Thursdays and Saturdays, she met him at the casino after sundown to perform. And they always came together in his bed at the end of the night.
The first time they’d made love, a week into her stay, she had visited him in his room as he undressed. His fingers had been loosening his silk cravat. He’d looked up at her in his doorway, in her nightgown, and watched as she drew it over her head, let it fall to her feet. He stood still as she approached him. She was trembling with nerves and desire, but as soon as she pressed herself firmly against him, his arms came around her. He’d whispered her name. She closed her eyes at the bliss of his hands on her skin.
“Now do you believe that I desire you?” she’d asked, her lips brushing his ear.
She’d been terrified that he’d push her away again with another mysterious excuse. But her naked body finally won her what she wanted. Federico kissed her with a passion she was thrilled to match. He lifted her up and carried her to the bed. Laying her down, he kissed her, touching her breasts, her ribs, her thighs. They had kissed until she could bear the wait no longer. He had taken out a skin, the first condom Violetta had ever seen, from a wooden box in his armoire. Every night since then they had made love for hours in his bed.
Now she rolled over and arched her body to his, wrapping her arms around his neck, kissing him deeply, feeling that stir inside.
Federico fingered a strand of her hair, tucking it behind her ear. “You were uneasy in your sleep. I wanted to stay to make sure you were all right.”
Violetta was surprised. She remembered no unsettling dreams the night before. She was moved by his concern, but it troubled her to think of him seeing her trapped in a nightmare. The wheel was the only bad dream she had, and it seemed odd that she would have dreamed of it now. Thoughts of Mino had receded since she’d been at Federico’s palazzo, in Federico’s arms.
Sometimes she thought of Mino, with his wife and child, but her imaginings of his life had grown less painful. She could fantasize about their paths crossing one day, about recognizing him in his child. She wondered what Mino would see in her new life. For years he had listened to her dream of the horizon. Would he believe her if she tried to tell him that what she had in this palazzo was enough? In her mind, she and Mino argued hotly, and she could never make him see.
Do you love him? he would ask.
Of course.
Does he love you?
The truth of Federico’s heart was something she wondered about all the time. When they lay in bed on the brink of sleep, she felt an increasing urge to tell Federico that she loved him. More than anything, she wanted to know whether he would say it back.
“I’m fine,” she assured him, nuzzling closer.
He kissed her. “Good.”
“Can you stay?” She ran her nails over the muscles of his chest. Unclothed he was trim, but very strong. He felt firm beneath her fingers.
“I wis
h I could,” he said, though he made no move to rise from bed. “We vote at the Doge’s Palace in half an hour.”
“Well, then,” Violetta said, sitting up and bringing one leg over to straddle him. “We’d better be quick.”
As she sat astride his body, she felt a slight weight at her neck. She reached up and touched the stolen black opal, its gold chain fastened once again about her. Had Federico put it on her in her sleep?
He was watching her closely.
“You got it back,” she said, astonished.
“It took some time. And effort. But when I saw how it upset you to lose it, I couldn’t stand it. Are you pleased?”
In truth, Violetta had not thought of the necklace in some time. Her feelings were not of loss but of guilt at having been careless with something valuable to him. She thought the stone was beautiful, but she’d never really felt that it was hers.
From the way Federico was looking at her, she sensed it mattered to him. She wondered whether he had lingered in bed this morning in part to see her reaction upon its return.
“Of course I’m pleased,” she said. “Thank you. But how—”
“Don’t worry about how. I would do anything for you.”
He kissed her then and drew her close. They made love in a frenzy, so different from their usual leisureliness. As Violetta shuddered over him and called his name, a memory of that man, that night, came to her. The shocking titillation of the stranger’s hand under her skirt. He was a thief, and had been brutal with her, but she couldn’t help wondering what fate he had met over this necklace. It gave her a heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Afterward, Federico dressed for the Great Council in the long, gathered gown all noblemen wore on official business. She liked being awake to watch him dress, the careful way he tied the ribbons of his garters at his knees. She’d never seen him do that before. His quiet focus charmed her. She stayed unclothed, moving naked toward the mirror on the wall across from his bed. It was huge and extravagantly framed with blown black glass from the island of Murano.
