Chapter 9: The Terms

Santo's POV

I do not remember crossing the lawn.

I remember the weight of the boy when she put him in my arms.

He looked at me and said, "Mamma says you're Papa."

I had to hand him back to her at once, because my knees were going.

"The ceremony is over," I said to the tent.

Two hundred people stared at me.

"Santo," Ottavio said, at my elbow. "The families came from three states. We can't just send them home."

"Send them home, Otto."

"At least let me say a word to them."

"Say it to them. I'm taking my wife into my house."

It was the first time in two years I had said the words, and they came out raw.

She walked beside me with the boy on her hip and did not look at me once.

In my study she put him down on the carpet.

He went straight to the desk and started pulling open drawers.

"Luca," she said. "Gently."

Luca.

I stood there and said it to myself.

"He's nearly two," Alessia said, with her back to me. "In November he'll be two. His birthday is the ninth."

"The ninth."

"You can sit down. You look like you're going to fall."

"I'd rather stand."

"Then stand," she said, and turned around.

She was thinner.

There were fine lines at the corners of her eyes that had not been there.

A burn scar crossed the back of one wrist.

Everything about her was exactly the same.

"Two years," I said.

"Yes."

"I buried a white coffin with nothing in it. I stood in front of the whole state and said your name."

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