The Ex-Wife He Lost Forever novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Nothing But Her Name

Adamo's lawyer has divorce papers and a clause that revives her father's debt; she signs and takes nothing, and Ettore burns the debt page in front of the family and tells her to come with him.

Ettore put his coat around her shoulders in the parking garage and did not say a word about it.

It still held the warmth of his body.

She stood in the back of his black car with her hospital socks on the floor mat and watched Philadelphia turn gray outside the window.

"Where do you want to go?" he asked.

"Home," she said. "To get my father's recipe book and my mother's photograph. Then I'll go."

"Go where?"

She had no answer to that.

He told the driver to take them to the Montanari house on Delancey Street.

At seven in the morning every light in the dining room was on.

Adamo sat at the long table with his tie crooked.

Simona sat beside him with her hand on his arm, her eyes red and her hair pinned up neatly.

Three old men of the family sat along the wall with coffee cups.

A man in a gray suit stood at the head of the table beside a stack of paper.

"Mrs. Montanari," he said. "I'm the family's attorney. I'm here as a courtesy to you."

"Cecilia," Adamo said. His voice cracked. "You didn't have to come back so soon. Sit down."

"I'll stand."

"Then at least let Simona get you some tea."

"Please, honey," Simona said, already rising. "You look so pale. Let me do something."

"No, thank you."

The attorney slid the first page across the table.

"This is a petition for dissolution. Mr. Montanari has been generous."

Cecilia looked at the date typed in the corner.

It was six weeks old.

"He had these drawn up before the baby came," she said.

Nobody spoke.

"You were going to leave me after I gave birth."

"Cece, that isn't," Adamo started.

"Is it six weeks old or isn't it?"

He looked at his hands.

"We wanted the child settled first," Simona said softly. "Adamo is not a cruel man. Please don't make this ugly."

Cecilia looked at the woman who had promised on the phone that he'd come straight to her.

Simona's eyes were wet and kind.

"Where do I sign?" Cecilia said.

"There's a settlement," the attorney said. "Fifty thousand dollars and a car."

"I don't want it."

"It's the family's gift for your trouble."

"I said I don't want it. Where do I sign?"

He pointed with a pen.

She signed. Then she stopped, because the line below her signature read Cecilia Montanari.

She crossed out the name.

She wrote Cecilia Fontana above it, in the same hand her father used to write on flour sacks.

"That's the name I came here with," she said. "I'm leaving with it."

One of the old men put his cup down.

"There's a second page," the attorney said, and his voice changed a little. "Clause nine."

She read it.

At her wedding the family had forgiven her dead father's debt of one hundred and eighty thousand dollars as a gift to the bride.

Clause nine said the gift ended with the marriage.

The debt returned to her name, due the first of next month.

Adamo stared at the table.

"It's only legal language," he said. "Nobody will actually collect, Cece."

"You had that put in."

"The lawyer put it in."

"You had it put in!" she said. "My baby died eight hours ago and you've got me for a hundred and eighty thousand dollars."

"If you stay," Simona said gently, "none of this has to happen. Everyone is hurting. Maybe just give it some time."

It was kindly said, and it was the cruelest sentence of the morning.

Cecilia picked up the pen.

"I'll sign it."

"You'll pay it?" the attorney said, surprised. "You can't."

"I'll work. I bake. I'll pay it a little at a time until I'm eighty, if that's what he wants."

Behind her, a chair scraped.

Ettore had not spoken since they came in.

He walked to the head of the table, picked up the second page, and read clause nine from top to bottom.

Then he crossed the room to the fireplace, where a low fire was burning, and held the page over it.

The paper curled and went black.

"Ettore," one of the old men said, getting to his feet. "You have never forgiven a debt twice."

"Then write that I did."

"Brother, she's leaving us," Adamo said. "She owes."

"She's leaving you."

Ettore dropped the ashes into the grate.

"A debt is paid or it is not," he said, to the whole room. "This one is paid. If anyone in this family ever says her father's name in connection with money again, he will answer to me."

Nobody moved.

Simona's hand slid off Adamo's arm.

Adamo looked at his brother.

Cecilia went upstairs without asking anyone's leave.

She took her mother's photograph from the dresser and her father's recipe book from under the bed, the one with butter stains on every page.

She left the wedding dress in the closet and the diamond earrings on the pillow.

When she came down, she carried two things and wore a coat that wasn't hers.

Ettore waited by the door.

"You can't sleep in your car," he said. "It's in a tow yard on the Schuylkill, and you have nowhere else."

"I'll find a room."

"Cecilia."

It was the first time he had ever said her name.

Behind him, Adamo went white.

"Come with me," Ettore said.

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