Don's Regret Came Too Late novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: The Donor Line
Silvia posts a clinic letter naming Vittorio as her baby's donor, he calls his pregnant wife a fishwife, and Noemi drops her ring in the widow's soup in front of the family, then spots a bottle on the counter with her father's label dated two months before his 'one favor.'
My husband's dead brother's widow posted her pregnancy results on Instagram at seven o'clock on a Saturday night.
It was a letter from a fertility clinic, folded so the logo showed.
RESULT: POSITIVE, in a green box.
Under it was a line marked DONOR.
Vittorio Corsetti.
My husband.
The caption said, "Some men send flowers. Mine sent me a family. Thank you, V."
I was behind the counter of my father's pharmacy in my white coat.
I typed one question mark under the post and went back to counting pills.
A moment later my phone rang.
"Noemi." Vittorio's voice was low and cold. "Delete it."
"Delete a question mark?"
"Silvia has been alone for three years. She wants a child. Is that a crime now?"
"You could have asked me first."
"Emilio took a bullet that was meant for me. Whatever his wife needs, she gets. That's blood. You don't get a vote."
He hung up.
My father looked at me over his glasses from the register.
I smiled at him.
Twenty minutes later, Silvia posted again.
A kitchen with windows from the floor to the ceiling, and the Manhattan skyline lit up behind the glass.
A man at the stove with his sleeves rolled to the elbow.
"Finally home," the caption said.
I knew that apartment. The Corsetti family owned the whole building on the water.
I knew the back of that man's neck.
I'd kissed it that morning.
I took a folded paper out of my coat pocket and smoothed it flat on the counter.
My own blood test, from Tuesday.
Eight weeks.
Five years of shots and charts and crying in the shower, and it had finally happened.
Our fifth anniversary was Friday. I'd already bought a tiny Yankees cap for his gift box.
I opened the clinic's website on my phone and booked the first appointment on Monday morning.
Then I filled the last prescription of the night.
Vittorio came home to our townhouse at eleven.
He carried a paper bag from the place on Smith Street I liked.
He also carried somebody's perfume. Something sweet.
"I brought you the lobster bisque," he said.
His voice was soft now. Guilty soft.
"Eat it while it's hot."
I looked in the bag.
The lid was greasy, and the soup under it had gone gray and cold, with a skin on top.
Somebody's leftovers.
He reached for my shoulders.
I stepped out of his reach.
"I'm not hungry."
His jaw tightened. He poured the soup into a bowl anyway and set it in front of me.
The cold fishy smell hit me, and my stomach turned over.
I ran for the bathroom and dropped to my knees in front of the toilet.
He followed me in and put his hand on my back.
I knocked it away.
"Don't touch me."
His brown eyes went flat.
Two years ago his father died and the family started calling him Don.
Since then he'd looked at everyone this way.
"What do you want, Noemi? You want me on my knees?"
"What am I supposed to do? Send her a fruit basket? Congratulations on my husband's baby?"
He yanked his tie loose.
"It was one favor. In May. One cup in one clinic. I never touched her. Stop making it dirty."
He looked at me like I was the dirty one.
"Look at you. On the bathroom floor, screaming like a fishwife."
After Emilio died, I was the one who said we should check on Silvia.
I was the one who fixed her leaking sink while Vittorio held the flashlight.
Then he started going without me.
Her groceries. Her furniture. Her calls at two in the morning.
Every time I asked, he gave the same excuse.
"She's Emilio's widow."
"Think about what you're doing to this family."
The front door slammed so hard the hall mirror rattled.
I didn't have to guess where he went.
Ten minutes later Silvia posted a new photo.
Vittorio's hand on her stomach, over cream silk, in low candlelight.
"Daddy came back for dessert. The whole family is here tonight."
Under the silk, her stomach was round.
I was a pharmacist. Seven weeks doesn't show.
I laughed, alone in my own kitchen.
I poured the cold bisque back into its greasy container and snapped the lid on.
I called a cab.
Davide Spada opened the apartment door with a glass of wine in his hand.
He was Vittorio's underboss and Emilio's oldest friend, and he smiled at everyone.
He smiled at me too.
"Noemi. We didn't think you'd come."
The table was still set for dessert.
Vittorio's mother sat at one end, stiff as a church pew.
Two captains and their wives sat along the windows with the skyline behind them.
Silvia sat at the head, one hand on her stomach.
Vittorio was beside her, and he stood up so fast his chair scraped.
"Noemi. Not here."
I walked to the middle of the table and set the container down between the cannoli.
"You forgot the leftovers."
Nobody moved.
I twisted my wedding ring off my finger.
I opened the lid and dropped the ring into the cold soup.
"And this. I'm done."
One of the captains' wives covered her mouth.
Silvia tilted her head at me, sweet as a nun.
"Oh, honey. Don't be bitter. Not every woman gets to have one."
Vittorio's face went dark red.
"Pick up the ring, Noemi."
"Fish it out yourself."
I walked out through the kitchen.
That was when I saw the bag on the counter.
PELLEGRINO PHARMACY, COURT STREET.
My father's pharmacy. My counter.
Inside was one amber bottle.
Progesterone, 200 milligrams, for S. Corsetti.
Pregnancy support.
I turned the label to the light.
Filled March 4.
Vittorio's one favor was in May.
Somebody had been keeping Silvia pregnant since March.
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