Your Love Broke My Legs novel · Chapter 1 of 20
Chapter 1: The Little Pouch
On the day I turned five years married to the Don of Callao, I woke up with my head splitting in two.
It always happened when I had the amulet near me.
Vittorio had put it around my neck on our wedding day, a little blue cloth pouch with an anchor embroidered in gold thread.
"So nothing happens to you," he said then, kissing my forehead. "Never take it off."
Five years later, I still wore it under my blouse.
That morning, with the October light coming through the bedroom curtains, I felt it weigh like a stone.
Vittorio was already gone.
On the pillow there was a note in his tight handwriting: "Dinner at nine. Wear the green one."
It didn't say happy anniversary.
It never did.
I took off the amulet for the first time in five years, and my head hurt less almost immediately.
It was such a clear sensation that I sat on the bed with the pouch in my hand.
I opened it with my fingernails.
Inside there was a dry paste, greenish-brown, mixed with ground leaves.
It smelled like earth and something sweet, like rotting flowers.
I had never seen it.
My mother-in-law told me every October that it was the family blessing, and I had never asked.
I put the paste into an empty cream jar, put on a simple dress, and left without telling anyone.
I told the driver I was going to the Clínica Ferrante to see a friend.
The clinic is the largest hospital in Callao.
It belongs to my husband, and his name is written in chrome letters on the facade.
On the analysis floor, a young doctor in a white coat examined the jar under a lamp.
Then he took it to the lab, and I waited fifteen minutes staring at a wall of tiles.
When he came back, his face had changed color.
"Miss," he said, without looking me in the eye. "Where did you get this?"
"It's from a protection amulet."
"It's a slow-acting poison."
He said it plainly, quietly.
"A mix of heavy metals with a plant alkaloid. It's absorbed through the skin and sweat, over years."
I felt the floor move.
"What does it do?"
"First headaches. Then fatigue, nausea, tremors." He touched the edge of his coat. "And over time, it damages the ovaries. The person can no longer have children."
My hand went to my belly on its own.
Five years trying for a pregnancy that never came.
Five years of doctors saying everything was fine.
Five years of my mother-in-law's glances at my waist, every Christmas.
"No," I said, and my eyes filled with tears. "It can't be. My husband gave it to me."
The doctor finally looked at me.
"Your husband?"
"Vittorio Ferrante. He owns this hospital."
He fell silent.
Then he pulled out his cell phone from his pocket with a strange slowness, like someone afraid to hold evidence.
"Miss, I think you should see a psychiatrist."
"What?"
"I know Mr. Ferrante and his wife." He lowered his voice. "They're a very close couple. Besides, Mrs. Ferrante just gave birth to a baby boy. They're in the VIP area, with their baby."
"I am Mrs. Ferrante."
"No, miss."
He showed me a photo on the screen.
It was a white room, with blue balloons and flowers on a small table.
Vittorio was standing there, in his black suit with the embroidered anchor on his lapel.
He was holding a newborn in his arms with the same tenderness with which, in five years, he had never touched me.
And beside him, sitting on the bed in a silk robe, was a woman.
Blonde, elegant, with green eyes.
I knew her.
Her name was Giovanna.
And Vittorio had always said she was just his adoptive sister.
I gave him back his cell phone without saying anything.
The doctor murmured that he was sorry.
I took the jar and put it in my purse.
I didn't cry.
I couldn't.
I went out into the hallway, got in the elevator, and pressed the button for the sixth floor, the one that said VIP.
I wanted to see it with my own eyes.
When the doors opened, the corridor was silent and smelled of roses.
At the end there was a door with a glass window.
I walked up slowly.
Through the glass I saw the three of them.
Vittorio leaning over the bed, his hand on the back of Giovanna's neck, giving her a kiss I had never received.
And the baby in the crib, with gray-green eyes, wide open.
My husband's eyes.
I stepped back.
My heel echoed against the marble.
Vittorio lifted his head.
He saw me through the glass.
I waited for panic.
I waited for him to go pale, to run to the door, to explain something to me.
But he looked at me for a long second, calmly.
And he smiled at me.
That smile was what chilled me the most.
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