Chapter 9: Thirty Days

On Saturday night, nine days after the bridge, Cecilia knocked on the study door at midnight.

For five days Ettore had kept the terms to the letter.

He passed her the salt without brushing her fingers.

He sat at the far end of the table and looked at his plate.

Every night she lay awake and listened to his footsteps pass her door and stop and go on.

"Come in," he said.

He sat behind the desk in his shirtsleeves with the lamp on and a ledger open in front of him.

He closed it when he saw her.

She wore Zia's old quilted robe over a cotton slip, and her feet were bare.

"The doctor said I'm healing well," she said.

"I'm glad."

"She said fourteen days, before anything else."

His pen stopped.

"Anything else?"

"Before I'm allowed to be touched the way I want to be."

She hadn't known she would say it until she did.

The lamp hummed.

"Cecilia," he said, very carefully, "it's day nine of thirty."

"I set the terms."

"You did."

"I'm taking them back. I told you in the car."

"I remember." His voice was low and rough. "You told me you were angry, and I wanted you to be sure."

"I'm sure."

She crossed the room and stopped in front of his chair.

He didn't touch her.

He looked up at her, and every muscle in his shoulders was locked.

"Is that kindness?" she said. "Are you being kind to the poor woman who lost her baby?"

"No."

"Then touch me."

He stood, slowly.

He cupped her face in both hands.

Then he kissed her, and it was nothing like the car.

It was slow and deep.

His thumb stroked her cheekbone and his mouth took hers apart, one patient pull at a time, until her knees went weak and she grabbed his shirt.

He lifted her by the waist and set her on the edge of the desk.

The ledger slid to the floor.

Neither of them looked at it.

His mouth moved down her throat.

He pushed the robe off her shoulders, and the slip's strap slid after it, and his lips found the bare curve of her breast.

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