The Last Time You Chose Her novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Wife and Guest

The visiting room at the county jail had a steel table bolted to the floor and a window the size of a book.

Irene sat on the far side in an orange jumpsuit, with her hair scraped back.

Without curls or pearls, she had a small, sharp face I did not recognise.

"You came," she said.

"You asked."

"I've got a lawyer. A good one. She says there's a version where I walk."

"There isn't."

"There's a version where you stand up and say I wasn't myself." She leaned forward, and her eyes were bright and hard. "Say it was shock and grief and a bad drug. Tell them I was a girl who lost her mind. I'll never say a word about what's in the family's books."

"I kept the books," I said. "I know what you know."

"Mamma will visit me every week. You can't change that."

"I don't want to."

That stopped her.

"She's yours," I said. "She was always yours. I'm not taking anything from you, Irene. I stopped waiting for it."

"Marta..."

"Goodbye."

She was still talking when the guard opened the door.

I did not turn around.

We were married eleven days later, in Fausta's back garden, under a pergola she had hung with her late husband's tomato twine.

Ugo gave a short speech and cried through it.

An old priest from the neighbourhood did the rest, in the time it takes to boil an egg.

My mother was not there.

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