Chapter 5 - “And sometimes when you’re kind to me now, I get angry because I keep wondering why you couldn’t have done it before.”
He looked toward the floor.
“I wonder the same thing.”
I wiped at my cheek angrily.
“I hate that I can see you becoming the man I needed after I stopped being your wife.”
His eyes lifted.
“You’re still my wife.”
“On paper.”
“Yes.”
“Not in here.”
I touched my chest.
Dante looked as if I had struck him again.
But he nodded.
“No.”
I expected him to leave.
Instead, he finished washing the dishes.
Then he dried them.
Then he quietly took out the trash.
At the door, he turned toward me.
“I’m not going to ask you to forgive me tonight.”
“Good.”
“I’m not going to ask tomorrow either.”
I waited.
He looked toward the room where the cribs stood.
“I’m going to keep showing up.”
“For them?”
His gaze returned to mine.
“For all three of you.”
Then he left.
And for the first time, I understood the real danger.
It wasn’t Dante refusing to let me go.
It was Dante learning how.
At twenty-nine weeks, I woke before sunrise with a sharp pain low in my abdomen.
I sat upright.
The room was dark.
My heart raced.
The pain eased.
“Okay.”
I placed both hands over my stomach.
“Everybody calm down.”
A minute later, it came again.
Stronger.
Fear moved through me.
Twin pregnancies came with warnings.
My doctor had explained them carefully.
Rest.
Hydration.
Call if anything felt wrong.
I reached for my phone.
My first instinct was my mother.
My second was Dante.
I hated how quickly the second came.
I called the doctor.
She told me to come in immediately.
Then I called my mother.
No answer.
I remembered she had driven to visit my aunt the night before.
My finger hovered over Dante’s name.
Another pain tightened across my abdomen.
I pressed call.
He answered before the first full ring.
“Lena?”
“I need you.”
Silence.
Then movement.
“What happened?”
“I’m having pain.”
His voice changed instantly.
“How bad?”
“Enough that the doctor wants me at the hospital.”
“I’m coming.”
The line disconnected.
I was still putting on shoes when pounding sounded at my door.
I stared toward it.
That was impossible.
I opened it.
Dante stood there.
“What are you doing here?”
He looked almost guilty.
“I was nearby.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“At five in the morning?”
Another pain stopped the conversation.
Dante caught me before my knees weakened.
His face went white.
“Hospital.”
“I can walk.”
“I don’t care.”
Before I could argue, he lifted me.
“Dante.”
“No.”
“You cannot carry a pregnant woman through an apartment hallway at five in the morning.”
“I’m doing it.”
Despite the pain, I almost laughed.
A car waited outside.
Of course.
During the drive, Dante held my hand.
He called no one.
Issued no orders.
Asked me every thirty seconds whether the pain had changed.
At the hospital, doctors examined me.
Dante waited outside until I told the nurse he could enter.
The babies were fine.
The words released something inside both of us.
I cried.
Dante turned his face away and pressed one fist against his mouth.
The contractions were real but stopped with treatment and rest.
My doctor warned me that I needed to slow down.
I nodded through the entire lecture.
When she left, Dante stood beside the window.
His back was toward me.
“You were outside my building.”
It wasn’t a question.
His shoulders tightened.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He turned around.
“I sometimes park nearby.”
My eyes widened.
“That is incredibly creepy.”
“I know.”
“How often?”
He hesitated.
“Dante.”
“A few nights a week.”
I stared at him.
He lifted both hands.
“I don’t enter.”
“That does not make it normal.”
“I don’t watch your windows.”
“Better and better.”
“I sit in the car.”
“Why?”
For the first time since I had known him, Dante looked embarrassed.
“I sleep better when I know you’re safe.”
My anger weakened.
I didn’t want it to.
“That is not healthy.”
“No.”
“You can’t keep doing that.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying you know.”
“I’m learning many things about myself lately.”
Despite everything, I laughed.
Dante stared at me.
Then he smiled.
The smile faded quickly.
“When you called me this morning…”
His voice changed.
I waited.
“I thought I was going to lose them.”
His eyes dropped.
“And you.”
“You’re not going to lose us because of one scare.”
He said nothing.
I realized immediately what I had said.
Us.
Dante heard it too.
I looked away.
A chair scraped against the floor.
He sat beside my bed.
“I lost you the night in my office.”
I swallowed.
He continued.
“I understand that.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
His eyes held mine.
“And if you never come back to me, I will still spend the rest of my life being sorry for it.”
My chest tightened.
“But I need to tell you something.”
“What?”
“I was miserable before Sofia.”
I stiffened.
Dante shook his head.
“Not because of you.”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
“Because I had built a life where every person around me needed something.”
I watched him.
“Money.”
“Protection.”
“Permission.”
“Answers.”
His eyes darkened.
“And then I would come home to you.”
His voice softened.
“You didn’t need Dante Moretti.”
“You needed your husband.”
My throat tightened.
“That should have been easier.”
“It should have.”
“But somehow it frightened me more.”
“Why?”
“Because every other problem had a solution.”
He looked toward my stomach.
“I could buy something.”
“Threaten something.”
“Negotiate.”
“Fight.”
His mouth twisted.
“But you needed me to sit down and tell you I was scared.”
I had never heard Dante use that word about himself.
“I didn’t know how.”
“So you shut me out.”
“Yes.”
“And let Sofia in.”
His face tightened.
“Yes.”
I stared at the blanket.
“That still doesn’t excuse it.”
“No.”
“Nothing does.”
“I’m not asking for an excuse.”
I looked at him.
Dante took a breath.
“I’m trying to understand what I broke so I never break it again.”
Something about those words stayed with me.
Not fix.
Not erase.
Understand.
We went home that afternoon.
The doctor ordered bed rest for several days.
Dante turned my apartment into a command center within six hours.
I objected to almost everything.
He ignored half my objections and negotiated the rest.
Food arrived.
A cleaner appeared only after I approved her.
My mother returned and took over immediately.
Dante slept on my couch the first night because he insisted someone should be close in case the contractions returned.
“You own approximately half of Chicago,” I told him.
“And you’re sleeping on a couch that cost four hundred dollars.”
He looked at the couch.
“I’ve slept in worse places.”
“I don’t want to know.”
“You definitely don’t.”
I threw a pillow at him.
He caught it.
For a second, we looked at each other.
Then I laughed.
Dante laughed too.
It felt wrong.
It felt wonderful.
That combination terrified me.
Over the next month, he became part of the rhythm of my life again.
Carefully.
No demands.
No assumptions.
He brought breakfast.
He assembled the second changing table after refusing to admit he had installed the first one backward.
He read books about twins.
I discovered this when I found three pregnancy guides inside his briefcase.
“You’re reading baby books?”
He looked offended.
“I read.”
“Not books with cartoon giraffes on the cover.”
“I need information.”
I smiled.
“The terrifying Dante Moretti defeated by giraffes.”
“Tell anyone and I’ll deny it.”
There he was.
The man I had missed.
But now something was different.
He stayed.
That mattered more than all the apologies.
The divorce hearing approached.
Neither of us mentioned it until one rainy Thursday evening.
Dante was sitting on the floor beside the two cribs, attempting to install a mobile.
I sat in the doorway.
“Our final papers are next week.”
His hands stopped.
“I know.”
“Are you going?”
“If you want me there.”
“I think we both have to be.”
He nodded.
Rain tapped against the window.
The room felt smaller.
“Do you still want it?”
He didn’t look at me when he asked.
I rested my hands over my stomach.
“I don’t know.”
Dante’s head lifted.
It was the first time I had ever seen hope frighten him.
I continued before he could speak.
“I wanted the divorce because I thought staying meant pretending what happened didn’t matter.”
“It matters.”
“I know.”
“And leaving felt like the only way to choose myself.”
“You should choose yourself.”
His answer made my eyes burn.
“Even if that means leaving you?”
His jaw tightened.
May you like
“Yes.”
I studied him.
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