Chapter 2
The weeks accumulated like leaves at the rear of the garden, unswept and unnoticed until the entire layer became impossible to ignore.
By the time I recognized how much had changed, it was the 2nd Friday in April. The calendar on the desk showed that almost 1 month had passed since the church.
I knew where Luciano’s morning cup was stored.
I knew he drank coffee black and without sugar, except after a bad night, when he added 1 small spoonful of honey.
I knew that when his shoulder became tense, he rotated the ring on his finger twice with his thumb before speaking.
The details were useless, but I collected them like someone preserving keys for a door she had not yet found.
One morning, I awoke with a heavy head after a dream I could not remember.
When I entered the kitchen, the coffee had already been made.
A cup stood on the counter, turned toward the place where I usually sat.
There was no note.
None was necessary.
Luciano emerged from the office only after hearing me stir the spoon.
“You slept badly,” he said.
He leaned against the doorframe, already dressed to leave.
“How do you know?”
“You came downstairs before 7:00.”
I looked at the clock above the stove.
It was 6:40.
He did not wait for an answer.
He took his overcoat from his arm, placed it over the hook in the corridor, and left through the garage entrance.
I stood with the cup between my hands for a length of time I could not measure.
During that same week, a folded blanket began appearing over the arm of the library chair.
I would fall asleep while reading.
I would awaken with the blanket across my lap.
No one commented.
It was never the same blanket 2 nights in succession.
On Friday, the house changed its breathing.
I noticed from the number of men in the corridors.
There were no longer 2 at the entrance and 1 on the staircase.
There were 4 at the entrance, 2 on the stairs, and 1 positioned near the library door while pretending to be there by accident.
Matteo passed me late that afternoon with the same expression he always wore, though without his customary trace of humor.
“Did something happen?” I asked.
“Nothing that requires your involvement, ma’am.”
“Matteo.”
He stopped and turned halfway toward me.
He considered his answer before releasing it.
“Reinforcement. That is all.”
It was not all, but I had no authority to force open the door.
I went upstairs, turned left in the 2nd-floor corridor, and stopped before the half-open office.
Luciano was inside with the consigliere, Tiziano Bernardi, an older family lawyer with a gentle voice and a teacup perpetually in hand.
Tiziano sat in the armchair opposite the desk.
Both men stopped speaking when they noticed me.
It was the kind of silence that did not fall accidentally.
Someone held it in place.
“May I?” I asked from the doorframe.
“Always,” Luciano said.
Tiziano rose with the tact of a man skilled at reading rooms.
“I was leaving.”
When the door closed behind him, only the smell of tea and the quiet clock on the shelf remained.
Luciano folded a piece of paper in half and placed it in the upper desk drawer.
“Who is causing trouble?” I asked.
He watched me 1 second longer than necessary.
“No one who will come near you.”
May you like
“That was not what I asked.”
“It is the only part that matters.”
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