Page 66 of Promised to the Don of Naples
"I see."
"He's back Friday."
She set down the cup but didn't leave, standing there with both hands folded over her apron.
"Signorina. May I say something?"
"You may."
She looked at the door and made sure it was closed.
"In thirty-two years in this house, the Don has left for Rome unannounced only three times. Once when his father died, once when his mother died, and this one."
"Donna Beatrice. You help me so much."
"I serve, signorina. I don't help."
"You do help."
She sort of smiled for the first time in three weeks. It was a small gesture, but it was a real smile.
"Enjoy your coffee, signorina."
She left.
I held the cup with both hands and looked out the window. The bay was in the same place, Vesuvius too. But the house was different—empty in a way that only a specific absence explains.
And it was in that moment, a hand's breadth from the black coffee, with the sun coming through the windowpane, that I admitted to myself: I missed him.
It wasn't hatred. It wasn't confusion. It was longing.
I, Valentina Rossi, twenty-three years old, daughter of Salvatore Rossi, raised in a convent, had been missing a man for exactly five hours.
The Madre Superiora would have said it was a sin. Francesca would have said it was progress.
I didn't decide which of the two was right.
I went down to the cellar at two in the afternoon.
The soldier was a different one today, older, more tired. He recognized me before I spoke.
"Signorina. Don Acquaviva asked you not to come down."
"Don Luca didn't ask," I said slowly. "Don Acquaviva did. That's not the same thing in this house. Are we clear?"
He looked at me for three seconds, and then he opened the door.
"Fifteen minutes, signorina."
"Grazie."
I went down.
The south cellar wasn't what I'd imagined.
It wasn't dark, much less damp. It was a large room, with a stone floor, white walls, a folding bed with a clean sheet,a small desk, an armchair, a full bathroom in the corner. There was even a window—just one, high, barred—but there was light.
Matteo was reading in the armchair, and he stood up when he saw me.
