Page 235 of Mario
Italian or paywalled. Fragmented and old.
Names repeated in articles with too many branches of the same family tree and not enough context. Business filings in Naples.Photos from charity events. Brief references to Francis Conti, to old companies, to shipping, construction, hospitality, security.
And then there are the things not said.
The gaps. The careful omissions.
Those are the things bothering me now.
This morning, when Mario told me I was the first woman he had brought home, something in me had gone embarrassingly soft.
I had liked it.
Too much.
I had liked knowing that the house had not been some revolving door of women. That he had not brought me into a place where countless others had stood in his bedroom, his closet, his garden. I had liked feeling chosen, even though that is a dangerous word and I should know better than to let it anywhere near a man like him.
Then the other part of my brain caught up.
The suspicious part.
The part that hears an absence and askswhy.
He had a wife. His sons had a mother.
Anna.
And she died about ten years ago, from what I can piece together.
That is all I know.
Literally. That’s it.
Not how or why.
Nothing that’s happened since.
And I hate not knowing.
So now I am here, sitting at my kitchen table, using browser translation on Italian articles that still barely make sense.
I skim through another one.
Nothing.
Another.
A photo of Mario at some event years ago, younger but still unmistakably him. Black hair, no silver yet. Dark suit. Severe expression. A woman beside him with pale blond hair swept back from her face.
Anna, the caption says.
My stomach tightens.
She was beautiful.
I do not know why that surprises me.
Of course she was beautiful.
