Page 283 of Mario

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I reach for my wine, then stop before I touch it.

“I should have spoken to you about it.”

Neither of them pretends not to know what that costs me to say.

“Yes,” Matteo says.

Tomasso nods once. “You should have.”

I look between them.

“I thought I was protecting you.”

“We know,” Matteo says.

“That was part of the problem,” Tomasso adds.

I let out a quiet breath.

Fair.

Cruel, but fair.

Anna would have liked that too.

“You were seventeen,” I say.

“We were her sons,” Matteo replies.

I nod slowly.

Yes.

They were.

They are.

“And yours,” Tomasso says.

I look at him.

His face holds a rare seriousness now.

“You didn’t have to disappear into being our father so completely that you stopped letting us see you were her husband.”

I have nothing ready for them.

No answer. No defense. No order to give.

For once, I let that be.

“I did not know how to lose her in front of you,” I say finally.

Matteo’s expression shifts.

Tomasso looks down.

“We didn’t know how to lose her in front of you either,” he says.

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