Dante stared at me, completely frozen. The myriad of emotions in his eyes was impossible to read, and I was too tired to bother. I walked past him and he didn’t try to stop me. He didn’t move at all. “I’ll move into the guest bedroom. There isn’t enough room in our bedroom for me and the memories of your past. If you ever decide you want to give this marriage a chance, then you can come to me and apologize for what you said. Until then, I’m done with us.”

I hurried up the staircase. Dante didn’t try to follow me. The guest bedrooms were always prepared for guests. I slipped into the first, glad when the door shut behind me. I crept into bed. Maybe I’d sealed the fate of my marriage today, but I couldn’t go back to how things had been. I’d rather have a clean cut. Of course I couldn’t divorce Dante and he would never allow it, not that I wanted to, but we could lead completely separate lives despite being married. Many couples in our world did it. We’d go about our days like before, sleep in separate beds and play the married couple in public. We’d have to raise our children together, but most men took a backseat in these matters anyway. Eventually Dante would start frequenting Club Palermo or find a mistress like so many Made Men did, and I would focus all of my energy on taking care of our children. Many women had it worse, and yet the idea that I’d just painted my future made me sick, but I couldn’t pretend Dante hadn’t said those horrible things to me.

It was out of my hands now. Dante had to decide if he wanted to live in the past or move on into a future with me.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Dante didn’t apologize. Not the day after our fight, and not in the weeks after it. Maybe it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. I went to my ten-week check-up to the gynecologist with Bibi. I didn’t even tell Dante about it. If he wanted to ignore the fact that I was pregnant, that was his problem.

One week after the appointment, Dante’s sister Ines and her husband Pietro came to visit us. I had only seen Ines twice since the wedding as she’d given birth to her third child four weeks ago. Zita had made dinner as I was too tired most of the time.

“Can I hold her?” I asked, when Ines lifted her daughter out of the car seat. She searched my face, then handed the baby to me, who had little spittle bubbles in front of her lips and looked too adorable for words. The twins were bickering in the background but I couldn’t take my eyes of the squishy girl in my arm. I carried her into the living room, cooing to her. When I glanced up, Dante was watching me with something close to warmth in his eyes. I lowered my gaze immediately. Later after dinner, Ines and I went into the library to talk while the men and the twins stayed in the living room. Ines began nursing her daughter, then fixed me with a knowing look. “You are pregnant, aren’t you?”

“How did you know? We didn’t tell anybody yet.” Not that I didn’t want to but it was Dante’s decision if he wanted to make it public.

“You didn’t drink any wine during dinner and you kept touching your stomach.”

I flushed. “I wasn’t aware it was that obvious.”

“Probably not to a man. You aren’t showing yet.”

“Please don’t tell your parents about it. I don’t think Dante wants people to know.”

Ines shifted her daughter because she was too fussy to latch on properly. “Why not?” It strange to think that this would be me in less than a year.

I shrugged.

“Are you two having problems? Isn’t he happy that you’re pregnant?”

“I think he needs time to get used to the idea.”

“He did something stupid, didn’t he? He’s my brother. I know he can be stubborn.”

“Stubborn doesn’t even begin to describe it. Has he ever apologized to you when he did something wrong?”

Ines laughed. “No. Sometimes I think he can’t speak the actual words. Most of the time he tries to ignore the problem until I give up and don’t expect an apology from him anymore.”

That sounded familiar.

“The anniversary of Carla’s death is in one week.”

“Oh,” I said, freezing. I’d completely forgotten about that.

“I just thought you should know. Dante is always in a particularly bad mood on that day. Maybe you should try to avoid him.”

That wouldn’t be a problem.

***

My morning sickness had finally stopped and physically I felt perfect. When I left the guest bedroom on June 1st, the day of Carla’s death, I expected Dante to be either out of the house or hidden away in his office. I jerked to a halt when I found the door to the room where he kept Carla’s old things ajar. I could hear rummaging. Was he in there looking at old photos of them together? I remembered what Ines had said. That I should leave Dante alone, but it had been more than five weeks since I’d moved out of our bedroom. I missed our moments of intimacy. Yet pride rooted me to the spot. The door opened and Dante stood in the doorway, carrying a moving box.

I smiled apologetically. “Sorry. I didn’t meant to…” I trailed off, not sure what to say to him.

My eyes darted to the moving box. “What are you doing?”

“I’m moving these boxes out of the house.”

“All of them?”

He nodded. “Enzo and Taft are going to dismantle the furniture later and throw it away.”

I swallowed. “Why?”

“We can put the room to better use. It would make a good nursery.”

A lump rose into my throat. “That’s true. But we don’t have furniture for a nursery yet.”

Dante cleared his throat. “You could go shopping in the next few weeks.”

“Alone?”

“I could come with you.”

I nodded. “If that’s what you want.”

He didn’t say anything. Why couldn’t he make this easier on the both of us? Did he think I’d fall on my knees from relief? He hadn’t even apologized. This was the first time he acknowledged that we were going to be parents, and only indirectly. He hadn’t even admitted that he was the father of my child.

“Do you need my help carrying boxes?” I nodded toward the boxes piled behind him in the room.

“No. You shouldn’t carry anything heavy.”

“I’m not that far along.” Again silence and an expression I couldn’t read. I turned around, ready to go downstairs and have breakfast. “I want you to move back into our bedroom, Val.”

I stopped. It was a request worded like an order. He hadn’t apologized. Despite all that, I heard myself saying, “Okay.”

That evening I returned to our bedroom and when Dante’s hands started rubbing my back and butt, and he whispered ‘I want you’, I nodded and relaxed under his touch.

***

A few days later, after I’d left Bibi’s house, I let Enzo drive me to the pharmacy for something against my nausea that had flared up again in the last couple of days. As usual Enzo stayed in the car to give me privacy. Bibi had also asked me for a pregnancy test because she suspected she was pregnant but she didn’t want Tommaso to find out; he’d only get furious when her suspicions didn’t prove right. That man didn’t deserve her. I strolled toward the aisle with the pregnancy tests.