“When did he die?” He watched her put down the puff. It was clear her appetite was gone. He groaned. “Don’t answer that.”
The surprise in her eyes seemed directed at her own reaction, not his words. “No, I-I want to tell you. He died when I was eleven.”
He gritted his teeth, hating to see her suffer echoes of the anguish the child she’d been must have felt. “You were old enough to be aware of all the problems going on around you then.”
She nodded. “I was.”
“It still haunts you.”
She put down her glass unsteadily. “It’s not fun remembering nothing of my father but a man buried under so much gloom and despair. I try to cling to memories of the man he was beneath all that, but they’re rare. During those times he was wonderful, which makes it all more painful, knowing how much of him was wasted. Remembering how angry I was at him doesn’t help, either. I’ve since realized that he couldn’t help his condition, but try to convince a kid of that. I blamed him for his moods, his inaccessibility. And later on, I blamed myself for that blame.”
Everything she said struck chords inside him. He’d suffered something very similar. “Where was your mother during all that?”
She started to eat again, an adorably determined look on her face. “Struggling to protect me from the torment festering within Dad as it spread out to engulf us, and to keep him from disintegrating while not succumbing herself under the burdens thrown on the so-called ‘healthy adult’ in this setup.”
“You have a good relationship with her.”
She swallowed her mouthful convulsively, her eyes tearing up. “I had the best relationship a girl could hope for with her mother. She died seven months ago.”
He ached to stop this, to spare her reliving her anguish. But he felt she’d refuse to abandon the subject. She more than wanted to tell him. It felt as if she needed to. He wanted to give her anything she needed. He asked quietly, “How?”
“Sh-she had rheumatoid arthritis. A severe condition. Then, during a regular checkup, she was diagnosed with stage-four pancreatic cancer. She was dead within two months.”
“You were with her when she passed away?”
She nodded. “She didn’t live here with me, because her condition deteriorated whenever she left the Mediterranean climate. I went to her every minute I could. When we knew there was no hope of remission, she wanted to live at home. I wanted to be the one to take care of her, so I moved into her villa. I’d taken paramedic courses and administered the palliative measures that were all that could be done until…until the end.”
“You had medical supervision during that time?”
She bit her lip, hard. “Her doctor was on call and two nurses came twice a day to check on my measures.”
“And they found everything to their satisfaction.”
“It was easy to get it right. There wasn’t much to be done.”
“Yet you’re still afraid you messed up those simple measures, didn’t give the mother you loved—who trusted you to take care of her during her last days—the best care.”
He saw shock rip through her, as if he’d reached inside and yanked out her heart. Then, to his horror, her face crumpled, her teary eyes spilling over. “Sometimes I wake at night crying, terrified I gave her a wrong painkiller dose, that she was in agony and bearing it as usual, that I made her make the wrong decision in going home. That she died suffering because of me.”
Battling their physical need was one thing. But this need, for solace, he was powerless against. He hadn’t offered or sought comfort since childhood. He had to offer it now, seek it. To and from her.
He exploded to his feet, came around to her, pulled her up.
The moment she filled his arms, it was as if things were uprooted inside him. Separateness. Seclusion.
This. He’d been waiting for this. This woman. This connection. And he’d never known he’d been waiting.
She lay her head against his heart and trembled. He stroked her hair as he’d longed to from the first moment. It was beyond anything his imagination had spun. And so was what he felt for her. He wanted her to let go, give him all her resurrected misery to bear. He wanted her to pour out the rest. He was certain she’d never unburdened herself.
He prodded her to give him all. “Why did your father take you to Sardinia when his business collapsed? Was he going home?”
“No.” She sniffed, stirred, her eyes beseeching him to resume normalcy. He complied, let her go, somehow, seated her, went back to his chair, signaled for Giancarlo to serve the main course.
She stalled, tasting her lobster in lime butter sauce, asking Giancarlo about the recipe. When she ran out of delaying tactics, was in control again, she began talking. “Dad had a friend who asked him to relocate us there so he could help, which he couldn’t do effectively if we lived thousands of miles away.”
“And did he? Help?”
“Above and beyond. He paid off Dad’s debts, tried endlessly to put him back on his feet. But no matter what he did, Dad kept spiraling downward. This friend even took care of us after he died, financed my education until I graduated.”
“And you didn’t like that. Even though you liked the man.”
“God, how do you keep working out how I feel? Do you read minds?” She groaned. “But of course you do. You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t.” Before he could tell her it was only her he was so attuned to, she went on. “Yeah, I love him. But I hated feeling so helpless, so indebted. I worked, paid my rent and expenses, but he was adamant about not letting me get a tuition loan. I only accepted when he promised he’d let me pay him back.”
“But he was only humoring you so you’d accept.”
“Your insight is uncanny, isn’t it? You realized at once what I only realized when I got a great paying job and demanded to repay him only for him to—surprise—refuse to take a cent.”
“But you drilled your way into making him take it, giusto?”
“Assolutamente giusto…dead right. I bet he finally took the money so he’d hear the end of it. Not that that was the end of it. When my mom finally gave me a real idea of the magnitude of our family’s debt to him, I became consumed with the need to repay it all, so I’d feel free, and she would, too.”
“And I bet you managed to pay it all back.”
Her lashes fluttered down again. “Eventually, yes.”