Chapter 2 - The Door at the End of the Hall
Over the following weeks, Luca began coming home earlier.
Not every night.
Not with announcements.
But often enough that Naomi stopped being surprised when she found his coat hanging beside hers.
Sometimes they ate dinner together. Sometimes she arrived after a long shift and discovered a covered plate in the kitchen with a note in handwriting far less elegant than she expected.
Eat before you reorganize something.
She wrote beneath it:
Stop pretending you don’t like the reorganizing.
The next morning, he had added:
The drawer with the knives was fine.
She smiled over her coffee.
Their marriage remained an arrangement. Separate bedrooms. Public appearances. A calendar of obligations reviewed with assistants who referred to their relationship as though it were a transportation schedule.
But the house was changing.
A bowl of oranges appeared on the kitchen counter because Naomi liked their smell.
Her grandmother’s old mixing spoon rested in a jar beside expensive utensils nobody used.
Luca began taking his calls in the library rather than wherever he happened to be standing.
He knocked before entering her room.
Every time.
Naomi noticed every time.
In January, he accompanied her to visit Evelyn.
“You don’t have to,” Naomi told him in the car.
“I know.”
“She might not remember you.”
“She’s never met me.”
“She might think she has.”
“Then I’ll try to make a good second impression.”
Evelyn was having a clear afternoon.
She wore a blue cardigan and complained that the residence served toast too pale to qualify as cooked.
When Naomi introduced Luca, her grandmother looked him over carefully.
“You’re the husband.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Can you wash dishes?”
Naomi closed her eyes.
Luca answered seriously.
“Under supervision.”
“Good. Men who think they’re above dishes are usually below most other things.”
Naomi laughed.
Luca did too.
They stayed for two hours.
He listened when Evelyn described opening the bakery. When she repeated the same story twenty minutes later, he listened again without looking at his watch.
On the drive home, Naomi stared through the window.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Colin used to say there was no point visiting if she wouldn’t remember.”
Luca’s hands tightened slightly on the steering wheel.
“Did you believe him?”
“Sometimes. That’s the part I hate.”
“You went anyway.”
“Not always.”
He was quiet for a moment.
Then he said, “You can wish you’d done something differently without accepting his version of you.”
She looked at him.
Nobody had put it that way before.
A few nights later, Naomi woke to the sound of something breaking.
She sat upright, heart racing.
The noise had come from the end of the hall.
Luca’s room.
She approached slowly and knocked.
No answer.
Another sound followed. Not glass this time.
A voice.
“No. Don’t open it.”
Naomi knocked harder.
“Luca?”
He appeared a moment later, pale, breathing unevenly. A broken water glass lay near the bed.
He looked furious to be seen.
“I’m fine.”
She glanced at his bare feet.
“Stay there.”
“Naomi—”
“Glass first. Pride afterward.”
She brought a dustpan, cleaned the floor, and placed a fresh glass of water on his nightstand.
He sat on the edge of the bed.
For once, the silence between them felt strained.
“Was it a nightmare?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you want company?”
His answer took a long time.
“Yes.”
She sat in the chair by the window.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“My sister’s name was Sofia.”
Naomi remained still.
“She was twenty-four. Pregnant. There was a fire in a warehouse owned by the family.”
“Was she working there?”
“She volunteered for a neighborhood food program. They used part of the building for storage. She went to collect supplies.”
His voice had gone flat.
“The exit she reached was chained.”
Naomi pressed her hands together.
“Luca.”
“I was supposed to meet her that afternoon. I took another meeting instead.”
“Taking a meeting didn’t chain the door.”
“No.”
But he said it like a man repeating words he had heard and never accepted.
“My father handled everything afterward. Compensation. Statements. The investigation. By the time I understood how much had been concealed, he was dead.”
“And you inherited it.”
“Yes.”
The house seemed very quiet around them.
“Is that why you don’t want children?”
He looked up.
“I don’t trust the world I came from.”
“That isn’t the same as not trusting yourself.”
“It feels the same.”
Naomi thought about the men at midnight, the visitor’s holster, the careful omissions.
“Then change the part you can.”
He looked toward the dark window.
For a long time, she thought he would refuse to answer.
Instead, he said, “I’ve started.”
She did not ask for a promise that everything would be simple.
He did not offer one.
When she finally stood, he caught her hand lightly.
“Thank you for staying.”
May you like
Naomi looked down at him.
“Thank you for asking.”
