After Eight Lost Babies, I Left Him Forever

Every smile, every frown, every glance and every fleeting gesture, Lorenzo's lens had caught all of Carmela's movements.

After the day our alliance was sealed, Lorenzo had never touched that camera again.

Once, I asked him to photograph me while I carried our child. He told me only that the camera was lost, and arranged for a famous man with a studio downtown to do the work instead.

In truth, nothing was lost. His lens was reserved solely for the one he loved.

While I quietly slid the album back into its place beneath the floorboard, my eyes had completely dried up. I could no longer shed tears for him.

I booked a passage out of the country on my phone, then drafted the papers to dissolve the marriage pact. Such a thing was almost unheard of in the Family, but if he loved Carmela that much, I may as well let him have her.

The next morning, my eyes were so swollen they looked like walnuts.

Lorenzo noticed, and it seemed to worry him. Unlike any other day, he prepared a careful breakfast for me with his own hands. He boiled an egg, peeled it slowly, and pressed it warm against the swelling around my eyes.

His gentle, attentive care almost made me question whether everything from last night had been nothing more than a bad dream.

Yet the emptiness in my belly reminded me that I was firmly grounded in reality.

Lorenzo sighed when he saw I would not take a single bite of the porridge he'd made.

"Adriana, we just lost our baby. I know you're heartbroken, and I'm hurting too, but you need to take care of yourself. After all these losses, your body is in bad shape. Please eat something, for my sake. Don't make me worry, okay?"

He smoothed the lapel of his jacket with the back of his hand as he said it.

"Where is my baby's body? I want to see him."

Three months. By then my child would have already taken shape, yet I would never get the chance to hold him or see him.

Lorenzo's answer was the same as the previous seven times. "I've made sure the baby was properly buried. You're too emotional right now, and I don't want you to be even more heartbroken."

"My mother and the Don are devastated as well. Let's go to the family estate for dinner tonight. It'll do us all some good to spend time together."

The moment I stepped through the gates of the Falcone estate, past the soldiers who straightened and lowered their eyes as I passed, I saw Carmela clinging to Matteo's arm, her every gesture dripping with playful flirtation.

When she noticed me, she tilted her head slightly and proudly pushed her belly forward, as if showing it off.

"Oh, Adriana! It's been ages since I've seen you. Come, have a seat. I heard you lost another one. Be careful not to overexert that fragile body of yours!"

Ever since the wedding, things had been tense between me, Matteo, and Carmela. Whenever I came to the estate, I deliberately chose hours when they would not be there.

It seemed today was not one of those lucky days.

I glanced at Carmela's six-month belly and felt a sharp pang in my chest. She carried Lorenzo's child. That man had never let a single one of mine survive past three months.

When Donna, Lorenzo's mother and the matriarch of the household, saw me, her face soured at once.

"Useless. You can't even protect the child in your own womb. How many times is it now? And you still have the nerve to complain of exhaustion? How did my son ever end up bound to someone like you?"

Donna was Lorenzo's mother by blood and Matteo's stepmother by marriage. At fifty, she had been forced to watch the seat that should rightfully have passed to her own son slip toward Matteo instead. That, surely, had cut her deeply.

In the past, Lorenzo would have stood up for me. Now his eyes were fixed solely on Carmela, brimming with longing and devotion, blind to the tension between his mother and me.

"Donna, please don't be upset," Carmela said sweetly, her tone dripping with false concern. "It's only that Adriana isn't blessed with the fortune to be a mother. After losing so many, it isn't as though she wanted it to happen."

Donna scoffed coldly, her fingers closing around the heavy gold crucifix at her throat. "She's nothing but a cursed, barren woman, dragging my son down with her."

Playing the peacemaker, Carmela tried to soothe the room, even reaching to guide me toward a chair. But as she rose, she stumbled slightly.

She caught her balance quickly enough, yet Lorenzo did not hesitate. He shoved me aside and rushed to her.

Ignoring everyone else in the room, he pulled Carmela into his arms and asked, anxious, "Carmela, are you all right? You're carrying a child. Why are you walking about alone? Where is Matteo?"

Carmela flashed a sugary smile. "Matteo's in the States, handling Family business. He's about to take the seat, so he's been so very busy."

She shot me a mocking glance, then turned back to Lorenzo, putting on a painfully sweet, almost sickly expression.