He Chose His Brother’s Widow, So I Took Our Daughter and Disappeared

There were milk stains on his trousers, just below the belt, still damp and threaded through with the lingering scent of Serafina's perfume. I didn't need to guess what the two of them had been doing.

My stomach churned.

Just then the wet nurse from Serafina's rooms came knocking, flustered, wringing her hands the way retainers did when they feared the Don's temper.

"Don Moretti, the lady's chest has swollen again. She's been holding back tears all morning. The baby hasn't fed, and she's hard as stone with the pain. Please, would you come?"

Vitale shoved me aside without a moment's thought. My ruined leg buckled and I went down onto the marble. He didn't so much as glance back.

"She's in that kind of pain and no one saw fit to tell me sooner? What do I keep this household for?" he barked, already at the door.

"From today she doesn't nurse at all. Hire as many wet nurses as it takes. I won't have Serafina suffer another minute, and my son does not go hungry."

And just like that he was gone, leaving me crumpled on the floor of his estate.

I sat there in silence, remembering.

When he first decided to take Serafina under this roof, Gia had only just been born. I was still bleeding from the birth when the word reached me, so angry and heartbroken that my milk dried up. My chest swelled until it felt packed with stones, the pain so terrible I couldn't sleep.

I'd begged him to bring in a nurse, someone to help.

But he'd only looked me over and said, "Adriana, you're a Don's daughter. You were bred to endure. What is a little pain to a woman like you?"

"I won't have strangers moving through my house. What if they're planted by a rival family? I won't gamble with Serafina's safety."

"So, no. No nurse. You'll feed the child yourself. You were always the sensible one. Hold out a while longer, will you?"

Vitale would move heaven and earth so long as Serafina was comfortable. When had that begun?

When had he gone from calling her his brother's widow, to Serafina, and now to my wife?

And me? What did that leave me?

"Mama, don't cry."

I hadn't noticed Gia wake. She slid off the bed and padded over, her small hand brushing my cheek.

Only then did I realize my face was soaked with tears.

She wrapped her arms tight around me, her little voice thick. "Mama, this is the hundredth time Papa left us to go be with her."

"I've made up my mind. We don't need him anymore. Let's go, just the two of us."

So she knew. She had known all along. She had kept giving him one more chance, and then another, until she finally ran out of them. Until she finally gave up.

I pulled her against my chest and held her there, my tears falling again, but this time I smiled through them.

"All right, baby. Mama will take you away."

The next morning Serafina appeared at my door wearing a bright, easy smile, as though nothing had happened. She invited me out to the shops, said it was her way of apologizing for "not looking after Gia better."

She threaded her arm through Vitale's and purred, "Vitale, you should come and settle the accounts. Adriana's had such a hard year. We owe her that much, don't we?"

Serafina wore the part of the lady of the Moretti Estate as if she'd been born to it, poised, entitled, entirely in command. So when I didn't answer at once, Vitale's face darkened.

"Adriana," he said, irritated, "Serafina is only trying to be kind. You and Gia upset her so badly yesterday she ached all night, couldn't even nurse Matteo. And still she holds nothing against you. The least you can do is not make this harder."

He must have forgotten how thin the walls were in that house. I'd heard everything the night before. Their moaning, their whispered oaths, the sickening sound of their bodies tangled together.

The memory turned my stomach, but I swallowed the bile and gave a small nod. I hadn't the strength to fight, not then. Under my sleeve, my thumb found the smooth stump where three fingers should have been, and pressed.

At the shops Serafina stayed fastened to Vitale's arm the whole time, parading him like a trophy. He wore his tailored suit like armor; she drifted beside him in a gown that cost more than most men earned in a year. They basked in the flattery of the clerks, drinking down the attention like royalty holding court.

And I limped behind them in a faded, cheap dress that had seen better days, if it had ever seen a good one at all. I caught the judgment in the clerks' eyes, the sneers they didn't trouble to hide. I didn't belong in their world.

Whenever someone asked who I was, Vitale would glance back at me, nervous, guilty, and say with a tight smile:

"She's our household help. My wife thought she could use some new clothes."