While You Stayed With Her,I Lost Everything

The handwriting on the front of the envelope was Lorenzo's.

"I will clear every thorn from the path of your dreams."

I stared at that line for a long, long time.

Through my mind flashed these five years I'd spent inside the Marchetti walls, tending his parents, washing the linen, setting the Sunday table, keeping a made man's house in the order the famiglia expected.

I thought of the old colleagues I'd run into, the couriers still burning to chase a story, the ones who worked the night through over a dispatch nobody else dared to file, and the envy and the ache that had risen in me each time.

A laugh slipped out of me before I knew it.

So it turned out he knew how to protect someone's dreams too.

I photographed everything and put it all back exactly where it had been, every receipt squared to the edge of the safe. At last I made my decision.

"Hey, Carmela. I heard the network's been looking for someone to go embedded in the Old Country, into the smuggling routes, and no one's put their name down yet."

"If you'll have me, I'm willing to go."

Carmela went quiet for a moment. I heard the soft tap of her fingernail against the rim of a cup, twice, the way she always did before she said something that turned a life on its hinge. Then she said, delighted, "Of course. Back when you asked to step out of the network and marry into the Marchetti name, I thought it was such a waste. This is a rare chance. It's dangerous out there among the warlords, no question. But when you come back, no one in this business will ever speak your name the same way again."

"So get yourself ready. You'll move out in the next few days."

I set down the phone and started packing.

There was nothing left in this house I cared to hold on to.

Except for the sweater my mother knitted for me before she died. That, I was taking with me.

When I was little she'd knitted me plenty of things. Later I grew up, and she grew old, her eyes not what they used to be.

I didn't want her wearing herself out, so I told her to stop knitting.

After I got pregnant, I suddenly couldn't stand the cold.

And she secretly knitted me a sweater anyway, her eyes red and raw from staying up over it, waving it all off like it was nothing.

"Hand-knit's warmer. I picked out good yarn for it."

"You love the baby in your belly. Well, I love my baby too."

It made my heart ache and my chest swell, and I never had the heart to wear it.

But now, that sweater was gone.

I thought back to the scene when I'd gotten home, and I was about to call Lorenzo and ask.

Then I saw Gianna's new post.

"Hehe, I'd just been saying the babies were too cold now that they're newborns, and a certain someone went and brought over a sweater~"

"On the babies' behalf, thank you, Daddy~ And of course, this mama's remodeling skills are no joke either."

So Lorenzo had gone to celebrate those puppies' birthday with her.

In the photo, the two of them had their heads pressed together, their bodies tucked tight against each other.

Each of them cradled three puppies.

And I recognized it in a single glance.

The little "dog outfits" those puppies were wearing had been cut from the sweater my mother knitted for me.

When I pushed open the glass door of the kennel, the front Gianna ran with skimmed Family cash, I walked in just as Lorenzo and Gianna were eating cake off the same spoon.

Lorenzo had a severe revulsion for anything unclean.

At home his bowls and silver had to be scalded and stored apart from everyone else's, and at meals he always reached for the serving fork first.

Once, after I'd worked the house all day and was parched, my throat dry, I took a sip of water from his glass.

He hadn't said anything at the time. That night, the glass turned up in the trash.

Afterward Lorenzo explained it to me, said it was a habit the work bred in him, the same care a fixer takes with everything he touches.

So it depended on the person after all.

When she saw me, Gianna arched a brow and let out a soft, practiced laugh, tucking a strand of hair behind one ear a half-second too fast.

"Oh, big sister Adriana's here? Lorenzo and I have been close since we were kids, never one to draw lines between what's his and mine. Don't take it the wrong way, now."

"Lorenzo, what did I tell you? There's no way she's going to dissolve the union."

"After all, a woman whose standing in this life came to nothing, who can only live on the tribute her husband hands her, what would she raise the children and keep her parents on if she walked away? See, she's chased you all the way here. Clings on awfully tight, doesn't she?"

"Sigh, compared to her, I suppose I'm just too thin-skinned. All I can do is honestly stay an independent woman who makes her own way~"

Lorenzo pinched her nose, doting.

"Fine, fine, you're the cleverest one. Always were a little sprite, even as a kid."

Then he looked over at me, the way you'd forgive a child who didn't know any better.