Page 23 of Bitter Poetry

But I do love him.

And I trust him.

Ettore has done nothing to make me think of him as a monster. He’s just older. He’s not the man I envisioned marrying. I don’t dislike him. I don’t know him well enough to.

Is this me resigning myself to my fate?

I believe that it is.

Jessica doesn’t like him, but as a child who has just lost her mother, she is hardly in a sound frame of mind to make judgments.

Am I?

Probably not. Yet the memory of him going through Papa’s study, taking documents, lingers. “He has been making himself very much at home.” The words come out in the manner of a challenge.

“As he will do,” my father says tiredly.

His words find another chink in the numbness. I rise and go to his bedside. “No more hiding things, Papa.”

His face tells me I won’t like what I hear even before he speaks.

“I’m not going to walk again. The house will never be my home, not without significant renovations.” I go to speak, but he takes my hand, and it silences me. “It’s old and not remotely practical for a man in a wheelchair. It was the home I shared with your mother. But your mother has gone.”

My sore eyes sting, and fresh tears well.

“I’ve told Ettore it is his, a wedding gift to you both.” He squeezes my hand. “Make happy memories there, Carmela. He will take care of you. Ensure you want for nothing. That you’re safe.”

Safe.

He has used that word several times, and each one only makes me feel less so.

He’s never coming home.

“Jessica?”

“Will come and live with me. I’ll take Nina and a few of the staff. The rest will remain with you. It’s going to take a lot of adjusting for all of us.”

“When would I…” God, I can’t even say the word. I swallow. “… marry him? It would be after college, right?”

He shakes his head. “Ettore is a traditional man. He would want to marry you as soon as can be arranged after you turn eighteen.”

With those words, he shatters my hope for a reprieve, for time to get used to this idea and maybe to build a relationship with Ettore before I’m expected to grace his bed.

Traditional: something tells me I’m going to learn to hate that word.

“This is bullshit.” Jessica paces the confines of her room.

I don’t pull her up for swearing. We are all way past that.

“How could Papa do this? How could he marry you to that pig?” She continues to pace, oblivious to the wounds her careless words inflict.

“He’s going to be my husband,” I say quietly. “I don’t want to think about him as a pig.”

She stops her pacing and her sad eyes find mine.

I’m wrung out. After the conversation with my father, I went for a walk around the grounds of the convalescent home where he stays, one of our family’s soldiers following me. Just a reminder that I’m never truly alone.

I keep waiting for a miracle, for Dante to storm the home and tell me that he’s not going to stand by, that he wants me for his wife.