Sweet Temptation

Loulou barked then squeaked. Simona in my arms, I walked out of the room. Daniele stood in the corridor a few steps from his mother’s bedroom, clamping Loulou against his chest. The dog squirmed wildly. As I came closer, I saw its fur was covered in blood and so was its muzzle. Daniele’s arms, too, were red. I rushed toward him and knelt down, holding Simona in one arm as I touched his cheek. “Daniele, what happened?” My fingers flew over his small body, looking for injuries, but he was unscathed.

“Found Loulou. Where’s Mom?”

The dog snapped wildly until Daniele finally dropped it. It rushed through the crack of the door into Gaia’s bedroom. Daniele made a move as if to follow. I grabbed his wrist. Cold dread pierced my every bone. “No. Were you in there?”

“Mom was asleep. Is she awake now?”

My throat clogged up. “No. She’s still sleeping. Go downstairs to Sybil. She needs to clean you.”

Daniele jutted his chin out. “I want Mom.”

“Daniele, go downstairs.”

Slowly, he backed away then disappeared down the stairs. Simona had quieted in my hold. She was too small to understand, and yet I couldn’t take her into the bedroom with me knowing what I’d find.

I returned her to her crib before I slowly made my way to Gaia’s bedroom. Pushing open the door, I slipped inside. A familiar scent drifted into my nose; it had never meant anything to me, but from this day on it would. Even knowing what I’d find, the sight slammed into me like a punch to the gut. I approached the bed slowly. One of Gaia’s arms hung limply down the side of the bed, still dripping blood onto the hardwood floor. Loulou perched beneath it, licking the sticky fingertips eagerly. It sat in a puddle of blood—the amount of which told me that I didn’t have to call an ambulance. My business required I knew how much blood a human body could lose before I needed to take countermeasures to prevent a premature death—before all the necessary information was extracted from the person.

Gaia was gone.

Blood kept dripping down on Loulou, and the goddamn thing kept licking it up eagerly. Enraged, I snatched the dog up by its neck, staggered toward the door, and tossed it into the hallway. It landed with a squeak before it dashed off.

I stared down at my blood-covered hands then at the lifeless body of my wife. Slowly, I closed the door in case Daniele came by. A bloody handprint remained on the white-lacquered wood.

Daniele didn’t need to see more of this. I turned back to the gruesome scene. The red roses one of the maids had bought for Gaia as a gift for our eighth anniversary lay crumpled beside the limp body. Red roses to match the blood-stained sheets and her white dress. A desperate attempt to mend a marriage that couldn’t be mended. Proof of my own failure.

Seconds ticked by as I regarded my wife. Even lifeless, she was still beautiful. She’d chosen to wear her wedding dress when she killed herself. It still fit her perfectly. The crystals on her bodice glittered in the glow of the lamp. A few of them were sprinkled with blood, making them appear like rubies. They matched the gemstones in her necklace. She’d even curled her hair the same way she’d worn it on the day we made our vows. How long had she planned this?

Picking up my phone, I called Father. I rarely called him after dinnertime. He and Mother spent their evenings watching classics or playing backgammon. Now that he’d retired, they had time for it. Their love had been something I strived for as a young man, before marriage, before Gaia.

“Cassio, don’t you have a dinner reservation with Gaia?”

A dinner to flaunt our failed marriage in public. “Gaia is dead.”

Silence. “Can you repeat that?”

“Gaia is dead.”

“Cassio—”

“Someone needs to clean this up before the kids see it. Send a clean-up crew and inform Luca.”

I hung up. A sheet of paper on the bed beside Gaia’s body caught my eye. I crept toward the bed. Death didn’t bother me, not when I was the harbinger of it so often, but every fiber of my being revolted against going anywhere near the corpse of my wife. The opposite arm that wasn’t hanging off the side of the bed was draped over her chest. The blood from the slit wrist had soaked the fabric of her wedding dress. Her lifeless brown eyes fixed on the ceiling, even in death they were full of accusation. I closed her eyelids then picked up her last letter with shaking fingertips.

Her elegant handwriting and the expensive stationery promised a love letter, but of course it was nothing like that.

My breathing had slowed as I read Gaia’s letter to me. I couldn’t move, could only stare down at her last words. I wasn’t sad about losing her. I’d never had her to begin with. She’d been Andrea’s, even after his death. I felt a deep sadness over what this meant for Daniele and Simona and a raging madness toward the people who were responsible for this mess. Toward her parents who’d forced her into a marriage with me, even though they’d known the truth. It was incest. Their love had been doomed like ours, but her parents had let me run into an open knife, hadn’t warned me when I allowed Andrea to spend every day alone with my wife.