Yet memory came again, and she was lost in that unforgettable time with Salvatore at the lakeside cabin, out on the lake in the little rowing boat, as she’d asked about how he’d come to love fishing, and he’d told her about his father...about his indifference to his wife’s love for him.
‘He never wanted a divorce—he stayed with her for my sake...’
Pain twisted like a knife in her side.
That would have been her fate, too, had she told Salvatore about the baby. And it would have tortured her to know how much she loved him—and how indifferent to her he would have become when his desire for her finally died. He would have resented being married to her—or, worse, agreed to some ‘civilised’ divorce, some ‘civilised’ arrangement over shared custody and access...
Unbearable—just unbearable—
The knife twisted again, but she stifled the pain. There was no point feeling it—no point at all. It would be there all her life, she knew.
Her life without Salvatore...
Whom she would never see again...
Never.
The word tolled like a funeral bell in her head.
Then, as if thought had become reality, she heard the front doorbell ring. She started, wondering who was there—a late postal delivery, perhaps? She went to the door, opened it, blinking in the wintry sunlight that caught her eyes. Silhouetting the man standing there.
‘Never’ had been the wrong word. So she said his name instead, in a breathy gasp, as all the air left her lungs.
‘Salvatore...’