I step out from the shower, wrapping a towel around my body slowly. I'm finding it difficult to leave this safe room where I can hide from anything that reminds me of Matteo.
When I got back from the café, I knew he was in his music room. I could hear him on the piano. It seems like he's a world away from me. I don't like yelling at him. I don't like hurting him, either. I never have, ever since I met him. But I married him, without question. I took on parenting his aunt's child. I left my job. What has he given up?
Nothing.
He's been able to stay out as late as he wants. Go to parties with his company, something that doesn't even sound like something he'd want to do. He flirts with young theatre techs. Where is the man I married? Where is the man that grabbed my hand on that taxi? The man that inscribed the necklace resting on my neck?
He's not here anymore. I don't know who this man is.
I step out into the room, brush in hand.
"Well, we're going to have to do something about your eyes."
I look up, jumping when I find Veronica sitting on the edge of my bed.
"What the hell? What are—"
"I'm going to help you get ready while Matteo does a puzzle outside with Charley."
Matteo's phone call this morning suddenly rings a bell. Surely that's not still happening? "I'm not getting ready for anything. I'm not going out with him."
"Emma."
"No," I snap, shaking my head. "No."
After a moment, she rests her hands on my arms. "Look at me."
"No."
"You're sounding like Charles. Sit down."
I chuckle, tearfully and open my eyes. "You're killing me."
"Give me that brush."
I hand it to her and go where she takes me. I sit down on the edge of the bed and she climbs behind me. "Have you spoken to mom yet?"
"No."
She combs gently through my hair. "You should do it."
"She said that he had ruined me."
"Neither of you meant what you said. She feels terrible, I know it. I spoke to her."
"I don't know what I'm doing," I whisper through the lump in my throat. "I think I'm going through a panic attack or something. I actually went to see Danny today. I called him."
"You've taken on a lot in the past couple months, all on your own. Matteo will own up to that."
"I don't want him to."
"Yes, you do. You want him, you love him."
"I don't—"
"You are soulmates. Emma, think back to everything you two have been through. How he was when you met him, what he did when you left or what you were like when he was gone. I mean..."
"He doesn't want Charles."
"I don't think he's let Charles in yet. You told me he had a bad relationship with his aunt? Could it be possible that Charles reminds him of her?"
I press my fingers to my swollen eyes. "Why are you doing this?"
"Because I love you. And I know what you both can be when you work together. This was a huge leap for you, too large of a leap, but I think he's realized what he's done wrong. He called me in hysterics this morning and after seeing you with Danny, he knows he's losing you."
I shake my head. "Don't tell me this."
"Why? Because you'll admit that you still love him? That he does actually care for you?"
"Yes!"
She runs her nails through my hair, shaking it. "I'm going to pick out an outfit for you, do your makeup, and then we're going to pack an overnight bag because I'm staying here with Charles. And I've decided that every month, I'm going to spend some Auntie time with him so you two can escape for a night."
I sit up, shaking my head. "That's a sweet offer, V but no, Charles hasn't spent a night without me since... No, I can't."
"Emma." She plants her hands on my shoulders.
"What?"
"I cancelled a trip for this. I wasn't asking."
***
"You look perfect," Veronica says, pulling up the zipper to a short, white sundress I've never worn before. It's pretty but right now, I could care less. I'm nervous. I'm nervous about what Matteo has in store, how I'll react to it, leaving Charles here all night with V.
She hands me sandals, white ones with small flowers along one of the straps. I get them on and stand up, looking at her warily. I opted for only nude lipstick and mascara, not wanting a full face of makeup.
"You're going to be fine," Veronica states, hugging me from behind. I clasp her hand on my shoulder and nod slowly.
"What if I..."
"No what if's, Em. Just go try to have fun. Try to connect."
"I can't help that I'm angry."
"You have every right to be, but Em, if you're going to talk about that today, try to listen to each other, calmly."
I nod, wrapping my arms over my chest. "Alright, let's just go. I'm getting more nervous the more I sit here and think."
"Alright," she replies as I walk to the door, inhaling deeply before I pull it open. Glancing around the room, I look for Matteo, but he's not there. Suddenly, I hear him talking from Charles room and my curiosity peaks. I make my way over the nursery quietly, glancing in through the sliver of the open door.
He's on the floor in a gray sweater and black jeans, handing a puzzle piece to Charles who takes it. He looks good in here.
"Okay, yeah... now put the puzzle piece down there in it's spot..." He points at the empty side the piece fits into. "Um, right there."
Charles, who is gazing at him strangely, sticks the piece of cardboard in between his lips, smiling. I smile too, unable to hold it back.
Matteo chuckles awkwardly, running a hand through his hair. "Or you can do that too."
"Emma."
My eyes pop out from their sockets when I'm caught eavesdropping. I look back at my evil sister, glaring before I turn back finding Matteo and Charles looking at me. My husband clears his throat and stands immediately, rubbing his hands nervously on his pants.
"He doesn't like those puzzles too much."
"Yeah, he just finds them appetizing," I joke weakly, backing up when he comes towards me. He clasps his hands together, unsure of what to do with them as his eyes appraise my outfit.
"You look... beautiful."
I glance at Veronica, who is watching us like a soap opera. "Thank you."
"Shall we go?"
I nod, clearing my throat. "Where... where are we going?"
"A surprise," he states, looking at my sister. "Thank you for doing this, Veronica."
"You better make it worthwhile," she grumbles, pushing her hands against my back. I reach for my bag just in time, stumbling towards the door.
"V!"
"Go on! Time you spend in here is time wasted!"
"I have to say bye to Charles."
"He's going to be fine, Emma. He's two."
"But..."
"Go out with your man. It's been three months!"
Has she listened to a word I've said all day? I step out of the apartment, eyes wide as saucers as she closes the door behind Matteo. What the hell? I could kill her.
I glance at Matteo, who smirks, shaking his head.
"She's... something."
"Yeah, a real pain in the ass."
***
"I'm picking up an order. Giordano is the last name."
The man poking his head out of the take-out window of the Chinese restaurant nods, grabbing two bags off the counter, taking the card Matteo is handing over. I expected a stiff candlelit dinner surrounded by people in suits. I'm glad he chose a less formal option, and I'm sure he knows that. It's a scorching night. The sky has darkened and the stars dimly appear behind the bright lights of the city.
He hands me the bag so he can take the drinks the man hands over with the card.
"This is a good choice, right?" he asks me after the man has closed the window. Chinese is my favorite and he is well aware of that fact. The twisting of my heart proves that making up is a hard thing to do. I've been angry with Matteo plenty in the years I've known him, but never to this extent. Never have I not believed in him, trusted the words falling from his mouth.
We've broken each other with actions but in the end, I never questioned his love for me.
Then, however, I was a young, brazen journalist on the upstart. I wasn't a wife. I wasn't a stay-at-home guardian to a two-year-old... a mother to a two-year-old. Matteo straying has made me question who I am, if I still hold any allure to him and that makes me feel spiteful, hateful.
"It's fine," I say towards the bag. "Are we going back to the apartment to eat it?"
Christ, I can't even say home.
"There's a small park two blocks away from here. I thought we could... talk there."
I nod, starting to walk in the direction he pointed to, taking place at his side. He doesn't dare touch me, but we don't even speak. Mute as he leads me to this place of intervention, I watch the world watching him pass. It's always the same. He remains completely oblivious to the stares, striding with confidence and authority, lost in his own world. He is every bit masculine, but there's gentleness in his face, in his nervous smile that would catch anyone off guard. His clothes don't wear him. They conform to his muscular physique, extenuating the lines of strength that he works hard for.
His beauty is distracting for everyone, especially for me... the person married to such a man. His eyes flicker to my face, no doubt sensing my gaze. I look away immediately and keep the distance until we're entering the park. We're in the prime of summer in New York. There are art festivals, music festivals around every corner in the city and we've seemed to stumble right into one just ended.
There's a man strumming a guitar softly on a bench, singing Beatles tunes with a pretty pleasant voice. Tables set up are closing down and the guests are sauntering around saying goodbye while we walk in. The air, which usually reeks of gasoline and sewer, smells like the thousands of flowers placed throughout the park in decoration. Overhead, tens of thousands of bulbs zigzag on wires, twinkling in the night.
It's rather romantic, which means either Matteo knew this event was happening or it's his lucky day. A man dressed in a jester outfit skips towards us, a single red rose bouncing in his hand. Abruptly, he stops in front of us, extending it with a wide smile.
"Would sir like to purchase a rose or two for the fair maiden?"
Even on edge, the terrible accent makes a smile form on my face. Matteo momentarily hesitates, probably unsure as to whether I'd welcome such a gift from him currently. I think my smile makes him take the bold move, reaching into his pocket for his wallet.
"I'd like three for the lady, please."
"For the fair maiden?"
I giggle into my hand, feeling my cheeks warm at the persistence.
Matteo's smile widens uncomfortably. "Uh, yes. For the, um... maiden." He thrusts the jester a ten. "Is that enough?"
"More than enough, sir!"
"Well, keep the rest...You deserve it."
Out of the bucket he's toting, the man pulls out three bloomed flowers. "Only the fairest roses for the beauty."
"I bet you say that to all the girls," I tease, accepting them from him with a wide smile.
"Hardly, my dear. This gent is a lucky man. Aren't you, sir?"
The man knows how to make two people tense, that's for sure.
Matteo nods, his mouth gaping nervously. "I am... I'm very lucky."
Not breaking character the jester man winks at the pair of us, skipping to another group entering the park. I chuckle softly to myself, waving the roses slightly. "Um, thank you for these."
"Anything for the fair maiden," Matteo jokes, nodding his head towards an empty picnic table. By the time we're approaching it, I'm actually nervous. This is a date. We're married, but this is a date... a date with ultimatums and risk.
A date that is either an end or a new beginning.
We sit opposite each other and Matteo begins to unload the bags while I pluck the straws into the drinks. Neither of us says a single word until he's seated, until we've opened the red take-out boxes and broken our chopsticks. Let It Be drifts through the air as I take a bite of a piece of orange chicken, avoiding him at all costs.
The roses on the table make it hard to think. All of this makes it hard to think.
"I've been a shitty husband," he finally says, setting down his food abruptly. I don't think he's taken a single bite yet. "I know that."
I stare at him, holding my food mid-air when he hesitates before saying more.
"Are you expecting me to say you haven't?"
He shakes his head. "No..."
"Because normally, I know that's what I usually would do. I'd do my best to erase all your wrongs, to explain all you do for me, hoping, praying that you'd listen."
"I know."
"I can't do that anymore. Not after what I saw."
"What you saw wasn't anything, Emma. I swear it."
"I've seen you with her before. I've watched you interact with her. Even if you haven't fucked her—" his eyes widen, his mouth dropping open in protest—"you've thought about it."
"I'm married."
"And?"
He exhales. "Do you honestly think I would try to screw around on you, or even think about it, Em? After everything we've been through, do you honestly believe I'd want to hurt you that way?"
"Not intentionally, no. But I think it would be a welcoming distraction for you... take you away from the screaming child, the overwhelmed wife."
My pettiness knows no bounds. I'm not holding anything back this time. It did me no favors before. He shakes his head. "What you saw was a young girl grasping for an opportunity to further her career."
"Is that what I saw?" I set down the take-out, huffing. "I saw her inches from your fucking mouth and I didn't see you pushing her away."
"I didn't cheat on you. Thoughts like that don't cross my mind. She was a nice girl dedicated to music and I admired that about her. That was before she approached me in the rehearsal hall." He reaches out, grasping onto my hand, pulling it to the middle of the table. "Emma, I swear. I swear on my parent's lives, I didn't."
Our gazes linger on each other, both of us hesitant to speak against that.
I won't speak against that.
I instantly believe him. He'd never bring that part of his life into this if he weren't desperate to make me trust him. As much as it grits me to admit it, he has enough of my trust for me not to argue against his past.
"I... believe you then," I whisper softly, slipping my hand from under his to rest it safely in my lap. I twist my wedding ring, my heart slamming into my chest.
"I've failed you in so many other ways. I've had time to think on what I've done to you, all I've asked of you... how selfish I can be."
Without my rage to guide me, I feel uneasy.
"I abandoned you..." he exhales, having a hard time getting this out. "And to make it worse, I trapped you in a marriage with a child and then did it. I... I'm ashamed. When I saw you with Danny, I couldn't even take you away from him. I knew I'd lost that right."
"I shouldn't have gone anyway. I did it to spite you."
"I know you did. I know if I hadn't driven you away, you wouldn't have even thought to confide in him. Because that's not who we are. We aren't people who question each other's trust. I've made us into those people."
I look down, unable to deny anything he's saying. Clearly, he has reflected on the past three months. "At this point, I don't even really want to talk about us, Matteo. I want to talk about Charles."
I see the shame on his face, the reluctance.
"He is not his mother, Matteo."
His features are rigid. He doesn't want to say whatever he is thinking. "I see her in him. I see my entire past in him, Emma."
"And you will continue to. As small as he is, he is your cousin and he is yours. He is your child. When he turns ten or fifteen, he isn't going to be able to remember her. He's going to remember you and me. What do you want that to be? Do you want him to think back about how you were never around? How you'd come home at midnight and scheduled tour after tour so you wouldn't have to spend time with him?"
"I don't want him to think any of those things."
"So what are you going to do about it?"
Showing his unease, he looks towards a group of friends laughing at one of the festival tables, being shooed out by an officer. Unrelenting, I watch him squirm and then finally pull himself from his thoughts and direct his attention back to me with determination.
"I'm going to ask for a second chance, here, with you. I'm going to ask you to put your faith in me even though I don't deserve it... and I'm going to be better for the both of you."
"I really want to believe that, Matteo."
He grimaces, pulling on his sleeves. "But you can't?"
The many different episodes of our relationship are highlighted in my brain, plaguing me with a virus of distrust. I have been burned before by this man, this one I can't seem to live without. To want to fix this and to actually follow through are two very different things.
He is trying though. I can't deny that.
He breathes in, nervously. "Do you not want this anymore?"
We're interrupted by the same security officer, who apologetically says, "Folks, I'm sorry. I have to ask you to clear out of the park for the cleaning crews."
I nod, seeing Matteo's mouth slim angrily at the intrusion. "Of course, officer."
He taps his cap. "Have a good night."
I begin to pack up the food we've barely touched, standing. After a few seconds, Matteo moves into action, helping me in silence. His hands are shaking as he closes the flaps of the take-out boxes, revealing to me what his silence doesn't.
His shaking hands manage to melt my plated heart.
I reach out, resting my hand over his. His eyes flicker to mine, expressive in their concern. "I will always want you, Matteo."
"But?"
I shake my head. "No but."
Removing my hand, disappointed I can bend so easily, I finish packing the bag and turn with it, vacating the park before the officer can complain. Matteo catches up to me easily, striding on longer legs than me.
"I'm sorry about this," he says. "I didn't think they closed this park."
"It's okay. Are we really staying out tonight?"
"If you want to... if you want to go back to the apartment, I understand."
I don't really know what I want to do, but I know going back to the apartment means leaving this conversation in an uncomfortable spot. I'd prefer to walk back in there with a clear head, knowing what I want.
"We don't have to go back."
"The hotel isn't far from here."
I nod, adjusting the bag on my shoulder, also balancing the take-out bag tucked in my arm. I smile awkwardly when Matteo's slips his hand under the strap, lifting it from my shoulder. He places it on his own.
"Thanks."
He shrugs casually. "Don't mention it."
By the time we've walked a few blocks, beads of sweat have formed on the back of my neck. My sundress clings to my skin. I can't imagine how hot Matteo is in a sweater. I'm lost in the words he spoke, the promises he's making and how badly I want to believe them, to believe in this marriage.
Because he's right. We aren't people who give up, who distrust each other.
By the time we're weaving our way through the nightlife of the city, through the crowds of people, I've been in my head enough to not realize where we were headed until seeing the famous front of the building.
We're nearly standing there... the spot he caught my hand in, returning to me from London after eight torturous months. A sidewalk outside the Plaza hotel.
When Matteo stops, I look at him with wide eyes. "We're staying here?"
"Mmm," he hums, nodding. I gulp when spotting someone climbing into a yellow taxi, knowing the significance of this place. It was snowing, nearly Christmas. I was on top of the world, celebrating a new promotion, months of traveling. I was also the loneliest I had ever been, unable to forget the man that had thrown my world off-axis.
I fell in love fast... faster than should actually be possible. I fell in love with a good but tormented man and I paid for it. When he returned, I thought our troubles were behind us.
He was sober. He was trying. I was stronger.
And then Gwen died and we became parents, and just like before, chaos ensued.
"Emma."
I look up from the ground, planted right in the middle of the crowded walkway. Matteo frowns, his features full of hurt. "I feel like I'm doing everything wrong."
"It hurts to be here... to remember."
He bounds to me, taking action for the first time tonight when he clasps my face between his hands, forcing me to look up at his tortured expression. "I love you, Emma. Damn the rest of the world. For me there is no one else."
Hesitantly, I bring my hand up to his wrist. "Matteo."
"Without you, I'd be dead."
"Stop."
He shakes me. "I'm serious. If you hadn't shown up to that hospital, I wouldn't be here. It's not something I say lightly. Without you, I would be dead. You brought me back to life."
Sirens are blaring. Road rage is at full force just a few feet away but I can't take my eyes off of him, seeing the desperation on his face.
"I cancelled the tour. I told Doug this morning."
"You cancelled..." I gape in disbelief. "What?"
I know what goes into these tours, into the locations, the company, everything. This is a shock, and real progress. This is action.
He nods. "I'm needed here. My wife needs me... and I need her."
"She comes with a family now, your family."
His eyes are misting, fear palpable in his expression. "I want it. I want it all, Em. Please, just don't give up on me. I'll do anything to fix this, baby."
I'm aware eyes are on us. I don't care. Unable to help myself, I reach up with my one free hand, touching his cheek, swiping away the lone tear that falls. This is Matteo. I recognize this person. I love this person.
"I'm so sorry," he whispers as I press myself to him, tilting my face up to his. I kiss the corner of his mouth, his cheek, lingering there as he apologizes over and over again. I nod, hearing him, allowing myself to believe in my husband.
Our lips meet clumsily in a rush, both of us digressing into a mess of emotions. I drop the bag of take-out in order to grab onto him, wrap myself around him in desperation. There are hollers and laughs and I could give a flying fuck.
After months of distance, our passion is painful.
"Take me inside." I gasp against his cheek, closing my eyes. "Take me inside."