Ask Me as Yourself

I found an excuse to stay beside Sophie until she fell asleep.

It took a long time. She had opinions about the unfamiliar pillow, the distance between her bed and mine, and whether Daniel would put another swing beside hers for Button.

I answered every question.

It was easier than answering my own.

When she finally slept, I went downstairs.

Alessandro was in the kitchen, standing beside a kettle that had already boiled.

He turned when I entered.

"I wasn't sure you'd come down."

"I wasn't sure, either."

He moved away from the counter. There were two mugs beside him.

I looked at them, then at his face.

"Are you sorry you kissed me?"

"No."

The answer came immediately.

It helped. It didn't solve everything.

"You looked at my necklace and stopped touching me."

His jaw tightened.

"I know."

"I can't compete with somebody who isn't here. And I won't ask you to forget her. But I need to know whether you can look at me without seeing everything you lost."

He pulled out a chair, then paused.

"Will you sit with me?"

I sat.

He took the chair opposite instead of the one beside me.

For once I wished he had chosen the closer one.

"Isabella wore a pendant in that photograph," he said. "I recognized the shape tonight. For a moment I thought about the day she showed me that picture. She was happy. I was distracted."

I kept my hands in my lap.

"Then I looked at you, and I was happy," he continued. "I haven't been happy like that in years. The two things happened together, and I didn't know what to do with it."

The kettle clicked as it cooled.

"You could have told me," I said.

"Yes."

"I spent the last hour wondering if you'd remembered I was her niece and felt sick."

He flinched.

"Clara, no."

"I don't think the connection is meaningless. It matters to me, too. She was my aunt. I wish I had known her. But I can't become a way for you to take care of something she left unfinished."

"You haven't."

"Then tell me what I have become."

He looked down at his hands.

I could see how hard it was for him not to reach for a familiar answer. His house. His protection. Whatever I needed.

I needed something he couldn't arrange through Marco.

"I wait for you at breakfast," he said.

My throat tightened.

"I pretend to read whatever is in front of me until you come in. When something irritates me at work, I wonder what you'd say about it. Usually something unhelpful about my personality."

I laughed despite myself.

His eyes came back to mine.

"I wanted you in the library the other night. I wanted to come upstairs with the letter. I wanted to kiss you before we ever came here."

I looked at him for a long time.

"So did I."

His breath left him slowly.

"I don't want you to be careful with me because I'm grateful," I said. "But I don't want you to be careless with me because you're frightened, either."

He nodded.

"That's fair."

"I'm not always easy."

"I'm beginning to suspect that."

"And I have a child. There isn't a version of my life where that becomes a minor detail."

"I am intimately familiar with her opinions about pancake size."

I smiled, then looked at his wedding ring.

He followed my gaze.

"I still miss her," he said.

"I know."

"I don't know whether that ever completely stops."

"I don't need it to."

My voice shook on the last word.

He moved his chair closer.

"I haven't asked you what you want," he said.

"You've been rather busy telling people what to do."

"An established weakness."

I looked at him.

"I want to find out who we are when we aren't reading letters. I want you to kiss me without looking as though you've committed a crime. And I want to stop guessing whether you're going to be kind to me in the morning."

He reached across the corner of the table.

I put my hand in his.

"I can begin with the last one," he said. "And I'd like to take you to dinner. Just you. No paperwork. No discussion of roof repairs."

"Are you asking as my employer?"

"No."

"Or as someone who feels responsible for my family?"

He shook his head.

"I'm asking because I want an evening alone with the woman who has made it impossible for me to concentrate on anything else."

My face warmed.

"Friday," I said. "If Teresa can watch Sophie."

His expression changed so completely that I wanted to kiss him again.

So I did.

I stood, leaned down, and put my mouth against his.

He drew me closer, one hand at my waist, the other rising to my face.

This time when we parted, he kept touching me.

We drank terrible tea afterward. He had forgotten to put the tea bags in until the water was nearly cold.

I told him I would reconsider dinner if he intended to cook.

He said he would have the restaurant inspected.

On Friday, Teresa arrived upstairs an hour before she was needed.

She found me standing in front of the mirror in a dark blue dress I hadn't worn since before Sophie was born.

"Too much?" I asked.

"Not nearly enough jewelry."

I touched my pendant.

She shook her head and smiled.

"That's enough, actually."

Sophie sat on the bed watching us.

"Are you going somewhere with Mr. Alessandro?"

"We're having dinner."

"I like dinner."

"Tonight it's just the two of us."

Her expression fell.

I sat beside her.

"You and I will have breakfast together tomorrow. All the usual boring things."

"Pancakes aren't boring."

"Then I take it back."

She considered this, then touched my sleeve.

"Is he your friend now?"

"Yes."

"More than before?"

I smiled.

"More than before."

She nodded as though I had finally caught up with something obvious.

Downstairs, Alessandro waited beside the front door.

He looked at me without speaking for a moment.

I stopped on the bottom step.

"You can say something."

"You look beautiful."

The simplicity of it made my eyes sting.

"Thank you."

He held out his hand.

We ate at a small restaurant where the tables were close together and nobody called me Miss Bennett.

I learned that he hated being photographed, loved old crime films, and once spent an entire summer trying to learn the piano because his mother had told him he was incapable of patience.

"Was she right?"

"The piano is still in storage."

He learned that I wanted to finish the bookkeeping qualification I had abandoned when Sophie was born, that I was afraid of deep water, and that I had never successfully kept an indoor plant alive.

"Your mother's tomatoes scarred you," he said.

"Permanently."

We laughed. We argued about the best film ending. We forgot to discuss the cottage.

When he brought me home, he walked me all the way to our door.

"I'd like to do this again," he said.

I put my hands against his chest.

"Good."

He kissed me slowly, without hesitation, and I stopped worrying about what I would see on his face afterward.

The next morning, I came downstairs with Sophie on my hip.

Alessandro looked up from the breakfast table.

There was a chair beside his.

"Good morning, Clara," he said.

Then he reached for my hand in front of everyone.