Chương 6
Bianca frowned.
“What?”
“You offered twice a week before that.”
“She started wanting Rosalie.”
“She started asking Rosalie because you complained about waiting in the parking lot.”
“That is ridiculous.”
“She heard you on the phone.”
Bianca’s eyes shifted.
Alessandro continued.
“Then she stopped eating breakfast with us on weekends.”
“She eats cereal in front of the television.”
“After you told her she chewed too loudly.”
“I was joking.”
“She wasn’t.”
Bianca’s mother looked at her daughter.
Bianca crossed her arms.
“Oh, come on.”
“Then there was the birthday dinner.”
Her expression changed again.
Vittorio glanced between them.
“What birthday dinner?”
Alessandro kept his eyes on Bianca.
“My mother’s.”
Bianca looked away.
“You’re seriously going to bring that up?”
“You left Livia at the restaurant.”
“I thought Rosalie had her.”
“Rosalie wasn’t there.”
“You told me she was coming.”
“I said she might meet us later.”
“I made a mistake.”
“You drove forty minutes home before you noticed she wasn’t in the car.”
“She was with your mother.”
“You didn’t know that.”
Bianca’s mother put a hand over her mouth.
Vittorio’s face tightened.
Bianca looked toward him.
“Dad, she was safe.”
“That isn’t the point,” Alessandro said.
“I know it isn’t the point.”
“Do you?”
She swung back toward him.
“Do you think I don’t know I’ve messed up with her?”
Alessandro said nothing.
“That child watches me like I’m taking a test.”
“She’s a child.”
“She is not just a child.”
Bianca’s voice cracked.
“She is your child.”
The corridor went silent again.
Bianca looked down at her bare hand.
“Everything I do with her becomes evidence.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I never asked you to be her mother.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Her voice sharpened.
“Everyone else did.”
Her mother whispered, “Bianca.”
“No, Mom.”
Bianca pulled at the beaded cuff of her dress.
“His mother asked when I was going to learn Livia’s school schedule.”
“She asked once.”
“She asked every time I got something wrong.”
“She asked because you kept getting things wrong.”
“Exactly.”
Alessandro frowned.
Bianca laughed weakly.
“You don’t hear it.”
“Hear what?”
“That I was supposed to walk into a family where someone was missing and never take up too much space.”
He stared at her.
“No one asked you to disappear.”
“No, I was supposed to be useful.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“Isn’t it?”
Her eyes filled again.
“Pick up Livia, remember the recital, know which pasta she’ll eat, don’t move the framed photos, don’t touch her mother’s jewelry, don’t sit in that chair because apparently that was hers too.”
Alessandro’s face tightened.
“She asked you not to move the jewelry.”
“And I didn’t.”
“You wore Elena’s bracelet.”
Bianca froze.
Her parents looked at her.
Alessandro’s voice remained quiet.
“You told me you found it in the guest-room drawer.”
“I did.”
“No.”
Bianca looked at him.
He continued.
“It was in the locked box in my closet.”
Her lips parted.
Vittorio frowned.
“What bracelet?”
Alessandro ignored him.
“I noticed the box had been moved.”
Bianca stared at him.
“I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
“It was jewelry.”
“It was Elena’s.”
“I know whose it was.”
“That was the problem.”
Her face hardened.
“You think I wanted to be her?”
“No.”
“I didn’t.”
“I know.”
“I wanted one thing in that house to feel like I was allowed to touch it.”
Alessandro shook his head.
“That wasn’t yours to choose.”
“I put it back.”
“After I asked where you got it.”
“I put it back.”
“And I let it go.”
Bianca’s eyes narrowed.
“There.”
“What?”
“That is exactly what I mean.”
She pointed toward him.
“You collect everything.”
“I remember.”
“You collect.”
Her breathing grew faster.
“The parking lot, the cereal, the bracelet, the birthday dinner.”
“Because none of them changed.”
“You didn’t tell me they were changing how you felt.”
“I tried.”
“No, you went quiet.”
He stopped.
Bianca saw the hit.
“You went quiet and polite and impossible to read.”
Vittorio muttered, “That sounds familiar.”
Alessandro shot him a look.
Bianca continued.
“Every time I asked what was wrong, you said work.”
“Sometimes it was work.”
“Most of the time it was me.”
He did not answer.
Her shoulders lowered.
“You were leaving before today.”
Alessandro looked at the floor.
“I was thinking about postponing.”
Bianca went completely still.
Her mother whispered, “Oh, sweetheart.”
Bianca did not look at her.
“You were going to postpone today?”
“No.”
“When?”
“After the rehearsal dinner.”
She laughed once.
A tear finally escaped and tracked carefully along the side of her nose.
“You were going to tell me after my family flew in.”
“I hadn’t decided.”
“You had decided enough to think about it.”
“Yes.”
“And you still let me put this dress on.”
Alessandro looked at her.
“Yes.”
The answer seemed to take more out of him than any defense would have.
Bianca wiped the tear away.
“I hate you for that.”
He nodded once.
“I understand.”
“No, don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Be reasonable now.”
Her voice broke.
“Don’t stand there and make yourself calm after letting me walk into this day believing you wanted it.”
“I did want it.”
“When?”
He had no answer.
Bianca looked at him for several seconds.
Then she turned and walked into the dressing room.
Her father moved to follow.
She raised one hand without looking back.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
Bianca crossed to the vanity.
The engagement ring remained where Alessandro had left it.
She picked it up.
For a moment, he thought she might put it on.
Instead, she closed her fingers around it and sat in the pink chair.
Her reflection appeared in three mirrors at once.
“I cut her hair because I was angry.”
Nobody moved.
Bianca looked at herself rather than at them.
Alessandro’s voice changed.
“Angry at her?”
“No.”
She swallowed.
“At you.”
Vittorio said her name quietly.
Bianca ignored him.
“She said she didn’t want the style I picked.”
Alessandro stared at her.
May you like
“She said her dad liked it long.”
Bianca pressed the ring into her palm.
