Bound by Duty(24)

I brushed my fingers over the fabric. It was strange to think that the person who had worn them was long gone, buried in cold dark earth. With a shudder, I closed the door and stepped back, but my curiosity wasn’t sated yet. I opened one of the drawers of the cupboard beside the wardrobe and found it stacked with underwear. I quickly closed it. That definitely felt too personal. I couldn’t rummage in the lingerie of a dead woman, even if it might tell me something about Dante’s preferences. Hesitantly, I approached the second dresser. I opened the top drawer. It was empty except for two photo albums. I had a feeling the drawer had once belonged to Dante, stacked with his socks and briefs a long time ago. When he’d changed bedrooms, he’d left everything behind, even his own dresser.

Ignoring my qualms, I picked up the two albums and carried them over to the bed. A dark red duvet was spread out over it, which was also covered in a thin layer of dust. After a futile glance around in search for another option, I sat down on its edge with the albums in my lab. The first album was white except for the image of two entwined gold rings. With trepidation, I opened the album.

A much younger Dante and a young, small woman in a wedding dress were in the first photo. Dante wasn’t looking into the camera. His sole attention belonged to his bride, and the adoration plainly visible in his eyes made a lump rise into my throat. The cold calculation and emotionless sophistication were absent in his face. Maybe because he was still young, but I had a feeling it had just as much to do with the woman at his side.

It was a simple picture and yet it conveyed everything a wedding should mean: love, devotion, happiness.

I hadn’t seen the photos of our wedding yet, but I knew what I wouldn’t find in them. I swallowed the rising emotion. I browsed the other photos, childishly hoping to find Dante with a look of the same indifference he always showed me. But even though his expression became more guarded and controlled in later photos, his feelings for his wife were hard to miss. They’d been married for almost twelve years, but they’d never had kids. I knew his wife Carla had fought cancer in the last three years of her life, but I wondered why it hadn’t worked before then. I’d never seen her with a baby bump, or heard rumors of a miscarriage. Not that it was my business.

Maybe I should count myself lucky that Dante didn’t have kids with Carla or I’d have them here to despise me as well. I hated the bitterness of that thought and quickly abandoned it. I didn’t want to get petty, or act jealous toward a dead woman. She’d never done anything to me and it was horrible that she had died so soon.

I picked up the second album. At its end, there were a few photos that showed Carla with a wig and no eyebrows. Dante’s arm was wrapped protectively around his thin pale wife. Sorrow washed over me. How was it to lose someone you loved so much?

I had loved Antonio as a friend, but it didn’t even come close to what Dante and Carla must have had, and if I was being honest I’d often resented Antonio in the end for keeping me in a loveless golden cage so he could hide that he was gay.

The door flew open, making me jump, and Dante stepped in, his expression thunderous. Before I could move, he was in front of me and ripped the photo album from my hand. He flung it onto the bed, his furious eyes burning into me. “What are you doing here?”

He grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet, bringing us so close our lips were almost touching. “This room is none of your business.”

I squirmed in his hold. “Dante, you’re hurting me.”

He released me, some of the anger replaced by cold disapproval. “You shouldn’t have come here.” His eyes darted to the album that lay open on the bed with the photo of his sick wife and him. He took a step back from me, the last of his fury gone and replaced by scary calm. “Leave.”

I didn’t need to be told twice. I quickly rushed into the corridor, scared by Dante’s outburst, but honestly terrified by the odd calm that had taken over his face at the end. Dante stepped out of the room and closed the door. He didn’t look at me again. I watched his back as he walked away and headed down the stairs. Wrapping my arms around myself, I closed my eyes. I didn’t like to give up on things. I was stubborn, too stubborn as my mother always pointed out, but I seriously considered accepting that the marriage between Dante and me wouldn’t work. There was only so much rejection I could take.

***

We hardly spoke during dinner, and when we did it was about current news that were the last thing on my mind. Dante didn’t mention what happened, and I definitely wouldn’t. After Zita had cleared away our plates with a too curious glance in my direction, Dante stood. “I have more work to do.”