Page 144 of The Wrong Wife

My eyes are almost clear by the time Matteo wakes up.

It’s time for him to eat, and he insists that he wants the farinata, even though his nurse warned me his appetite is almost non-existent.

I reach for the porcelain bowl of soup on the small table. “Open wide.”

He sniffs theatrically. “I’ve missed your cooking.”

I lift the spoon. He sips. “You make it best. Even better than Isabella’s. But we won’t tell her that.”

I shake my head, holding back the tears. “No, we won’t.”

He chuckles, the sound thin. “Tell me something, bambina.”

“Anything.”

“Who’s speaking at my funeral?”

My breath catches. Even knowing he jokes this way, the words destroy me. I hold the spoon up, and he takes a small mouthful.

“Since you didn’t tell me you’re sick, it won’t be me.”

He laughs. “Read me a poem, Alessia, will you?”

“Yes.” I turn to look at Nico. His eyes are moist as well, and he smiles tightly at me, giving me strength to not fold because Matteo deserves more from me than a total collapse.

Matteo gives me a smile like a sigh—quiet and full of old weight. “Don’t give me Dante. I’m not ascending anywhere just yet.”

I huff out a soft breath. “You never got Dante anyway. Beyond your limited intellect.” It’s an old argument between us—well-worn, affectionate.

He snorts. “I get him. I just don’t like him. Too self-righteous. Too eager to sort the world into circles and condemn half of it. Was it Nietzsche who called him a mystical sadist? I’m inclined to agree.”

“And I told you then, you, like good old Friedrich, were being dramatic.” I hold up another spoon of soup, and he takes a small sip.

“Dante wasn’t a sadist,” I go on. “He was a poet trying to make sense of justice. Of mercy. Of exile.”

Matteo’s eyes soften. “You always defend him like he’s family.”

“We do share a last name,” I reply. “I like him because he believed love is what moves everything, even the stars.”

He waves a hand. “Ah, I never trusted a man who needed three books to make his point.”

I smile despite the ache in my chest. “Then how about Leopardi?” I know he has a soft spot for the Italian philosopher, poet, essayist, and philologist from Recanati—the same small provincial town as Matteo’s family.

His eyes light up—just a little. “L’infinito? The Infinite?”

“Certamente! Of course.”

He settles back into a pillow. “That poem tells us something about limits.”

“It was written two hundred years ago,” I tease. “By a man who barely left his village.”

“And yet,” Matteo counters, amused, “Giacomo understood the vastness better than anyone who ever crossed an ocean. You like the poem—don’t pretend you don’t. ”

“How can I not?”

I try again to feed him, but he shakes his head.

I set the bowl down. Three spoonfuls. That was all he ate. And now he’s done. I can’t bear it. I want to scream at him to stay alive, to be with me, but I know that my visible pain will hurt him, so I put my hand on his forehead and stroke. “Leopardi wrote about imagination, about what we can’t see, what we can feel.”