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And only now that she was pregnant with her own child did Maria truly realise what a sacrifice her brother had made. She had known, previously, what he had given up for her. The decisions and sacrifices he had made had all revolved around her needs. And Maria had never really felt worthy of it. Any of it. She had, instead, felt more of a burden. And that ache in her heart had never really gone away.
‘So your father was never really there?’
‘For a while he tried. Seemed to make some kind of an effort, at least that’s what I thought, until my sixteenth birthday.’ Maria shivered. She hated thinking of that day, let alone actually talking of it. She had never shared that day, her feelings from it, with anyone. Fearful of the two possible reactions. That she would either be told to get over it, or they would understand...and the understanding? That would make it worse, because that would mean that the sadness, the anger, the pain...were justified. And that justification would be absolutely the worst. Because it meant that her father really didn’t care...and that there was no hope for a future reconciliation.
‘Seb had arranged everything. He would return from Rio where he was doing his latest business deal and for once, the family would come together. We would go to my favourite restaurant in Siena—right by the Palazzo Pubblico—long after the tourists had gone back to their hotels. I wanted to look grown up, to look beautiful... It was my sixteenth and I was about to become a woman and my family would be there to celebrate with me. Just for once it would be about me, not Valeria, not my father, not even my mother. But me.’
Goosebumps had risen on her arms as her memories took her back to that night. She almost smiled at the way she had got ready that evening. She’d forgotten how excited she’d been that night. How she had spent an hour tackling her eye make-up, getting her eyeliner just right. How she had admired herself in the mirror, the dress she had chosen especially for that day, the v neckline revealing the beautiful sliver threads of her mother’s necklace, the way the waistline nipped in and then flared out at her hips. She felt...so grown up.
‘What happened?’ Matthieu asked gently, clearly aware that the ending to the tale was not a happy one.
Maria cast a glance to the night sky descending over the placid lake, the colours oddly reminiscent of the sky over Siena that evening.
‘Seb had sent a car for me. It took me to the restaurant where I would meet everyone. When the chauffeur opened the car door for me, I felt like a movie star.’ She laughed. ‘Everyone was looking at the beautiful girl being escorted to a table in one of Siena’s finest restaurants. And when I got to the table and saw that I was the first to arrive, that was okay. I could handle that. I was a grown up that night,’ Maria said with the same false bravado she had felt in that instant. That even though her heart had dropped, and fear had begun to creep in, she had kept that smile on her face and even ordered a glass of champagne. Because they would come. They would be there, they just needed a little more time.
‘People stopped staring after a few minutes, but as the time dragged on, as ten minutes turned to twenty and then thirty, curiosity won out and they resumed their watchful gaze on the girl who sat alone at a table for four. I hadn’t really made many friends at school, so it was supposed to be just us. My family.
‘Almost an hour later—’ she shook her head at the memory, the first genuine smile gracing her mouth ‘—he came.’
‘Your father?’
‘No.’
‘Sebastian?’
‘Nope,’ she said again, shaking her head. ‘Theo Tersi. He explained that he was a friend of Seb’s and that my brother’s flight had been delayed because of bad weather and that he’d asked Theo to come and let me know as he’d been in the area meeting with a local vintner. Theo must have seen, must have realised in an instant that my father wasn’t coming, but said nothing. Instead, he sent all the waiters in the restaurant into a
panic as he demanded the most exquisite, the most expensive things on the menu, because—he announced loudly and proudly—it was “this beautiful woman’s birthday”.’
Tears gathered even now at the memory of Theo’s kindness that night. She had never forgotten it and, in turn, it had shaped so much of the following years of her life.
‘When I got home, Theo parked his car beside Seb’s and I rushed into the house to see him, so pleased that he was home. I heard him before I saw him. He was on the phone with our father.’
She had crept up to the office where Seb was, the light from the room dimly illuminating the corridor through the partially open door.
‘What do you mean, you were busy? It’s your daughter’s birthday, for God’s sake... I don’t care about your excuses. Enough is enough. This will never happen again, do you hear me? Otherwise I will stop providing the finances for your and Valeria’s lifestyle. I will cut ties. Do you understand?’
‘My father was present the following year for my birthday, but not because he wanted to be there, but because my brother had threatened to stop his finances. After that...’ Maria shrugged ‘... I didn’t really like celebrating my birthday.’
Because what she couldn’t tell him, what she could barely admit to herself, was the fact that on her sixteenth birthday it had felt like a rejection of her, of who she was becoming. And she had never wanted to put herself, her sense of self, on the line like that again.
Silence fell between them, a silence full of sorrow and ache, of compassion—which she could see shining in Matthieu’s eyes—one that hurt almost as much as the memories of that night.
‘I’m sorry that the two people who were most important to you couldn’t have been there that night.’
Her heart juddered in her chest, as if both soothed and ripped open at the same time.
‘After that Seb became almost consumed with being there for me. Being the father that our own could not. He looked out for me, paid for my education, my travels, anything I could ever want for. In some ways he stopped being my brother. And every gift, every penny he gave me, it felt...dutiful and tainted at the same time. As if it wasn’t for me, but almost in spite of our father. And as such... I just wanted to be me. I wanted to be independent, to fund myself, to... I don’t know. I could never repay my brother financially, but I wanted so much to show him that I was worthy of his investment, that I wasn’t a screw-up.’
‘Is that how you see yourself?’
‘Pregnant and in a marriage for the sake of my child?’ She smiled sadly. ‘I just wanted not to need him, not rely on him in any way so that we could go back to just being brother and sister...’
So that I be loved by him because he can, not because he has to.
But looking deep into her husband’s eyes, she wondered whether she was still thinking of her brother.
‘Maria,’ Matthieu said, taking her hand in his. ‘I cannot make promises that I will always be there—’
