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“Moving is always an ordeal…”
“Muse, if you want to move, just tell me.”
“No, I want your opinion. Do you want to move?”
I shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind being close to family. It would make my parents happy, especially since Vanessa is so close now.”
“I love Verona too, but I want to be close to your family—”
“Our family.”
She smiled. “Our family. I would love to be close to them. When you’re at work, I can always spend time with them with the baby. Vanessa is close by, and she’s always been my friend. Carmen is there too, along with your aunt and uncle. If we’re going to build a family, I want to be close to family.”
It didn’t sound like this was a discussion anymore. Muse was asking me to give her what she wanted. When I wasn’t around, she wanted some other kind of comfort. She wanted to raise our family with family. In Verona, I was her only companionship.
“I thought you could make a studio here and drive or fly to Milan when you need to…but I know that would make your job less convenient.”
Yes, it would be less convenient. But I would be happier knowing my wife was happy. “Let’s do it.” I turned my eyes to the road, missing her reaction.
She let out a quiet gasp. “Really?”
Hearing the happiness in her voice took away all my doubts. The process of moving everything to a new place would be a lot of work, especially when we had a baby about to join us. Even if we hired people to do it for us, we would still have to sort through everything. But that seemed irrelevant in light of her joy. “Really.”
She clapped her hands together. “That makes me so happy. And your parents will be over the moon when they hear the news. All they want is for both you and Vanessa to be close by. Now that Vanessa is down the road, you’ll all be together again.”
“Yeah. But too bad Vanessa is so down.”
“That won’t last forever. She’s a strong woman. She’ll make it through.”
“Yeah…” I still hated her depression. It seeped into my skin and penetrated my lungs.
“I can’t wait to tell your parents. They’ll be so excited.”
I remembered the sadness on my mother’s face each time I returned to Verona. It broke her heart every single time, made her miserable. Both of my parents wanted the four of us to be united, to be together all the time. I didn’t want that when I was younger, but now that I was older, I didn’t mind. My father and I had become friends in addition to father and son, and Muse found a good relationship with my mother. “Yeah, they will.”
We greeted my parents, talked about the honeymoon, and then had dinner together in the dining room. Lars had prepared a feast that neither one of us needed, but it was so good that we didn’t restrain ourselves.
Muse had a much bigger appetite than before, so she always seemed to be hungry.
When I held my wineglass, I felt the bite of the metal from my wedding ring dig into my skin. I still wasn’t used to wearing it, to feeling the metal grow hot and cold with my body temperature. It had a significant weight to it, a weight I still hadn’t become accustomed to. Completely black, it would match the color of my suits. My father wore a similar ring, but that wasn’t where I drew my inspiration.
“How’s Vanessa doing?” I asked.
The happy banter between the four of us died away. Mom’s smile faded, and instead, she pressed her lips tightly together in the form of an unhappy grimace. Father looked down into his wine, composing his sentence in his mind before he spoke aloud. “Overall, she’s better. But she’s not great.”
I wanted Vanessa to get over this guy as soon as possible, not so I wouldn’t have to deal with her sadness, but so she would be happy. I didn’t like my sister like this, a shell of the person she used to be. So full of life and joy, she was wonderful to be around. She had a spark that could start a forest fire. She had a smile that was brighter than Christmas lights. But all of that faded away once she lost Griffin. “That’s too bad…”
“There’s this handsome young man who’s showed interest in her,” Father said. “But she didn’t reciprocate his advance.”
“Handsome young man?” Both of my eyebrows rose off my face when I heard what my father said. He never talked about potential suitors for Vanessa, and he certainly didn’t describe other men like that. He mentioned Muse was a beautiful woman once, but that was the most I’d ever heard him say.
Mom’s smile returned. “Your father likes him.”
“Wait,” Muse said. “Did you meet him?”
