AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She gives a dismissive grunt. “You are more beautiful when you smile,dolcezza. He prefers—”
I tune the rest out. Carlotta nags me like a grandmother, but she means well. She’s covered for me enough times. I know she’s really just trying to help me out. I’ve overheard her lecturing Giovanni in the same vein, imparting her old-school wisdom on what she thinks.
Not even Giovanni has the nerve to shut her down once she starts. In many ways, Carlotta keeps the Sorrentino estate running. Without her around as caretaker, we wouldn’t know what to do with ourselves. She ensures everything’s in check.
I manage to escape once I’ve eaten every nutrient-rich crumb, using the excuse I want to freshen up before my doctor’s appointment. That alone makes me want to crawl under the covers and go back to sleep.
The rest of the massive twenty-million-dollar home is virtually empty. Aside from the servants bustling about at any given moment and Carlotta running the household, the rest of the home is a hollow echo. I climb the grand staircase with heavy footsteps, battling the sense of fatigue threatening to take me over. Even Carlotta won’t be able to come up with an excuse if I try to cancel this time.
It’ll be one too many. The best I can hope for is relief this evening.
Maybe… for once…
I stop halfway down the second-floor hallway. The door to the left calls to me with its sickeningly sweet nostalgia. Carlotta’s not around. Neither are any of the other staff on shift. The hall’s so silent, the faint twitter from the birds outside sounds loud. I wrap my hand around the knob and crack the door open.
The room’s gone untouched for years now, an all-white angelic relic from the past. The stuffed bears still sit perched on the shelves, still in mint condition. Golden stars and the moon still sparkle, dangling over the crib. The rocking chair in the far corner by the window serves as only a reminder of the sweet bonding moments I’d hoped for, but never experienced.
Giovanni refuses to get rid of it. So it stays put, waiting on the moment we finally make it happen for real.
I shut the door, the heaviness of fatigue weighing me down even more. I don’t know why I bothered other than to torture myself. Carlotta would say something inspiring, like things happen for a reason, or when the time is right…
There was a time in the past when I believed her. Optimism takes up too much energy. Eventually, even a glass-half-full kind of woman like me loses hope.
And questions everything.
I blot oil from my makeup, wasting time in the bathroom. Every minute locked inside is another minute we’re off schedule, possibly holding up my appointment with Romano. I just can’t bring myself to care.
Maybe it’s just not in the cards.
“You’ve been very bad, Mrs. Sorrentino.” Doctor Romano lifts a solitary brow and curls his mouth into a smirk as he awaits my answer. “Do you want to come clean and tell me what you did?”
I move into the exam room we’ve built on the estate for my in-house doctor appointments. It’s no hospital, but Giovanni paid hundreds of thousands just to get the room equip enough to handle most medical necessities. I’m able to see my physicians and specialists without ever having to step foot in the real world.
Anything to keep me under lock and key.
Carlotta always stays in the room with me during the exams. Giovanni’s rule, but also mine—Doctor Romano isn’t my favorite person.
When I slide onto the exam table and say nothing, he clicks his tongue and shakes his head.
“Mrs. Sorrentino, I need you to participate in this appointment if we’re going to get anywhere.”
I sigh, looking in Carlotta’s direction, my expression tight. “I didn’t take my medication last night.”
“That wasn’t the confession I was looking for, but thank you for your honesty. I’ve suspected.” He pauses long enough to jot down some notes I’ve learned to think of as a log of my sins. Ones he’ll be courtesy copying to my husband. “You haven’t been eating like the nutritionist has advised, have you? I’ve heard you’ve been a very stubborn woman about the nutrition plan.”
My fingers dig into the cushion of the exam table. “I’ve already told you, sometimes I don’t have an appetite.”
“Yes, but if you aren’t receiving the proper nutrients, then how can you ever expect to succeed? Think of yourself as a seedling. If you don’t water yourself, how will you blossom into a beautiful flower?” He speaks slowly as though going any faster will confuse me. The smirk only spreads on his face. “Am I making sense to you, or do we have to have another sit-down with Natalia the nutritionist?”
“It makes sense,” I snap. “But if you’d like me to eat more, then maybe you can prescribe me some meds that don’t make me nauseous all of the time.”
Doctor Romano's smirk vanishes. He looks up at Carlotta, a sudden exasperation about him. He’s shaking his head as he returns to his notes, scribbling a couple more lines down.
“Mrs. Sorrentino, we’vebeenover this. If you don’t soak up those pills with the right meal then you will continue feeling sick.”
“And the fogginess? The fatigue? The meds make me feel unlike myself. They bring my mood down.”
“Another matter we’ve been over. Have you been getting enough sunlight? Remember what we discussed regarding your Vitamin D levels during these treatments? It’s very important you get one to two hours of natural sunlight a day,” he says, moving closer. He checks my vitals as he lectures me some more. “Our moods are often a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you wake up convinced it will be a bad day, then guess what you’re likely to have?”
