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‘Salvatore, are you okay?’I used one knuckle and knocked gently on the door.
When no answer came back at me, I placed my ear to the solid wood and holding my breath to make as little noise as possible, I tried hard to hear what was going on inside. I was at least certain he was no longer being sick.
‘Salvatore?’ I questioned again.
At last, I heard the spray of the shower start and instinctively knowing that right this minute he wasn’t in a position to talk, I wrapped my arms around myself and stepped away from the door.
I thought back to what had just happened.
Sleep hadn’t come to me, and I’d had to admit defeat after spending the past four hours trying. So, I’d been out on our balcony. Just sitting in the wicker, hanging chair, turning myself around and around. I had paused occasionally, to check he was still sleeping, when I’d heard what I thought was him shouting out my name.
Now, with everything else going on, it looked like Salvatore was also ill. I stifled an ironic laugh at the situation.
The conversation I’d wanted to have last night had never happened.
Our mutual pleasure had consumed the whole of the evening and the early hours of this morning. With his heavy arm resting over me I’d positioned myself on my back and stared at the ceiling and let the various worries I had going around my head consume me, in a bid to work through them.
It wasn’t just the fact I hadn’t told him about the hospice, my head had been all over the place since his grandfather’s admission and the secrets he was subsequently asking me to carry. I was also stuck in the impasse of not knowing how I felt about Salvatore stepping up to take his place, but in my heart of hearts, I knew it had always been his destiny to do just that.
As it was equally my fate to be his wife.
I was convinced Salvatore would prefer to remain how we were, cossetted away as far as possible, but he wasn’t aware of his impending future.
Only I was, and it was a hard path to negotiate.
He’d been dreaming before he’d called out to me and thinking back, I was sure I’d heard him call out for his mama and speak something in Italian, although through the fog of tiredness I couldn’t remember what it was.
Then the truth found me.
He wasn’t ill at all.
In some strange way, he was aware that something was going on.
Grabbing hold of the azure blue, silk bathrobe Salvatore had recently bought for me, from a nearby chair, I threw it up behind me and thrust both my arms into the sleeves. Then, wrapping it tightly around myself to stave off the shivering I was now experiencing on what was sure to become another warm summer’s day, I tightened the belt and sat down on the edge of the bed and purposefully looked towards the door that had just been slammed in my face.
And there I waited until he was ready to come out to face me.
Reaching out my hand, I took the glass of water from beside the bed and sipping carefully at the cool liquid, I attempted to wash away the bitter taste I was gradually becoming aware of in my mouth.
As the sun started to rise behind me, I watched as minute by minute she stretched out her fingers of warmth into our large bedroom. The reds, oranges and yellows instantly attached themselves to our bare white walls and filled the room with a warmth that had been missing. And still I sat, waiting, with my eyes solely focussed on the oak door between us.
Ten minutes or more had passed, when I finally watched the silver-coloured handle press down and the door opened to reveal the naked, exposed body of my husband.
I cast my eyes fleetingly over him as he strode purposefully from one room to the other. I knew he was acting out the persona he’d been born to carry, but I knew I’d never seen him so vulnerable. As he took one step after another to close the gap between us, I saw the tears still captured in his eyes.
Tears he refused to cry.
Over and over, I watched the Adam’s apple move in his throat as he attempted to swallow down the emotion trapped behind it.
Emotion, I was certain he would never acknowledge.
‘What’s going on?’ I ventured, as he fell to his knees in front of me and after staring pointedly into my eyes, which I knew required more tenderness than any words he could find, he wrapped his arms around my waist and buried his face into my side.
Carefully, like you would when caring for a small child who had awoken from a bad dream, I used both hands to stroke his head. Eventually, I pushed all my fingers into the thick strands and gently I started to move my fingers through his hair. Softly, and without thought, I began to hum an old song I remembered my mum singing to us when we were children, to comfort us.
All the while, I watched as the day consumed the night around us and hoped, between me and the brand new day, we could pull him out of the darkness he’d fallen into and back to me.
Slowly, I began to feel small movements coming from what had been his inert figure. He had returned, and I released a long sigh of relief. The vulnerable young boy he’d let me see for those all too few minutes, was forced back down deep inside to where his demons resided, and Salvatore was back.
