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I step into the room. It looks like a study. The books on the shelves include an eclectic collection of fiction, romance, biographies, and recipes. A framed photograph of the Eiffel Tower hangs on the wall. The space looks well lived in, much warmer than the rest of the beautifully decorated house.
Going over to the desk, I trace a finger over the dust-covered wood. Brochures are stacked in neat piles on the surface. I tilt my head to study them. They depict flowers and formal place settings with fancy crockery. Wedding brochures. Some have photos of cakes. Others show chair covers and tablecloths. All the colors are in shades of apricot. This is what Angelo’s mother had planned for us.
Something twists in my chest as I stare at the pictures of a wedding that never came to fruition, a wedding my dad kept a secret. I understand why he tried to stop it from happening. He knew Angelo. He understood the duality of my dangerous husband’s personality. He did what he did to protect me from this fate, but the price was heavy. Unthinkable. The price was this—a deserted room layered in bitter-sweet memories and covered in dust.
It’s unbearably sad.
I shouldn’t be here. I won’t be welcome.
Leaning over the desk, I switch off the lamp. Heidi must’ve left it on when she returned the dress. I leave quietly, shutting the door behind me. When I turn, I come face to face with a picture in a frame hanging on the door on the opposite side of the hallway. Pressed flowers in all the colors of the rainbow are glued on a painted background of pink, spelling a name.
Adeline.
I go closer and squint at the name and date written in the corner in thick black ink. Angelo’s sister made this when she was ten years old. The tightness in my chest increases, squeezing the air from my lungs. Sadness wraps around me like the emptiness in the house. How hard it must be for Angelo to have lost his twin.
Did she look like him? Was her personality the same? Was she also cursed with cruelty and kindness living side by side in her heart? Were they close?
I hesitate. I should go back to my room, but I’m riveted by the past, curious about my husband and his history. It’s the notion that I’ll never know that part of his life that sways me, that makes me open the door and flick on the light.
The room is similar in design to mine, but it’s an explosion of colors. Bright yellows, oranges, reds, and pinks fill every nook and cranny. The wallpaper is pink with a sunflower motive. A hand-knitted blanket in purple, blue, and turquoise covers a wrought-iron bed. Porcelain trinkets, bottles of perfume, and glass bowls filled with costume jewelry stand on a dresser. Rows of bead necklaces hang over the frame of the mirror. A red sweater is carelessly draped over the back of a chair, and a pair of yellow ballerina flats lie askew in front of the bed as if they’d been kicked off in a hurry.
The photo frames on the dresser catch my attention. Clearing a small space, I leave my mug on the corner and pick up a heavy silver ornate frame.
The young woman in the picture smiles at the camera. It’s a happy, contagious smile that dominates the image. It’s a smile you see even before you notice the long hair that billows in the wind.
She stands on a clifftop with the sea behind her like in one of those scenes from the paintings. Sunbeams pierce through the clouds in the sky as if the angels themselves projected them to shine on her. Her hair isn’t as dark as Angelo’s. The sunlight that falls like a spotlight on her reflects an auburn tint. Her features bear a striking resemblance to her brother’s. They have the same olive-toned skin and black eyes as well as the same good bone structure except that hers is more feminine and the lines of her face are softer.
I return the photo and pick up one in a Swarovski frame. It’s one of those family portraits that’s done in a professional studio. Judging by her and Angelo’s age, the photo was taken a couple of years ago at the most. I recognize Santino although his image in my memory is vague.
With thick, white hair and Angelo’s angular features, he looks the same as when I saw him at my sixteenth birthday party. A petite woman poses between Adeline and Angelo—their mother. They got their almost pure-black eyes and dark hair from her. Unlike the twins who are tall and toned, Mrs. Russo is small and frail. She’s well-dressed, but there’s a vulnerability and shyness in the manner she clutches her hands together in front of her.
I bet it’s not the photo from the shoot that Mr. and Mrs. Russo chose to have framed, because Adeline is making bunny ears behind Angelo’s head and wearing a mischievous grin on her stunningly beautiful face. Like his father’s smile, Angelo’s is proud.
The image gives me somewhat of an insight into their family dynamic. My gaze is drawn to Angelo, to how handsome he looks in a designer three-piece suit, how deceptively civil and well-bred. It’s just a front though, the one he shows the world when he has to function in it among mere mortals while hiding the demon lurking under his skin.
After taking my fill of the image, I put it back in its place and open a jewelry box with an intricate inlay of triangular mirror pieces in the lid. A ballerina pops to life, doing a pirouette on the tune of The Blue Danube. Two compartments are filled with earrings and rings, most of them costume jewelry. The bigger one holds a cross on a gold chain and various bracelets and baubles. A short necklace of Venetian glass beads lies on the top. I take it out and lift it to the light. I’m admiring the kaleidoscope of colors inside a bead when Angelo’s cold, furious voice cuts through the tinny notes of the waltz.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
I give a start, dropping the necklace and knocking the jewelry box down in the process. The necklace falls on the floor with the unmistakable clink of glass breaking. The box hits the stones with a thud, the metallic notes screeching with a hollow vibration before dying as the box cracks in the middle and the ballerina stops dead.
Jewelry is scattered everywhere. The bottom of the box is split open, revealing the skeleton of wheels and mechanics. Splintered glass beads litter the space around my feet. Some have rolled under the bed and the dresser. The broken string lies like an accusation over my bare toes.
I stare at the destruction, unable to breathe.
“What have you fucking done?” Angelo yells, beside himself with fury.
“I’m sorry,” I say in a trembling voice. “I’m so sorry, Angelo. It was an accident.” I kneel and start to gather the pieces. “You gave me a fright and—”
In two long strides, he’s next to me, hauling me up by my arm. “What were you doing in here?” He shakes me hard as he drags me to the door. “Snooping? What were you looking for, Sabella?”
“Nothing,” I cry out as he pulls me behind him toward the stairs. “I swear.”
“You’re a bad liar, wife,” he utters in a cold, haunted tone. “You’re a fucking traitor. A betrayer.”
This Angelo is the one I’m terrified of. This is the monster, not the man.
“Angelo, please.”
