Matteo’s journal, June—July:
Late afternoon! Sea wind warm and salted, fig leaves whispering. She laughed at something small—my favorite sound—and then went quiet. I leaned in (stupid? maybe! who cares!). Her breath caught; she pulled back.
“Matteo, I…” she said, and I stepped away like a gentleman—or a coward. She shook her head, said university, future, big roads. I nodded like that fixed anything. Gardener’s son reaching where he shouldn’t! She left the next day; I told myself to move on. Tie the vines, give hedges air, make room for sun. I didn’t move on. I dreamed under that tree! I love you, Bella. There—I write it again.
***
Week one: I gave her silence because she asked for it without asking.
Week two: Mamma mentioned Bella called Alessandro and not me—practical maybe; still felt like cold water down my back.
Week three: the call. Her voice far away. “I met someone new, Matteo.” I swallowed everything that tried to climb my throat! Chose a door. Locked the rest. We hung up fast. That night I cut wisteria till the moon had nothing left to look at.
***
She’s here and she isn’t! Same house, different gravity. For three days I watched Bella disappear room by room—no reason given, no space to ask. The girl who left for Tuscany isn’t the girl who came back. I keep wanting to shout, Ti vedo! but she won’t look up.
She came back with hair too dark for her skin, weight gone from her face, shadows under her eyes like bruises that forgot their color. First day: from the path she spotted me and flinched—like I’d thrown something. I stopped walking. Not exams. Not ordinary. Something happened in Tuscany! Dimmi, per favore…
***
I worked the citrus bed, window open above me—plates, voices. Alessandro: “A guest is coming Saturday. A celebration dinner.” Then the sound: fork on porcelain, breath cut short, chair scraping, footsteps retreating. The silence afterward had weight. I stood looking at the door that didn’t open again. I wanted to run in yelling Basta! I kept weeding.
***
She was there, arms crossed, back to the bark—our spot. I kept a careful distance.
“Bella,” I tried. She went still. No reply. “Can we talk?” A small shake of her head. “What happened?” “Please, Matteo. Leave me alone.” I stepped in half a pace anyway—idiot heart! “Let me help.”
“I have to go.” She pushed past me. I let her. The leaves shivered overhead and settled like nothing ever happened. I stood there with my love burning holes in my pockets.
***
Evening brought Luisa—quick, warm, efficient, sneakers dusty, tote bag thumping. She waved to Mamma, then came straight at me.
“She won’t talk to me either,” she said, breath short. Arms crossed like a quiz was coming. Lists live in that girl’s blood.
“In Rome,” she added, “she told me about the professor. He helped her prep. She thought she had feelings.”
The words I already knew from that call—someone new—landed again. I kept my face empty and my stomach loud.
“I thought that’s why she turned me down,” I said. Jealousy pricks like nettles even when you deserve it.
“Why things changed,” Luisa clicked her tongue—impatient with the universe. “She stopped mentioning him. Then her messages got strange, then stopped.” Her eyes on me, sharp behind cheap glasses. “Something’s wrong.”
We stood by the rosemary. Bees worked our ankles; the house lit itself room by room. “Alessandro said ‘a guest,’” I told her. “He sounded proud.” She frowned—that look she gets when a plan is forming. I added, “He said ‘doctor’ to the housekeeper earlier.” I hadn’t meant to listen. I had.
“Doctor. The professor,” she said. We didn’t use his name. No need. The moth of my heart kept hitting kitchen glass. “If it’s him,” she said, “if he’s coming here—” She didn’t finish. She didn’t have to. I heard the fork on the plate again.
“What if something happened between them?” Luisa asked—never soft with hard things (bless her). “What if that’s why she looks like that?”
“She told me I can’t help,” I said. “Said no one can.”
“Then we watch,” Luisa decided. “Saturday. I’ll be here early. We watch him. We watch her. We see her face when he arrives.” She wrote it in a notebook: Saturday—arrive 15:00. When she writes, the world gets edges.
“If it’s him,” she said, “we figure out the rest.”
That’s what we had—watching. Small patience. I can use that. “Saturday,” I said. She touched my arm—quick, friendly. “Eat,” she ordered (mother bird), then told Mamma she’d text, and left in the fast line she came on.
***
I put tools where they belong: secateurs, twine, a drop of oil on the stubborn hinge. Crickets argued; the sky went grape-dark. I looked up at Bella’s window—curtain closed, a square of nothing. I typed: I don’t know what happened. Saturday I’ll be there with Luisa. We’re watching. You’re not alone. Ti amo, anche se non vuoi sentirlo.
Sent. No answer. Okay. I’ll love you quietly, then!
***
At the gate I told the dark what I couldn’t tell a man’s face: “If he hurt her, I don’t care who he is.” A moth landed on my knuckle, rested like it agreed, flew on. I didn’t feel brave. I felt exact—like when the cut is clean and the cane thanks you in spring.
***
Mamma called, “Matteo, vieni a cena.” I nodded without standing. She watched me the way mamas do when they won’t ask the question. “Domani si raccolgono i pomodori,” she said instead—ordinary words handed to me like a clean glass. I took them.
After dinner I walked rows smelling of soil and cut stems, looked for mildew, for pests, for anything I could fix. The house turned its lights off one by one, old place pretending it can hold us together by itself.
In bed I watched the fan carve the air. Saturday is a day like any other—until it isn’t. I closed my eyes and dreamed the fig tree again: leaves whispering, a step on gravel, a breath that wasn’t mine. I woke with my own heart counting the distance to morning. Bella, I love you. I’ll be there.