ramble on and on about petty things Alice didn’t want to think about during this weekend. God, was she being selfish? Yes. And it felt wonderful.
During the months she’d worked for Lorenzo, questions about her family, even on the odd day she had to take off during her sister’s hospital stays, were brief. He never allowed their relationship to go past a certain point. Even when Brenda had come to play with Cara, Lorenzo was cordial toward her but distant.
“Don’t you ever tire of caring for them?”
“My dad asked me to before he died.” Her voice strained. “He was the glue that kept us together, and although I’m probably just generic scotch tape, I can’t go back on a promise. My mother tries, but she isn’t as hands-on as I am.”
He strolled to a courtyard filled with flowers and a whimsical little path descending the hill. “Maybe you should give your mother more credit. Promises are nice, but time finds a way to shoot them down. Just like marriages.” Instead of sitting on one of the few scattered benches, he put on his shades and looked ahead.
She twisted her hands together. The past year she had, out of curiosity, tried to get some dirt from Gordon or Ms. Suarez a couple of times. Neither of them shared any information about the kind of marriage he had. “I assume you’re speaking from experience?”
The planes of his profile hardened. “Yeah.”
A group of visitors stood behind him, waiting to pass on the narrow pebbled path. She nudged him out of the way, and the sensation of intimacy from such nonsexual touch surprised her. “What happened to Mrs. B?”
“She had kidney failure.”
She let out an impatient sigh. “Tell me something Cara doesn’t know.”
“It was caused by years of extreme pill popping.”
Her shoulders sagged a bit. “Oh. I’m sorry.”
“The sad part is I wasn’t that sad she was gone. I mourned her, of course, like I would a distant family member I always heard of but never met in person. I was more disappointed in myself, for not feeling what I was supposed to,” he said, arms crossed and facing the vegetation ahead.
She drew back, and it wasn’t the partial shade of tall trees that took the sunshine away. A chill swept over her, while she wrapped his confession in her head. How could that happen? “You didn’t love her anymore. Why?”
He removed his sunglasses, and her gaze flew to his instantly. Without that extra layer of protection, she could see the sadness he had been able to conceal in his voice. But not in the eyes. “She was an artist when we met. We decided to get married and, soon after, Cara was born. After the wedding, she changed. Hell, I changed.”
She nodded. “Why did you marry her?”
“Because I thought I cared for her deeply. Besides, she came from a traditional family, and she belonged to a world I was dipping my feet in. She had charisma, contacts…”
Are you for real? She took a step backward, and her heart squeezed. “Charisma and contacts? Are you talking about a salesperson or a spouse?” How could he do that? Show her a glimpse of human emotion, then hurry to stash it away?
“Probably both, which is why I paid a price.”
“When did it go sour?”
He shook his head. “When she started to fail as an artist and I kept succeeding.”
“If you are an art dealer, couldn’t you have helped her?” she asked; the masochist in her just couldn’t drop the subject. She was within a few feet from him, in one of the most romantic places she had ever visited, yet melancholy lurked around them like smoke. Maybe, she realized, even pain.
“It’s hard to help when she didn’t have much talent, and no one wanted to buy her art.”
“Did she blame you?”
He curled his lips. “Kristin enjoyed blaming others. I ended up apologizing for my success.”
“Maybe she took after you. Aren’t you blaming her for the failed marriage?” she said, and a second later realized it was too late to take it back. Shit. “I mean—”
“Touché, Ms. Freud,” he said, with a pang of mockery. “I know the many mistakes I made. I’ll see to never making them again. Now, if you are done dissecting my past, we can get going.”
Lorenzo kicked the ball as hard as he could—and watched it hit the goalkeeper and roll back toward him. Attack had always been his preferred position. Another player, a guest of Viola’s who was persuading her to