The Ancestor - Danielle Trussoni Page 0,60

laughing and talking to one of the regulars. It was definitely Friday, everyone out spending their paycheck. Nothing ever changed in Milton.

Suddenly, the phone went silent. “Luca?” I said, afraid I’d lost him. I heard the panic in my voice. “Are you there?”

“I’m here,” he said. “Just moving to a quieter spot. So where are you? What’s going on?”

“I’m in Nevenero,” I said. “The estate told me that I needed to come here to meet my great-aunt Dolores, but there is way more going on here than they told me. Dolores is sick, and there is this crazy tower, the northeast tower, it’s called, where my great-grandmother—who is alive, it turns out, and has some kind of genetic disorder—is being held. Luca, things are totally fucked up here. I need to come home.”

“Hold on, hold on,” he said, his voice calm in an effort to bring me down a notch. “Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m okay,” I said. “But I need to get out of here. This guy Zimmer was supposed to get me, but he hasn’t come back, and it’s been . . . What’s the date?”

“Friday, January nineteenth,” he said.

“I’ve been here three weeks? Do you understand that I am trapped? We’re snowed in. There are no roads open. Nothing.”

“I understand,” he said. “I’m going to find a way to get you out of there. I’ll get in touch with Enzo somehow. If he doesn’t respond, I’ll come get you myself. But I need to ask you something first. What’s going to happen when you’re back home?”

Of all the questions he might have asked, it was one I hadn’t expected. And the one that hit me hardest. “What do you mean?”

“After what happened in Turin . . .” he continued. “Not the fight, but everything else. After that, I thought things would change for us.”

“I thought that, too,” I said, tears blurring my vision. I had hoped that we’d passed through the darkest part of our marriage and could start again.

His voice was soft, more tender than angry. “I’m sorry for what I said to you. I should have told you earlier about what Nonna said. I just need to know if we’re going to make this work.”

I wiped tears away with the back of my hand. “I’m sick of hurting you,” I said. “It’s all I’ve done for years now.”

“You know I’d do anything for you.”

My heart fell. Of course I knew that. He had proven it time and time again, sacrificing himself for me. I listened to the bar—the song on the jukebox, the voices in the background—and felt a deep, painful longing to be back home with him.

“I want to start over,” I said. “I know we can make things work.”

“We can adopt,” he said.

“I want that, too,” I said. “But there’s one thing I need to know.” I took a deep breath, finding the courage to ask. “After the baby was born, was there paperwork you filled out?”

“Just what the nurses gave me.”

“Did you have to write down a name?”

There was a long, tense pause, and I could feel the pain, months and months of mourning, collecting. “I called him Robert,” he said, his voice cracking. “After my dad.”

My eyes filled with tears. “That was a good choice, I think.”

We sat in silence for a moment, loss settling between us. Finally, Luca cleared his throat and said, “I’m going to talk to my dad. We’ll get you out of there.”

“I love you,” I said. “I can’t wait to see you.”

“I love you, too. I’ll be there soon.”

I hung up the phone and walked into the hallway, trembling with emotion, fear and relief and dread, all the feelings I hadn’t expressed to Luca. Now that he knew what had happened, everything would change. He would get in touch with Enzo, and Enzo would make Zimmer send a helicopter, and I would be on my way out of there. Soon, I would be thousands of miles away from the Alps, safe at home with Luca. We would be starting the next chapter of our lives.

These thoughts were going through my mind when I looked up and found Greta staring at me, her eyes huge with astonishment. Before I could utter a word, she turned and hurried down the corridor as if chased.

After my call with Luca, a desperate restlessness overtook me. I walked through the castle at all times of the day and night, searching for the helicopter from various angles, catching the sun from the salon

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