The only noise was the hum of the refrigerator and that was it. The sound of her mother’s oxygen machine was gone, the sound of her air conditioner and the television.
It was almost disturbing, that lack of sound. She’d become accustomed to it and having someone in the house. Now, it was empty, and she was the only one that inhabited the rooms. Maybe the place did need a family, a couple with kids to replace the anger, sadness, and pain that had soaked into the walls, with joy and laughter instead. A melancholy smile passed over her face as she locked the door and walked out to her old car.
The drive over to Matteo’s was done in silence. She was too nervous to play anything, afraid to put her mind into a state that would only be devastated if he told her he was finished with her. She’d become used to playing happy, romantic songs on her way to see him, but now she left the music off. It wouldn’t do to build her expectations only to find them crushed when she arrived.
He had wanted her there for dinner, she reminded herself as she braked for a stop sign. Her fingers tapped on the steering wheel, the darkness now almost complete. She switched her headlights on, pulled out after a red sports car passed her by, and drove on.
Dinner might just be pretense or the prelude to her dismissal. Maybe he’d wanted to end it, but was being kind, giving her time to get over her mother’s death. Or maybe she was just being stupid and needed to relax, she thought with a deep breath meant to calm her down. She took another and then another as she turned down the road that would lead her to his house.
Maybe he’d just been busy, as she’d thought earlier. Matteo wasn’t the most expressive man in the world, sometimes he looked downright cold, but never when he looked at her. Thoughtful and contemplative perhaps, aroused certainly, happy even a time or two, but never cold. That was for everyone else.
Over the last few weeks, she’d felt that they’d created a world of their own, one where only they existed, and nobody else could break into unless they allowed them to. That hint of the danger he exuded would keep anyone unwanted out of their world, she knew that much.
But what if he turned that around on her? No, she reminded herself, he had been so kind to her throughout the end of her mother’s illness, and then at the hospital. He’d been there for her, held her when she needed him when her mother’s time came and the woman that had given her life slipped away.
Marie tapped her fingers against the steering wheel and pressed a little harder against the gas pedal. This was not going to be over if she didn’t actually arrive there. Cautious as always, Marie didn’t like to speed, but a few miles over the speed limit wouldn’t hurt, would it?
The glimmer of golden eyes in the wide, water-filled ditch at the edge of the road told her there were wild animals in the darkness, but the road was clear, and she pulled into his driveway without a problem. She paused as she pulled past the gates, took a couple of deep breaths to calm herself down, again, before she ran her fingers through her hair.
It was time to face the music, whatever that music was to be. She didn’t think, deep down, that Matteo was about to end things with her, but life had never been overly fair to her. It would be just like fate to give her a glimpse of what she could have, of a life she could have never dreamed of having, only to snatch it away. To Marie, fate was like Puck in Shakespeare’s play. Always out to fuck people over if it could.
She had a lifetime of experience to prove that. Only, this once in her life, she held onto a breath of hope. She wanted to be optimistic, to feel confident that all was well between her and the man she was all but certain she’d fallen in love with. If only she didn’t also feel a need to place her hands behind her back and cross her fingers to ward off bad luck. All she wanted was to lose herself in him, to let go of her grief and worries. If fate would be so kind as to