Chapter XXIV

Amara Reggio woke to discover her husband's side of the bed empty. She listened for him in the bathroom, but could hear no sound. A chair in the kitchen downstairs scraped the floor. She got up, put on her robe, and went to see what was the matter.

Matty was seated at the kitchen table, a cup of green tea before him. This was unusual. Her husband never had any great difficulty sleeping, nocturnal trips to relieve his bladder apart. He liked to go to bed early, wake up with the dawn, and remember as little as possible of the hours between. Now here he was in his T-shirt, slippers, and pajama bottoms, his robe hanging open, sitting in the hush of the kitchen, staring into the dark.

She took the chair opposite.

"What's wrong?"

She loved many qualities in her husband, but among the best of them was his refusal to lie. If he didn't want to talk about something, he'd tell her as much, but would never try to deceive her, or brush off a worriment as "nothing." He had sometimes admitted acts she might have preferred him not to have committed, but she remained grateful that he was prepared to divulge them to her. She tried not to criticize him, even when it was hard, any successful marriage being an endless series of compromises.

Amara accepted that her husband had killed the man named Alessandro Angioni. Whether he'd planned to or not, she could not say. She had never asked him about it, and never would. Angioni was a thug who had been threatening to rape a young girl, a relative of Amara's on her mother's side. He would certainly have carried out that threat had he not been stopped. If killing him was the only way to prevent the girl's violation, Amara believed God would not judge his murderer too harshly, while she had elected not to judge him at all.

"It's the dumbest thing," said Mattia.

"What is?"

"The way Parker looks at me, like he's just wiped me from his shoe. I've never done anything to him, never given him cause to distrust me, but I still feel the intensity of his dislike."

"Do you know why that might be?"

"Why do you think? I have a past."

"So does he, and it's blacker than yours."

Amara was sufficiently familiar with Parker and his history to make her glad he kept his distance from her husband. He had the maloik, the evil eye. He had brought bad luck to those close to him—his wife, his child, his friends—so better that her husband did not number himself among his intimates.

"Who's to say that," said Mattia, "except for God?"

Amara always knew her husband was particularly melancholy when he mentioned God. If he ever prayed, he did so unspeakingly.

"And what does it matter if he likes you or not?" she asked. "Are you so short of company that you need his?"

Her husband reached for her hand. The sadness in his eyes made her tighten her grip on him for fear she might lose him to it.

"I want his respect," said Mattia.

"But why?"

"Because one should be worthy of the respect of a man like him."

Where had this come from, Amara pondered. Yes, Mattia had his pride. It came with his heritage, abetted by the circles in which he had once moved, where a man who allowed himself to stand belittled would find himself vulnerable. But the private investigator was nothing, a passing shadow.

"You are worthy of it," she said, "even if he does not recognize it."

Mattia did not reply. He had lived too long not to realize how difficult it could be to change the opinion of others about oneself. It required the expenditure of time and effort for scant reward. This was not the schoolyard and he was no longer a teenager requiring the affirmation of his peers. He was angry at Parker, but angry also at himself for allowing the opinion of a near stranger to assume such importance in his life. Yet it had hooked his heart and the barb would not easily be removed.

"Come to bed," said Amara. "Tomorrow we visit Stefano and Giulia. You'll need all your energy for them."

Their grandchildren were the secondary lights of her husband's life, and in turn greeted his arrival as though he were Santa Claus, helped by the fact that he always brought gifts. Their daughter, Carla, and her husband would be glad to have the children taken off their hands, giving them an afternoon to themselves.

"I'll finish my tea," said Mattia. "It'll help me rest, maybe."

Amara rose, kissed his forehead, and returned to bed, but she could not close her eyes. She loved him, her feral man, loved the strength of him, the sureness. She hated to see him this way, just as she winced to see him stumble, or pause to catch his breath, these signs of weakness reminding her that she might someday be deprived of him. This ficcanaso Parker was nothing like her husband, even if she could not declare him unfit to tie Mattia's shoes. There was no doubting his courage or his commitment to others, but to seek to emulate or impress him could only lead to trouble.

Her Matty was a good man. He might not always have been so, but he had tried to make recompense for his failings. He had altered the trajectory of his life and was a loyal husband and loving father; but when he saw himself reflected in Parker's eyes, he glimpsed only what he once had been, and perhaps what he feared still might be. At last he came back to bed, but she pretended to be dead to the world so he would not know that she continued to fret about him.

The next morning, nothing was said about their conversation. Mattia went out early, returning with fresh croissants from the bakery for their breakfast and sticker books for the grandchildren. She checked with her daughter that it was still okay for them to drop by and shortly after 2 p.m. they drove north to Bath, where they went walking with the kids at Lily Pond and ate an early dinner at Mateo's Hacienda. As usual on their visits to the restaurant, her husband joked that Mateo was his brother from Mexico, and the staff played along with the gag, calling Stefano and Giulia their sobrino y sobrina. If Mattia appeared subdued, only his wife noticed.

But as for his anger, well, that remained concealed, even from her.