Page 53 of The Sicilian Billionaire's Neglected Wife
My knees hit the cracked linoleum before I realize I’m falling.
I haven’t prayed since I was five, kneeling beside my mother’s hospital bed while machines beeped their electronic last rites. Prayer failed me then, when I needed it most. Failed to bring her back. Failed to fill the hole her death carved in my chest.
But Sienah prays.
Every night for ten years, I pretended to sleep while she whispered to this Father she doesn’t ever lose faith in, asking Him again and again to keep me safe on the track. Heal my burdens. Soften my heart.
And...fuck.
The more I remember all the things my wife has done for her, the more I’m starting to realize just how much I’ve taken her for granted. How much I’ve fucked up. And how, since I’ve completely left nothing to lose...
“I don’t...” My voice cracks against bathroom tiles that have absorbed worse confessions. “I don’t even know if You’re real.”
The words echo in the silence.
“But she believes in You. Talks to You like You actually care about broken things. About people who destroy everything they touch.”
My hands fist against cold linoleum.
“She thinks You can fix anything. Anyone. Even someone like me.” The laugh that escapes sounds like breaking glass. “So if You’re listening...”
What do I even ask for? Forgiveness? Another chance? The ability to rewrite ten years of emotional negligence?
“Please...help me not be this anymore. Whatever this is. This thing that takes love and turns it into ownership. That takes devotion and calls it duty.”
I wait for hours, but I don’t hear anything that constitutes like a miracle.
Morning comes, my eyes are bloodshot, but there’s just radio silence.
And yet...for the first time in so many years, the silence doesn’t feel empty.
It feels like space for something new to grow.
****
DAY 6.
I don’t go to her street.
Instead, I find myself at the market where Signora Chavez struggles with bags that look heavier than she is. She’s remarkably spry for her years, but also extremely conservative in how she wouldn’t evenconsiderattending church if she’s not wearing her Sunday best.
“Let me help you,” I say in Sicilian, reaching for her bags.
She squints up at me, recognition dawning. Without the Armani armor, I’m just another man on the street.
“Little Aivan?” Her voice carries forty years of watching me grow up. “My goodness, what ever has happened? You look very, very troubled.”
“Life,” I say, taking the groceries, to which the older woman only rolls her eyes.
“Bah!Life happens to everyone, but most people don’t look like they’ve been dragged behind a truck.” She studies my face with eyes that have seen everything. “Come. You need coffee.”
Her apartment smells like breakfast and the good old days, its walls adorned with framed family photos and diplomas. She invites me to sit in her tiny kitchen while rain begins to fall outside, and I do as she says.
In our world, the utmost respect is given to little old Sicilian women who remember when you were knee-high to a grasshopper.
“You have been the talk of our little town lately. Have you gotten into a fight with your wife?”
“We’ve never—”
