Dinner on Friday

54. Carla

DOING IT TOGETHER

I felt emotionally drained after the whole Lianna fiasco, but nothing could compare to the look of utter shock followed by joy on Dante's face when I told him I was pregnant. Overwhelmed with emotion, he bent to kiss me, but quickly realized what he was doing and stopped.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Didn't mean to overstep."

I smiled awkwardly while secretly pleased that his first reaction was to kiss me. My husband was a touchy man, and I knew it was killing him inside, having to keep his hands to himself. Seeing him struggling to maintain a physical boundary made me feel like he was taking the consequences of his actions seriously.

Dinner that night was a revelation. Dante's lasagna was not just any lasagna. It was the best I'd ever tasted. The flavors blended together perfectly, each bite reminding me of the life and the home we had created. It was a reminder of the man I fell in love with, the man who could make magic out of simple ingredients.

Putting down my fork, I watched him interacting with my mother, already making plans for our baby, which she encouraged by building on his ideas. I loved how his eyes drifted back to my slightly rounded belly as if he couldn't quite believe I was carrying his child.

Exhaustion crept in, and I decided to call it a night. As I was about to wheel myself out, Dante dropped his kitchen towel to stand behind my wheelchair, his hands on the handlebars.

"May I?" His voice was low and sexy, dislodging something inside of me I thought was dead.

The last time I felt sexually alive was all those weeks ago when we made love on the hospital's balcony. That was all before it got too much, and I decided to run away from my problems instead of facing them.

But I was done doing that. Done with the shutting down or going mute. I had a lot to say, and I would use my voice to make the world a better place for our kids, starting with my marriage.

"Please," I answered.

Releasing the breaks, Dante pushed me down the hallway towards my bedroom on the ground floor. "You've matured a lot, carino."

"What makes you say that?" I looked up at him, curious about his answer.

He took a moment to answer, focusing on the bedroom door before meeting my eyes. "It's the way you're handling everything. Despite the pain, you're not running away. After Eva's and Madeleine's deaths, I figured you would have gone mute, but that didn't happen."

"It didn't happen because I had our love. Your love got me through it. If it weren't for our love, I would have given up a long time ago. My therapist thinks I go mute when something disastrous happens and I feel alone and unloved. Even when you weren't there for Eva and Madeleine's funerals, I knew you loved me and were thinking about me."

"I woke up thinking about you and fell asleep thinking about you. I hated not being able to talk to you." Regret and anger took up residence in his eyes as if the very thought of not being able to talk to me during the darkest moment in my life was too painful to talk about.

He continued. "I'm glad you found a way to connect with your mother again. I feel much better knowing there's someone you can lean on when I'm not around. I learned a lot from my mother, and I hope the same for you."

"Thank you. She's helped me tremendously. She taught me the meaning of community, of leaning on others when in need. Running doesn't solve anything. It only makes things worse."

His grip on the wheelchair tightened. "I know I made things worse for us, but all I'm asking is a chance to make it better. I want to see the Carla who played with me in the kitchen the first time we met, laughing so hard, it made your belly hurt."