Page 56 of Duke for the Summer

“So then why were you in Dublin?” Gracie asked, still babbling. “Is Nate there? I thought he said he was in Venice. Did you have a fight? Oh, no, did you break up? Please tell me you didn’t break up, Jacopo, after all this–”

“We didn’t break up,” Jacopo said. He let out a long sigh. His limbs were weak, almost numb, as if he had just swum to Carmosino from Sicily instead of taking the ferry, and exhaustion was starting to fold over him. “I, um. Gracie, remember how you asked if I ever wanted to have kids?”

The door swung open, and Mamma walked in without so much as a knock, saying, “Now, how’s my grandson, is he awake yet?” She paused, looking at all of them, Jacopo sitting down with tears and pollen on his face, Gracie with her arms around him, Alessia standing at his side, Mirabella still red-cheeked and weepy, and Antonio bouncing the baby, who had quieted down and was making pleased little grunts against his father’s shoulder. She blinked, twice, her hand on the doorknob. “What’s been going on in here?” she asked.

20.

“And that’s when the shit really hit the fan, as you would say,” Jacopo told Nate over the phone, later that night, from the relative safety of the caretaker’s hut, a cat draped over his lap and another one nuzzling against the phone, trying to knock it out of his hand. The cats, at least, had been unconditionally glad to see him again.

“Yeah, I can imagine.” Nate’s voice was warm and comforting against his ear, and Jacopo luxuriated in it like he would a hot bath. “It’s kind of a lot to tell your whole family all at once.”

It had been a lot. Emotions had been high, and there had been tears, and yelling, and hand-wringing, and finger pointing (Mamma, scolding Jacopo for making everything all about him; Gracie, yelling at Mamma toLet Jacopo love who he wants to love!), and then the baby had started crying, big, whooping cries that seemed beyond its tiny lung capacity, and Jacopo had thought it best to remove himself from the situation, fleeing down the stairs and past Antonio’s bewildered parents and grandparents.

He still didn’t really know what to make of it. Maybe the strangest thing, the most stunning and terrifying and euphoric thing, was how little it had mattered to his sisters, how they hadn’t seemed to look at him any differently after everything was out in the open.

Jacopo sighed, tipping his head back to look at the ceiling. It was bare white stucco, but with Nate here with him on the phone, it seemed covered in stars. The tension in his chest was gone; he felt scraped out, so tired he could barely think. Nate’s voice was the only thing keeping him from slipping intounconsciousness. “It all happened so quickly that I still don’t know what Mamma thinks. And–and I’m sure Papà knows by now, too. And probably the whole town. Gracie can’t keep a secret.”

“I know, she’s like Tuesday. And she must have talked to Thea, because she’s been texting me nonstop. If it’s any consolation, my family is one hundred percent on board.”

“Your family is wonderful.” Jacopo pictured Nate lying on an ornate bedspread in his room in Venice, his hair a brighter gold than the embroidery, looking up at another ceiling. The miles of air between their lips seemed heavy, buzzing with longing.

“They’re really not,” Nate said. “Just wait until Dave starts talking your ear off about chem trails, or until Mom tries to cleanse your aura.”

“I think I can put up with it. It’s just good not to be alone.”

“Of course you’re not alone. You’ve got your sisters, and Thea, and my parents, and what sounds like a very badass lesbian couple in Ireland. And your daughter. And me, of course.”

Jacopo rubbed his knuckles along the hand rest of the chair. He could almost feel Nate’s skin beneath his, instead of the rough fabric. “Of course you.” His body was leaden with exhaustion, but his brain felt like it was made of sparks. He stifled a yawn. “Do you think you’ll be able to sleep tonight?”

Nate laughed. “Are you kidding? I’m too excited.”

“Me, too. And worried. I don’t know what will happen when you get here.”

“I don’t either. But we’ll figure it out. I love you.”

“I love you, Nate.”

After they hung up, Jacopo wandered out into the courtyard, smoking what he really hoped was his last cigarette. Night had fallen, but the shapes of the castle in the dark, thecrumbling mound of the Roman wall and the vague silhouettes of the town down below, were as familiar to him as his own hands, and he knew their exact dimensions even without the light. He wondered how many more times he would look out over this view, the road winding down the hills, silvery as a discarded snakeskin in the moonlight, the far-off blink of lights on the sea. He wondered how many more times he would breathe in the smell of trees and dried grass and saltwater and listen to the hushed sounds of the night. It was different, prettier and more peaceful; the island’s smallness no longer seemed to crush the life out of him, and the shoreline no longer spoke to him of being trapped. Jacopo took a deep breath. He would try to sleep. Or, barring that, he would clean his apartment, prune the plants that he’d left neglected for a week, iron the shirt he planned to wear tomorrow. Anything to fill up the remaining seconds that Nate wasn’t in his arms.

He had just turned to go back inside when he heard the scuff of footsteps on the road leading up from the village. There was very little light out, but he recognized his mother’s tall, slim figure, taller than any of the other women in the village, and the purposeful way she walked. She was alone, her hands clenched at her sides. Once she was within speaking distance, she slumped in on herself, wrapping her arms around her own midsection, and stood there looking at him.

“Would you like to come in?” Jacopo was the one to break the silence.

She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Why did you come?”

Mamma rubbed a hand over her face, still staring at him. Her eyes sparkled in the starlight. She cleared her throat. “I know–I know our family doesn’t talk, Jacopo.”

“No.” He crossed his arms. The back of his throat felt tight, and his fingers ached for the comforting texture ofcigarette paper.

“I just don’t understand,” she said. Jacopo could see tears on her face, and his stomach lurched, wanting to go to her. He couldn’t remember the last time he had hugged his mother, really clung to her, buried his face in her hair and breathed in her comforting, familiar smell. Probably not since childhood. He stayed where he was. “You had a child with this girl–I don’t see why you couldn’t just get married, live a normal life. Even now, you could still marry her, and my granddaughter could be christened in the church, and–it’s not too late.”

“It’s much too late, Mamma. Lucia is already married. To a woman, by the way.”

She made a face. “That’s–” his mother pressed her lips together, waving a hand in the air as if dismissing the notion. “I don’t–I don’t understand it, Jacopo. I love you. I want you to be happy. But I don’t understand why you’ve chosen to be different.”

“Dear God, Mamma. I didn’t choose anything. I’m just this way.” He was so tired, and he’d cried so many times in the last twenty-four hours, tears for what felt like every emotion under the sun, that it was a surprise to hear his voice getting thick. “I tried to tell you before.”

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