Page 69 of Three Times You

“Did you give her thirty grams of powdered milk dissolved in water?”

“Yes, Gin. I did everything, just the way you told me. So many years have passed, but I still remember a thing or two. In about four hours, as soon as she wakes up, I’ll give her something more to eat.”

“Thanks Mamma. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to call me.”

“Yes, don’t worry. Keep your chin up and keep me informed.”

Gin ends the call, puts her phone on vibrate, and relaxes a little. She’s so tired that she feels like crying. This chemo treatment that she’s undergoing is seriously debilitating, and now the last thing she needed was this accident, just to make things worse. What she needs now is her strength. She needs to feel beautiful and not to have these continuous bouts of nausea. She’d managed to avoid them while pregnant, and she has to go through them now, now of all times, now that this has happened. She can’t help but smile. The doctor said that I need to think positive—this too shall pass—and Step will get better, and everything will go back to the way that it was. No, even better than the way it used to be. And with that last thought, clinging tight to his hand, tired like she’s never been before, she falls asleep.

She has troubled, agitated dreams. She’s on a beach, it’s hot out, but there’s no shade, not even so much as a beach umbrella, and absurdly enough, for some reason, it’s impossible to go into the water. Apparently you’re not allowed near the water’s edge. There are even barriers to keep people out. She wants some water to drink, something refreshing, or at least some way to shelter from the hot sun, but none of that seems to be possible.

Not far away, in a bare cradle, without so much as a blanket, lies Aurora. So Gin walks over to the cradle and tries to block the sun by shielding the baby with her own body. She tries to cast at least a little shadow, but it’s so hot that she feels like she’s about to faint. She doesn’t know how much longer she can hold out.

Then there’s a sudden noise, and Gin wakes up. Her hand slipped and fell. She must have released Step’s hand, which she’d been holding, and her wrist slammed against the side of her chair. Then she stands up brusquely, worried about what might have happened. Instead she is filled with a sudden surge of happiness as she sees Step slowly opening his eyes, looking around until he spots her, and then smiling.

“There you are. Don’t you play tricks on me, don’t even try. You’re a father, and you can’t afford it, understand?” And she gently strokes his hand while a few tears roll silently down her cheek. “I love you, so much. Don’t you ever scare me like this again.”

Chapter 54

Gin is waiting for Renzi to arrive so she can leave the hospital. The doctors have reassured her. The subdural hematoma has partly subsided. Step will be in a great deal of pain and will probably experience some difficulty getting around in the next few days. He’ll also need a lengthy convalescence with plenty of rest before he’s fully back in shape, but there should be no permanent damage.

Gin climbs into the car with a smile on her face. That’s a relief;a complication like this would have ruined her at a time like this. She drives toward home.I’m tired, low in energy, it’s six in the morning, and it hardly seems necessary to awaken Mother—she and the baby ought both to be fast asleep by now. I’ll go home, take a shower, get a nice sound sleep, and when I wake up, I’ll go pick up Aurora.

But when she reaches her building, she realizes that she has her ID but not her keys. She looks everywhere, but she must have left them at the hospital. The only thing to do now is go to Step’s office, where they keep a copy of the house keys.

It’s easy to find parking at this time of the morning because there’s no one out and about. Gin exits the car and greets the doorman, who’s sweeping the sidewalk right in front of the open street door. She climbs up to the third floor and enters the code on the keypad. Then she walks in and goes to Step’s office. She walks to the wall safe and punches in the combination. It’s the same as for the wall safe at home, their two birth dates. A click and the safe door swings open.

She rummages through in search of the keys and finally finds them. She grabs the set, but just as she’s about to close the safe door, she realizes that these aren’t their house keys. Curiously, she examines the keychain. It consists of a large letterS. Then there must be another one, a twin in the pair. She pulls out all the documents to see if the keys might have been pushed to the back of the safe. She stacks all the papers on the floor and finally finds the set of house keys.

But as she’s putting back the documents, she notices one in particular. A lease to an apartment. A rental agreement. She goes on reading. It’s a contract between Stefano Mancini and a certain Mariolina Canneti for a penthouse at Borgo Pio, no. 14. Gin continues reading, stunned and bewildered.A rented apartment? And he never said a word to me about it?She takes pictures of the contract with her phone, puts everything back into the safe, and then leaves the office with the two sets of keys.

The city is just waking up. There are very few cars on the streets, and there are just a few people, shivering with the cold, waiting at the bus stops. Gin drives slowly, but her heart is racing, filled with anxiety. Why on earth would there be a rental agreement for another apartment? She desperately tries to come up with something that could concern her, something nice.

And then suddenly she smiles.Maybe Step has decided to move us to a new apartment. He knows how much I love that part of town…And a penthouse, just think, maybe it could be bigger, and full of light.

She accelerates ever so slightly because she’s jumping out of her skin with curiosity. When she arrives at Via del Mascherino, she parks the car and gets out. She starts walking up Borgo Pio, looking for the street number. Then a doubt surfaces in her mind. She leafs back through her photo gallery in search of the pictures she’s taken, opens one, and checks the date on the contract. He first rented this apartment six full months ago.Then why hasn’t he evermentioned it to me?Even so, in the end, her mind comes up with a tiny gap of credibility, a narrow possibility that still lets her believe that this apartment is going to be for the three of them, for her, Step, and Aurora. Maybe he’s renovating the place, and the work isn’t finished yet, but he’s just finishing it now, and he wants it to be a big surprise!

And so, with that optimistic hope in her heart, she arrives at number 14. She fishes out the key and opens the street door. She goes in and lets it swing shut behind her. The heavy door booms against the doorframe, echoing in the silence of the building. That echo follows her for a few seconds.

The lobby is cool, thanks to those thick walls. A marble staircase stands alongside an iron elevator rising through the center of the stairwell. Gin pushes the button to summon the cab, and a moment later, the elevator arrives at the ground floor. She opens the door, then two glass-windowed inner doors and, shutting everything behind her, pushes the number 5.

When the elevator stops at the top floor, she steps out and shuts the doors behind her carefully. There’s just one door in front of her, so there’s no doubt about which apartment it might be. So she inserts the long key into the keyhole and hesitantly tries turning it in the lock. She hears the lock click: this must be the place.

Then Gin slowly pushes the door open, as if fearful of what she’s about to discover, maybe someone else lives there, maybe the occupants might take her for a thief and shoot her. “New Mother Killed While Trying to Burglarize a Penthouse Apartment at No. 14, Borgo Pio.” She smiles, but given her doubts, she decides she runs the slightest risk of that fanciful headline becoming reality.

“Is anyone here?” She raises her voice a little louder: “Is anyone here?”

Then, not hearing an answer, she enters the apartment and quietly shuts the door behind her. She turns on the light. The apartment is lovely, fully furnished and decorated with bright colors.

Someone lives here. There are books, lamps, carpets, sofa, a plasma-screen television set, and a framed photograph on the wall. And so, curious, Gin steps closer to see who the couple in the photograph might be.

And when she focuses on their faces, she feels like she’s about to faint. It’s Step and Babi sitting on a low wall, smiling at each other. It’s a photograph from many years ago, that’s true, but what on earth is a photograph like this one even doing in this apartment in the first place? Who lives here? What does all this mean?

And seized by an unexpected wave of anxiety, she continues searching. She frantically opens cabinets, cupboards, and clothes closets. Gin rummages through the bathroom, but she finds nothing that can provide her with any useful information, not a time or an action that can shed light on all this strange mystery.

Then she arrives in the last room. She opens the door. There’s a neatly made bed with dark silk sheets and nothing in the bookshelves but two photo albums. She takes them down, lays them on the bed, and opens the first one. In it are photographs of a little boy, a handsome little boy who grows from year to year, and beneath each picture is a handwritten note indicating what’s happening in the photograph.Massimo turns one year old. Massimo celebrates his birthday at school with his friends. Here we’re at the amusement park. This is his first game of soccer.

Gin quickly leafs through the album. There is nothing but notations concerning a broad array of different moments in that little boy’s life. They say nothing more, nothing, until that last photograph. There is a large crowd of people and the little boy is at the center of the photograph.This is his first recital, the only one who wasn’t there was you!

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