Page 80 of Three Times You

I’m stunned. It even occurs to me that she might be joking. “You saw her? How do you mean?”

“She came to see me.”

“But I haven’t talked to her or seen her. I had nothing to do with that.”

“I know. I invited her myself. Renzi persuaded her to come meet with me.”

I sit in silence and wonder why. What did she want to know? Why would she want to put herself through so much pain? But Gin seems calm and unruffled, and in the end, she takes my hand and caresses it.

“I thought it would only be right for us to get to know each other. After all, we both love the same man, and maybe that same man loves us both, though in a different way for each. Do you like that solution?”

I say nothing.

“Anyway, I liked it. A lot. Usually when a woman meets another woman who has had interactions with her man, she can’t figure out what it is that he could have seen in her. She deprecates her own qualities or she thinks, absurdly,But why did he choose me if he likes awoman like her?I never thought anything of the sort about her. All things considered, when the two of you were an item, I’m the one who busted into the middle of your love story by falling in love with you. Even if you didn’t know it yet.” Gin laughs. “I really wanted you. I was crazy with desire, and then, in the end, I got you. And I had a daughter with you.

“Now I just have this to ask you. Maybe you’ll get back together with Babi or else you’ll have some other young woman. That’s your decision, but still, I want you to be the one who raises Aurora, your love for her must come first, before your love for anyone else, because inside you there will still be my own love, and so you’ll have to love her for the both of us. And if you know that a woman won’t love Aurora as if she were her own daughter, then I beg you, don’t let her make our daughter suffer. You’re perfectly capable of understanding all this, and you have to do it for me.”

“Yes, you’re right. I’ll make sure it’s that way.”

“Promise me. And I’m sure that you won’t make any mistakes about it.”

“Thanks. I promise you, Gin.”

Then we hug and sit in silence on that bench, and I’m pretty sure that she doesn’t notice that I’m crying. But I’m wrong about that, as it turns out.

Gin pulls away from me and gives me a delicate kiss on the lips and uses her fingertips to dry my eyes. “You’ll need to be strong. I’ll always be there, at your side, whatever you do.”

“Yes.”

“Do you really think that I need to bolster Step’s morale?”

And I burst out laughing, but in my laughter, the echo of a sob and deep grief can be heard.

“Now please take me to my room.”

So we lie there, side by side, in the bed the whole night through. Aurora sleeps in the baby carriage beside us. And when I wake up at dawn to feed her, she’s already wide-awake, lying there with her eyes open.

But her mother is gone.

Chapter 61

Don Andrea is putting away the last few items after celebrating the morning Mass. Then he notices the white roses in the corner and is inevitably reminded of Gin and that chat they’d had the last time he’d gone to visit her in the hospital.

“Don Andrea! What a lovely surprise…”

The room was full of light and very welcoming. He smiled at her as he walked in. “I just wanted to say hello.”

He saw Aurora’s crib, and he peeked inside. The baby girl was sleeping. Then he pulled a chair up beside Gin’s bed and sat down, taking her hand. “I’m here to listen, anything you might want to tell me. Or else we can just sit here in silence, whatever you prefer…If you like we can pray.”

Gin looked out the window. “Have you seen what a nice garden they have downstairs? The roses are just gorgeous.”

“Yes. And it’s a beautiful day today.”

“I was just thinking about that bookThe Little Prince. Have you ever read it?”

“Yes, it’s a wonderful story.”

“Do you remember when he meets the fox and she tells him that it’s the time he spent on his rose that made that rose so important, that he’ll always be responsible for anything he’s domesticated, and that he’s therefore responsible for that rose of his?”

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