Chapter 8 - What I Needed Him to Hear
The next three months were uneventful.
That was the most convincing thing Dante did.
No dramatic declarations.
No surprise jewelry.
No midnight arrivals.
He called Leo every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday.
Sometimes the calls lasted forty minutes.
Sometimes Leo showed him one Lego piece and hung up after three.
Dante never complained.
He came to Zurich twice.
I took Leo to Chicago once.
We built a schedule.
A boring, imperfect, functional schedule.
Trust grew inside it.
Not romantic trust.
Not yet.
Practical trust.
The kind that came from Dante arriving when he said he would and leaving when the visit ended.
There were failures too.
Once, he forgot a scheduled video call because a negotiation ran late. Leo waited with a drawing in his hands until I finally put him to bed. Dante called forty minutes later.
“I messed up,” he said before I spoke.
“Yes.”
“Is he awake?”
“No.”
He was quiet.
“What do I do?”
“You do not send a toy.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You apologize tomorrow, and then you remember next time.”
He did.
The following morning he called before preschool and told Leo, without excuses, that he had promised to be there and had not been.
Leo frowned at him through the screen.
“Work rude again.”
“Yes.”
“You remember Tuesday?”
“Yes.”
He remembered every Tuesday after that.
That mattered more to me than perfection. I did not need Dante to become a different species of man. I needed him to become accountable when he failed.
The kind that came from him asking before posting nothing, buying nothing, changing nothing.
The kind that came from him asking before posting nothing, buying nothing, changing nothing.
One evening in Chicago, after Leo fell asleep in my father’s house, Dante and I sat on the back steps.
It was early spring.
The yard still looked half dead.
“I used to sit here when I was seventeen,” I said.
“With Victoria?”
“Sometimes.”
He looked toward the dark windows.
“Do you miss her?”
The question annoyed me.
Then I realized I had an answer.
“Yes.”
Dante glanced at me.
“I don’t miss who she became. I miss having a sister before everything became a competition.”
“Have you spoken?”
“Once.”
“What did she say?”
“That Boston is cold.”
“Profound.”
“I thought so.”
I smiled.
Then I looked at him.
“There’s something I need to say, and I don’t want you interrupting.”
“I can attempt that.”
“For eight years, every time I asked about marriage, you said you couldn’t. I treated that like a mystery I could solve if I loved you correctly. I became patient enough, loyal enough, quiet enough. I thought eventually you would decide I had earned whatever fear you were protecting.”
Dante did not move.
“I hate that version of myself,” I said.
His face tightened.
“Don’t.”
“I said don’t interrupt.”
He nodded.
“I don’t hate her because she loved you. I hate that she kept shrinking her expectations because she thought being chosen was the prize.”
The words came harder now.
“Then you married Victoria, and I finally understood that I had spent eight years standing outside a door you controlled.”
Dante looked down at his hands.
“When I left, I promised myself Leo would never grow up watching me wait for someone to decide whether I mattered.”
Silence.
Then Dante said, “You were never the problem.”
“I know that now.”
“I made you feel like you were.”
“Yes.”
“I am sorry.”
“I know.”
He looked at me sharply.
I almost smiled.
The reversal was deliberate.
“I need you to understand something else,” I said. “If we ever become anything beyond Leo’s parents, it cannot be because you think you owe me a corrected ending.”
“I don’t.”
“It cannot be because Victoria is gone.”
“It isn’t.”
“It cannot be because Leo wants us in the same room.”
“I understand.”
“And you do not get to ask me to come back to Chicago as proof that I choose you.”
He was quiet.
Then he said, “Would it be acceptable if I asked what you do want?”
That was harder.
“I want my work in Zurich.”
“Yes.”
“I want Leo to grow up without bodyguards unless there is a real, specific reason.”
“Yes.”
“I want you to continue changing your organization whether or not we ever become a couple.”
“Yes.”
“I want you to disagree with me sometimes instead of becoming a man who says yes because he is terrified I will leave.”
That surprised him.
“Finally.”
I laughed.
He did too.
Then I became serious again.
“There is one more thing. I want my own money to stay my own. I want my company in Zurich untouched. I do not want Moretti capital appearing in my accounts because you think you are helping.”
His mouth tightened.
“That will be difficult.”
“Good. Practice.”
“I can offer advice?”
“When asked.”
“That seems unnecessarily restrictive.”
“It is extremely necessary.”
He sighed with theatrical suffering, and I almost smiled.
Then I became serious again.
“And I want honesty before protection. Always.”
Dante looked at me for a long moment.
“That one will be the hardest.”
“I know.”
“I was taught that information is leverage.”
“I am not your enemy.”
“I know.”
“Then treat me like a partner or do not ask to be one.”
He nodded.
“Fair.”
We sat in silence.
Then he said, “I disagree about one thing.”
“What?”
“You should not hate the woman who waited eight years.”
I stiffened.
“She survived loving a man who had not learned how to love without control. That is not weakness.”
My throat tightened.
I looked away.
Dante did not touch me.
That mattered.
The next morning, I made the decision that changed our relationship more than any confession.
I asked him to come with me to my father’s reburial.
Not as security.
Not as family.
As Leo’s father.
The ceremony was small.
Mia came.
Two cousins came.
Victoria did not.
She sent white lilies without a card.
Leo held my hand while the urn was placed into the new family plot.
When I began to cry, my son climbed into my arms.
Dante stood three feet away.
He did not step forward until I looked at him.
Then I nodded.
He came close enough to place one hand at the center of my back.
Nothing more.
Afterward, Leo ran between the headstones chasing a paper pinwheel Mia had brought.
Dante and I watched.
“My father liked you,” I said.
“He threatened me the first time we met.”
“That was how he showed affection.”
“I see.”
“He also said you were too serious.”
“He was correct.”
I looked at him.
“Dante.”
“Yes?”
“I don’t know what happens with us.”
“I know.”
“But I’m not saying never.”
He stopped breathing.
I almost laughed.
“Do not make that face.”
“What face?”
“That one.”
“I don’t know what my face is doing.”
“For once.”
He looked toward Leo, then back at me.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying if you ask me for dinner someday, I may say yes.”
“Someday.”
“Do not push it.”
“I wouldn’t dare.”
That was a lie.
May you like
But it was a charming one.
And I realized, with some alarm, that I still knew exactly when Dante Moretti was trying to make me smile.
