Chapter 5 - Bianca Didn’t Want Me Dead or Poor—She Wanted Me Gone Enough to Feel Married
Bianca requested to meet me alone.
I said no.
Then changed my mind.
Not because she deserved privacy.
Because I wanted to understand whether anything beyond entitlement existed underneath what she did to Emma.
We met in one of Ashford’s smaller sitting rooms.
Damiano was elsewhere in the house.
Emma was at school.
Bianca wore black trousers and a cream sweater.
Without the silver dress and chandelier, she looked less like a villain.
That did not make her safer.
She began:
“I should not have touched Emma’s rabbit.”
“No.”
“I shouldn’t have called her a brat.”
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
I waited.
She looked frustrated by my silence.
“Are you going to say anything?”
“You apologized.”
“Yes.”
“I heard you.”
She sighed.
Then:
“I’m not apologizing for wanting my own home.”
“There.”
She looked at me.
“That’s the real sentence.”
Bianca’s first marriage had ended when she was twenty-nine.
Her husband, Eric, had been deeply attached to:
his mother,
his sister,
his childhood house.
They lived for four years in a converted apartment on his parents’ property.
Bianca never felt:
married.
Every decision involved:
someone else’s key,
someone else’s family schedule,
someone else’s dining table.
She eventually left.
Then met Damiano.
Ashford frightened her from the start.
Not because it was intimidating.
Because it was already full of:
ghosts.
Luca’s office remained mostly unchanged.
His photographs hung in the upstairs hall.
Emma had his last name.
I lived in the west wing.
Damiano spent Sunday breakfast with us most weeks.
Bianca said:
“I started feeling like I was marrying into Luca’s unfinished life.”
That hurt.
Because part of me understood.
I had been living inside Luca’s unfinished life too.
Bianca continued:
“Every time I asked Damiano whether you planned to move, he said:
‘When Sophia is ready.’”
“I asked:
‘When will that be?’”
“He said:
‘Don’t push her.’”
“So I became the bad person for wanting a timeline.”
I looked at her.
“You became the bad person when you threw my daughter’s rabbit.”
She lowered her eyes.
“Yes.”
“Wanting clarity is not the same as calling a child a brat.”
“I know.”
Then:
“But nobody would give me clarity.”
That accusation belonged partly to Damiano.
Partly to me.
I had never given anyone:
a plan.
When asked how long we would stay, I said:
“I don’t know.”
When asked whether I wanted to buy another house:
“Maybe next year.”
When Damiano suggested looking at properties eighteen months earlier, I cried so hard he never raised it again.
Bianca had entered a family where grief was treated as:
untouchable.
Then she resented the people protected by it.
She asked:
“Did you know I thought Damiano paid for everything?”
“No.”
“Would you have corrected me?”
“Yes.”
She looked skeptical.
I thought again.
Then answered more honestly.
“I’m not sure.”
Because there was another uncomfortable truth.
Part of me liked:
people seeing Damiano protect us.
After Luca died, being protected felt like evidence we still belonged to:
his family.
If I said:
Actually, I own thirty percent.
Actually, my share pays expenses through capital adjustments.
Actually, this is partly my house.
I would have had to become:
owner
instead of:
widow.
Ownership requires:
decisions.
Grief allowed:
delay.
Bianca saw something in my face.
“You didn’t know the numbers.”
“No.”
“But you knew you owned part.”
“Yes.”
“And still let Damiano answer everything.”
“Yes.”
She leaned back.
“So maybe you liked him being responsible too.”
I stared at her.
She had no right to make that observation after what she did to Emma.
Unfortunately:
May you like
she was right.
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