My Heart Lies in Pisciotta

by Cate Nielson Raye

  I frowned at his presumption, “Are you?” His eyebrows shot up in surprise and I saw the flicker of worry in his eyes. “Ana, please…I’m sorry I kept my past from you. I fucked up. I couldn’t be any more sorry. Please give this another chance, a fresh start. We can pick up where we left off, happy and madly in love.” He took my hand again and stroked over the veins that were visible under my thin pale skin. “Please forgive me…Let me look after you both.” The tears began to fall again and I wiped my cheeks on the shoulder of my hospital gown. “I don’t feel like I know you anymore.” The pieces had begun to fall into place. I realised I had given everything to him without question. I had hung on his every word, relied on him to complete me, and done everything to make sure he was happy. With a heavy heart, I knew I had replaced my father with Sam and I hadn’t actually changed at all.

  As he begged me for a new start I formulated my plan. I smiled to placate him, held his hand, and let him kiss me. I savoured that kiss, I knew it would be our last. I knew what I had to do. “I’m so tired…so confused,” I sighed, laying my head back on my pillow and closing my eyes wearily. “I need time to think. I need to get my head around all of this.” Sam squeezed my thigh gently through my bedsheets. “Of course,” he whispered as he leaned in to kiss my forehead. I opened my eyes and sat up slowly as much as I could. “Would you do something for me?” I asked.

  He nodded in response and I ran a finger over the stubble at his chin and gently stroked the dark circles beneath his eyes. He sighed with contentment and placed his own hand over mine, pressing his face into my palm. “Please go home…have a shower…get some proper sleep.” He gazed at me warily for a moment. “We will talk in the morning, okay?” I forced a small smile even as my stomach flipped and churned, knowing that the talk would never actually happen. His shoulders slumped and he rubbed at his eyes, the exhaustion and worry he had been carrying with him for almost a week finally showed through his calm exterior. He nodded weakly and slid down from the bed.

  Before he left he gave me a deep, lingering kiss. I poured my heart into it, not wanting it to end but knowing I had to end it. He pulled away and stared at me for a moment before bending and placing a small kiss on my stomach. I stifled a sob and looked at the ceiling as I ran my fingers through his hair one last time. With a small smile he walked over to the doorway and turned back to face me. “Ti amo, Anabella Ossani.” I smiled wistfully and nodded. He turned around and left, his head hanging low and the weight of the world on his shoulders. “I love you too,” I gasped and hit the call button for the nurse.

  A few minutes later she entered my room and looked at me expectantly. “This morning you said there was a chance I could go home today. Is that still the case?” She picked up the chart at the end of my bed and flicked through a few pages. “Well, all your tests are clear. The baby has appeared completely healthy the whole time you have been here and you are handling your injuries well.” She closed the chart and hung it back on the end of the bed. “If the doctor says it’s ok during his rounds this afternoon I don’t see why we can’t discharge you.” I nodded and thanked her. When she left, I hobbled to the bathroom and had a wash, wishing I had more stuff with me for a shower. I then got dressed for the first time all week.

  Back in my room I sat on the bed and pulled my phone out from under my pillow. After some searching, I found what I was looking for, and for the next few hours, I waited impatiently, perched at the end of my bed. The nurse had been right, the doctor did discharge me with strict instructions that I was to rest and come back in six weeks for a checkup on my broken arm. I thanked him and waited as the nurses prepared my discharge paperwork. As I sat in the silent room I wrote out my goodbye letter on a scrap piece of paper. It was long, it was heartbreaking, but I knew I couldn’t go back to how things had been. We had lost too much already.

  The nurse knocked on the door and told me I was free to leave after handing me my paperwork. I folded the letter up and tucked it into my bag, pulled my coat over my good arm, and left the ward without looking back. A taxi took me back to my flat. I asked the driver to wait for a while as I grabbed a few things and less than twenty minutes later I clambered back into the back seat of the car, awkwardly shoving a small suitcase into the footwell next to me. “Where to?” The driver asked, watching me suspiciously from the rearview mirror. “Leeds Bradford airport please,” I replied.

  As the flat disappeared from view and the scenery became a blur, I stroked the cover of the small leather journal in my lap. I flipped open the cover and stared intently at the watercolour painting. A man diving from the top of a sheer cliff, plummeting down toward a stormy sea. I closed Sam’s book, gave the cover one last lingering touch then zipped it up in my backpack. My hand lay across my baby bump, trying to soothe myself more than the baby. “It’s okay little bean. I’ll look after you,” I murmured to myself. I was going away to work on myself. I was going to raise the baby to be everything I had not been up until now, to believe in themselves and not follow people so blindly. Everything was going to be alright. Eventually.

  Epilogue

  The warm sea breeze blew in gusts up the cliff face, whipping my hair wildly around my head and taking my breath away. I was standing on the spot where he had thought about jumping, where he had sat and painted the day before we had met. I gripped the leather-bound journal to my side, careful to keep my balance as another gust unsteadied me. The weather matched the painting perfectly. Dark, rolling clouds hung in the distance over the Mediterranean and the forceful wind was stirring up the waves below. They crashed powerfully against the rock with a dull roar. I stepped away from the edge and flipped open the book to Sam’s watercolour. I finally understood it. I understood the man leaping into the air from the rock I stood on, his desperation, and his need for change.

  It had been almost two weeks since I had shown up on Nonna’s doorstep in the middle of the night. After hugging her silently and ignoring her stream of questions I shuffled quietly to my room and closed the door. Nonna knew to leave me to myself and that I would talk to her eventually. I was alone with my thoughts at last - none of them comforting and none of them providing the answer to my predicament. I moved from bed to balcony and back again for three days, staring out at the sunsets and sunrises, and refusing most of Nonna’s attempts to feed me. I did not tell her I was pregnant. As it turns out, I didn’t have to.

  On the fourth day, as I sat on the balcony and stared out at the red dusk staining the blue sky, my thoughts were disrupted by Italian expletives being yelled inside the apartment. They grew closer to my doorway and, just as I ducked my head inside the voile curtain, Nonna burst into my room pointing an accusing finger in my direction. “Anabella, you tell me you were safe! How could you let this happen? I am not ready to be bisnonna.” I rushed in from the balcony to meet her, “Nonna what are you talking abou-,” I began to ask, but before I could finish she marched over and lifted my loose linen shirt. “Sei incinta! You’re pregnant, Ana!” I quickly pulled my shirt out of her grasp and covered my growing stomach.

  “How did you find out?” I asked meekly as I sank onto the bed, unable to look her in the eye. “I just spoke with Sam on the phone. He call here to make sure you and the baby are safe!” My breathing came to a halt at the sound of his name. He must have been to my flat and received the note I’d asked Tom to pass on to him. I hadn’t told him I would come to Italy in my letter, Tom must have let that one slip. Nonna was pacing now, gesticulating to the heavens and praying for some guidance. Eventually, she came to a stop at the foot of my bed and gave me her most stern look. “Ana, you tell me you were safe. You tell me this no happen.” I sighed and hugged my knees for comfort. “Honestly Nonna, I thought I was.”

  She resumed her pacing, one hand splayed on her hip and the other covering her mouth in shock. “He must marry you,” she concluded and pointed into the air. “This is no good! I call him now and demand he take your hand.” I jumped out of bed to intercept as she stormed toward the
doorway. “No Nonna. Please…don’t. He’s divorced…and he lied to me…so I left.” Her eyes widened in the frame of her lined face and her mouth dropped open in surprise. “Che? Divorziato?” I nodded wearily and threw myself back down into the pillows. “Divorziato, sì,” I sighed and hugged a cushion to my chest. Nonna slowly approached the bed and lowered herself down next to me. “What happened?” She asked solemnly.

  I told her everything, of course. From the day I had seen the back of Sam’s head in that lecture theatre to the night I had left the hospital. I spared the details about my one night stand with Tom, and I didn’t go into too much depth about the actual conception of the baby. I couldn’t bear it if Nonna thought badly of me for my foolish behaviour. I explained why I had left, explained why I had to find my independence without him. I told her I had to focus on me for once, and fix the things the men in my life had broken. She frowned then. “Ana, he no with this woman when he with you…”

  I picked at the edge of my arm cast and shook my head, “He should have told me about his past before it walked into his office and looked down its nose at me. He didn’t cheat, no, but a lie by omission is still a lie.” She sighed and gently stroked the back of my hand. “Ana, you love that man.” I pulled away and stood, turning my back on her so she couldn’t see the pain on my face. “It’s not that simple anymore,” I said firmly. I heard the bedsheets shift and busied myself with sorting my clothes as she approached. “Ah, Tesoro…but it is,” she whispered before kissing me on the cheek and leaving the room.

  Nonna and I did not speak much after that. She insisted that I eat everything she prepared, to keep both me and the baby healthy, but she struggled with the idea of me caring for a child on my own. It was not right in her eyes. I knew her anger only stemmed from love and worry for me and I wished more than anything that I hadn’t disappointed her. To avoid my shame I spent every day out of the house, exploring the places Sam had painted in his journal and trying not to long for him. That’s how I found myself at the edge of the cliff. But I found no comfort in the views so high above the marina. I jumped back on Nonna’s bicycle and carefully made my way down toward the town. There was one place I needed to be.

  * * *

  The small hut by the roadside soon came into view. I pedalled up to the doorway and dropped the bicycle into the dirt. I rattled the handle back and forth but the door was locked and I didn’t have a key. With a sigh, I wandered over to the fence bordering the drop to the sea and sat with my feet dangling over the edge. The view was so much more beautiful from this point. As the water pounded the rocks far beneath my feet, and I tipped my head back against the wind, I felt him. I always felt him before I saw him. The tingle of longing was still there, the pull that most lovers referred to as a spark. I turned my head as he appeared next to me and folded his tall frame until he sat on the ground and stared out at the horizon.

  “I thought you might come here,” he eventually said. “I didn’t want to wait for you at your grandmother’s.” I turned back to the sea view and closed my eyes as he spoke. “Please tell me you’re ok…and the baby. Is the baby ok?” He was looking at me now, his brow creased, his eyes anxious. I stared at his beautiful green irises and remembered all of the times they had looked at me, all of the things we had been through together. “We’re ok, Sam.” He breathed a sigh of relief and lay his elbows on the fence panel in front of his chest. After a few moments of silence, he spoke again. “I quit my job. You can return to university and you won’t have to see me again. I didn’t tell them why.”

  I frowned at him, suddenly sad that our whole messed up situation had ruined his career. “You didn’t have to do that,” I sighed. He cleared his throat and turned back to look at the storm clouds rolling in. “Yes, I did. I didn’t deserve it…any of it…I didn’t deserve you.” I nodded calmly and without hesitation, placed my hand on his thigh. He flinched slightly and looked down at my touch before meeting my gaze. “You’re right,” I said, a slight smirk forming at the corners of my mouth, “you don’t deserve me. And yet, you have me.” His eyebrows shot toward his hairline and he grabbed at my hand desperately. “What do you mean?”

  I squeezed his hand and held it in my lap, stroking the sinewy muscle at his wrist. “I came here because I thought I had to be on my own. I thought I had to prove that I had changed, that I wasn’t a pushover anymore. But after days of soul searching, I came to one conclusion…” he looked at me questioningly so I continued. “I concluded that all I really have to do is follow my heart and whether I like it or not…my heart lies with you.” I watched the relief wash over his face, the frown in his brow relax and a smile of contentment lift the corner of his mouth.

  “You hid things from me,” I said sternly. He quickly placed his hands on either side of my face and kissed my cheeks. “I know, I know. I’m sorry…so sorry. I will never hide anything from you again.” I pulled his hand from my face and stared down at our entwined fingers. “It’s going to take me some time to forgive and forget…but at least we have a lot of that now…the three of us.” I placed his palm over the curve of my baby bump and held it there. He looked down into my eyes, his mouth open in awe at how much our child had grown in his absence. His face was suddenly serious, the resolve in his eyes was clear. “How about forever?” He asked as he gently stroked the swell of my stomach. “What do you mean?” I frowned and pulled away from him.

  With a small smile, he shifted from a sitting position and up onto his knee, taking my hands in his own. “Marry me, Anabella Ossani.” I laughed dismissively and pulled my hands out of his grasp. “You’re just saying that so that our grandparents don’t kill us.” I rolled my eyes and turned back to the water. “No Ana,” he sighed and turned my chin toward him. “I mean it. Will you do me the honour of being my wife? Of living together as a family, just the three of us, and loving each other for the rest of our lives?” I held my breath in shock as I thought about what he was asking of me. But in the back of my mind, my answer came to me immediately.

  It had always been Sam. Even through all of the heartache, the one night stands, the hidden secrets, and the shock pregnancies, he had put my pieces together again and filled the gaps to complete me. I hid the swell of emotion I felt behind a smile and looked out at the sun setting behind dark clouds over the sea. “I’ll think about it,” I finally answered as the warm breeze blew my hair out behind me. At the sound of Sam’s small laugh, I glanced up at him. The wide grin that made him look boyish and carefree was back as he shifted back down to sit next to me. “I’ll take that,” he murmured with an air of smugness in his voice. “Oh, I wouldn’t sound so happy if I were you Samuel Beneventi,” I chastised, raising my chin nonchalantly. “You still have to speak to my father.”

  As his smile dropped and the fear flickered across his face I smiled to myself. I had been through so much. I was an artist and a soon-to-be mother. I was potentially going to be a wife. The timid girl who had crashed her bike so long ago seemed almost non-existent, like a stranger from my past that I had lost touch with. She had been lost to the cobbled streets of Pisciotta. I wished her well.

  About the Author

  Cate is a writer of contemporary romance and women’s fiction. By day she is a civil servant, a wife and a mother. By night she is a writer, maintaining a blog and other social media endeavours as well as working on new manuscripts. Cate currently lives with her family in the West Midlands, England.

  If you enjoyed “My Heart Lies in Pisciotta” and would like to find out more about future works by this author then sign up to the newsletter at:

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