Chapter 6
Matteo said he wanted us to try a normal dinner. It was Friday, and he had a habit of having everyone eat together at the long table in the dining room when he was home, not separate in the kitchen. He thought it made the house feel less like staff and employer.
"I know it's a little formal," he said to me that afternoon, "but I want Mia to be comfortable in the whole house. Not just the back rooms."
Bianca loved the long table. She had already set it before I finished the dishes, white plates, cloth napkins, water glasses with stems. She put herself at the far end near Matteo's chair and set a place for Mia right next to her, with a small glass pitcher of water in the middle of the table.
I saw the pitcher and my stomach dropped. It was the same clear cut-glass one with the handle, clean and empty, catching the light.
Mia came in holding my hand, wearing her light dress. When she saw where her plate was, she stopped.
"That's your seat, sweetheart," Bianca said brightly, patting the chair. "I saved it for you so we can chat."
Mia didn't move. Her hand tightened around mine. Her eyes went to the pitcher, then to Bianca's hand resting near it.
"I want to sit by Mom," she said, very quietly.
Bianca's smile didn't fall, but it got fixed. "Mom will be right across, you can see her. Come on, don't be shy."
Matteo was standing at the head of the table, watching. He didn't step in right away. He was letting Mia try.
Mia shook her head, just once, and pressed her back against my leg. "No."
The dining room was silent except for the faint hum of the air conditioning. I could hear the chandelier above us tick a little as it cooled.
Bianca let out a small laugh. "Matteo, tell her it's okay. She's acting so strange."
Matteo looked at Mia, then at Bianca, then at the empty chair beside her. He pulled out the chair across from Bianca, next to my place, and said to Mia, "You can sit here, Mia. Next to your mom. That's perfectly fine."
Mia let go of my hand and climbed into that chair quickly, almost scrambling. She pulled her knees up a little under the table and kept her eyes down. I sat beside her and put a napkin in my lap with hands that weren't quite steady.
Bianca's expression flickered. She didn't say anything for a moment, then she reached for the pitcher.
"Well, at least let me pour you some water," she said, lifting it with both hands the way she had in the hallway video, and tilting it toward Mia's glass.
Mia flinched. It was small, but it was whole-body. She pushed her glass away with the back of her hand and water slopped onto the white tablecloth. Her breathing got fast.
I put my hand on her back. "It's okay, honey, you don't have to have water right now."
Matteo's hand came down on the table, not hard, but firm. "Put the pitcher down, Bianca," he said, the same words as before, but quieter now, in a dining room instead of a hallway.
Bianca set it down slowly. Her cheeks were pink. "I was just pouring water. I don't know why she's so scared of me."
"Maybe because last time you held it over her," I said before I could stop myself. My voice was calm, but it shook at the end.
Matteo looked at the spill spreading across the cloth toward Bianca's plate. He didn't wipe it. He looked at Mia, who was still pressed against me, eyes watery, then at Bianca.
"Mia refused to sit next to you," he said plainly. "She's refused twice now. She didn't want you to pour her water. That's not shy. That's fear, and we saw it happen right here."
Bianca stared at the pitcher, then at the empty chair she had set for Mia. For the first time, her composed look cracked a little at the edges. She didn't apologize, she didn't explain. She just sat there with her hands in her lap while the water kept spreading, and no one moved to clean it.
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Matteo finally said, "We'll finish dinner in the kitchen tonight."
He picked up Mia's plate with one hand and offered his other hand to her. She took it, still holding my sleeve with her other hand, and the three of us left Bianca sitting alone at the long table with the pitcher between the empty plates.
