Sainted Widow
✦ Alessia ✦
I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until the zipper sticks halfway up my spine.
The mirror reflects some other woman. Black dress poured over her like ink. Hair twisted up, soft pieces pulled down to make her look delicate instead of tired. Makeup done in layers, not to make her glamorous, but to erase the small truths fatigue leaves on a face.
I take a shallow breath. The bodice presses back.
Too tight.
I sit carefully on the edge of the bed so I don’t rip anything, fingers fumbling behind me. My hands are clumsy tonight, joints stiff, the ache from this afternoon’s “quick nap” still lodged deep. It takes two tries to catch the zipper and drag it the rest of the way up.
The room lists a little when I stand again.
On the nightstand, my pill organizer waits. A week in plastic squares, morning and night laid out in cheerful colors. I pop open tonight’s, shake the pills into my palm, and swallow them with lukewarm water from the glass I forgot to empty this morning.
They stick for a second halfway down my throat. I wince and press my palm against my sternum, waiting for the muscles to unclench, for my chest to remember how to expand all the way.
It hurts. It always hurts. Some days more politely than others.
“Mommy?”
Luca’s voice comes from the doorway. When I look up, he’s there in his socks and dinosaur pajama top, black hair sticking up on one side where he slept on it.
His eyes go wide. “You look like a princess.”
I manage a smile. “A sleepy princess,” I say. “You’re supposed to be in bed, tesoro.”
He pads in anyway, bare feet whispering against the hardwood. “Nonna said you’re going to Daddy’s party.”
The words land like a stone dropped in water. Everything inside shifts around the impact.
I crouch to be eye level, knees protesting the dip, dress pulling across my ribs when I fold. “I’m going to a party for Daddy, yes,” I say. “It’s to talk about all the good things he did.”
His mouth twists. “Is he coming back?”
There it is. The question that doesn’t get gentler with repetition.
I smooth his hair, fingers tracing the warm curve of his skull. “No, amore,” I say, and the truth is a small, sharp thing in my mouth. “But we can still tell stories about him. And there’s cake.”
He considers that like a tiny businessman. “Can you bring me some?”
“If you listen to Nonna and go back to bed,” I say, leaning forward to kiss his forehead. “And no sneaking cookies.”
“Nonna said I can have one if I brush my teeth extra good.”
Of course she did. Indulgence as currency.
I huff out a single, quiet laugh and push up, palms on my thighs, using the bed frame for leverage. Something pulls behind my left knee. My chest twinges when I straighten.
Luca steps back to look at me again, head tipped. “Why do you always wear black now?”
Because it’s the only thing they still let me be. Because it hides the days my body looks as weak as it feels. Because nobody knows what to do with a sick widow in red.
“It’s the dress they picked for me,” I say instead. “Do you like it?”
He nods solemnly. “You look pretty. But kinda sad.”
Kids are terrible liars.
“I’ll be home before you wake up,” I promise. “If you need anything, you ask Nonna or Nonno, alright?”
“And not the scary man,” he says.
I blink. “What scary man?”
He shrugs. “The one who brings the big car.”
“The driver?” I ask. “He’s not scary. He just looks serious so people will listen.”
“Like Zio Dario,” Luca says, deciding that, then yawns so wide his eyes water. “Can I have your necklace?”
I look down at the thin gold chain around my throat. Marco gave it to me on the night Luca was born. A neat circle. No beginning, no end.
“You can borrow it when you’re older,” I say. “Right now I need it for the party.”
He accepts this, mostly because Nonna calls from down the hall and reminds him in Italian that only babies make their mother late. He goes, small shoulders straight, feet quiet as he disappears.
I breathe in. Hold. Let it out.
The breath doesn’t go as deep as I want. It hasn’t in a long time.
I grab my clutch from the dresser. Lipstick. Tissues. Phone. Emergency meds. The neat, blank white of my hospital card is tucked into the inner pocket, the one that lists my diagnosis in cold, tidy script in case I pass out somewhere public. I touch it once, lightly, then close the bag and tell myself I won’t need it tonight.
Downstairs, the house smells like tomato and basil and something sweet. Nonna is in the kitchen, solid as the stove itself, apron tied over a dark dress patterned with little lemons. Her gray hair is twisted into a knot at the back of her head, soft wisps escaping around her temples. Her face is mapped in fine lines from years of frowning and praying and laughing, every one of them carved out of worry and love.
She clucks over my dress, over how pale I look, over the fact that I am not wearing a heavier coat, her small gold cross flashing at her throat each time she moves. Her hands are flour dust and rosary polish when she catches my wrist to squeeze it like she can check my health by touch alone.
“È marzo, cara,” she says. “The nights are still cold.”
“I’ll be mostly inside,” I say, letting her fuss with the wrap around my shoulders because refusing small kindnesses is more exhausting than accepting them.
The doorbell chimes. The driver is right on time.
“Go,” Nonna says, making a shooing motion. “We’ll be fine.”
Her tone suggests she is talking about both Luca and the entire estate.
I step out into the entryway as the door opens. The driver stands there in his dark suit, cap in his hand. He’s worked for the Romanos longer than I’ve known Marco. His hair is more silver now, less brown. Everything else is the same.
“Signora Romano,” he says with a respectful nod. “You look very beautiful tonight.”
“Thank you,” I say, because there’s no polite way to say I feel like a mannequin propped in a window. “Is the car ready?”
“Always,” he says, and steps back to let me pass.
The night air is a cool hand on overheated skin. I draw in a breath that feels like it almost reaches bottom and follow him down the stone steps. The car waits at the curb, sleek and black and reflective enough that my outline blurs in the door as he opens it.
I sink into the leather seat with more relief than I want anyone to see. My heart is beating too fast for how little I’ve done. The dress bites into my ribs when I settle back. I adjust the wrap, shift my weight until my joints complain less.
The door shuts. The outside noise becomes a muffled suggestion.
As we pull away from the curb, the driver checks on me in the rearview. “Will little Luca be staying with his grandparents tonight?”
“Yes,” I say. “He’s thrilled he gets to stay up a little late.”
“That boy has all the Romano charm,” the driver says fondly. “He’ll own every room he walks into one day, just like his father.”
The words taste sour going down. I manage a soft noise that could be agreement, or just air.
Streetlights flicker past. My phone vibrates in my clutch.
I take it out and check.
A message from Tony:
Car will bring you to side entrance. Press will already be set up. Remember, first speech at eight fifteen. We’ll have water on stage.
Another from an unknown number I recognize as Dario’s assistant:
Mr Romano would like a few minutes with you before the program begins. He’s at table one.
Nothing that says, Are you well enough for this? Nothing that says, If you need to leave early, we understand.
My reflection in the window looks like a woman who handles this without blinking. Dark hair pinned up in a smooth knot, only a few loose pieces softening the sharp angles of my face. The black dress turns my body into a neat column in the glass, hiding the places where my ribs show when I am not wrapped in fabric. My mouth is painted steady. My eyes look sharper in this light, blue pulled toward steel by the shadows underneath. I look like someone who could breathe easily through anything.
If I pretend hard enough, maybe I do.
The hotel comes into view with the kind of lighting that makes everything look expensive. The driveway is lined with cars. A cluster of photographers waits near the entrance, their cameras already lifted like they can smell fresh grief.
The driver pulls around to the designated point. An event coordinator in a black suit and earpiece approaches, peering into the backseat as if confirming that the showpiece has arrived.
The driver gets out, walks around, and opens my door.
The moment my foot hits the pavement, flashes pop. The sound is like distant thunder. I straighten, pulling myself up by muscle memory, schooling my face into the expression they all want to see. Brave. Composed. Just fragile enough to be moving.
“Mrs Romano, this way, please,” the coordinator says, gesturing with a practiced smile.
The sidewalk is longer than it looks. My heels click against the stone, a steady metronome fighting the uneven rhythm of my heart. I nod at the cameras, at the people who call my name like they know me. Someone asks what Marco would think of tonight’s turnout. I give them the answer I’ve given a dozen times.
“He’d be humbled,” I say. “And very proud.”
Nobody asks if I miss him. That part they take for granted.
Inside, the ballroom is a different kind of bright. Crystal chandeliers throw light across polished floors and tables dressed in white cloth. The smell of perfume and champagne hangs in the air, layered over something floral and clean.
Marco’s face looks back at me from everywhere. Programs on tables. A banner near the stage. A framed portrait on an easel at the far end. It’s a photo from some other gala years ago, his head tipped back in laughter, glass in hand. Dark hair pushed back like he ran his fingers through it on the way in. Tanned skin, strong jaw, that easy, generous smile that made people lean toward him without realizing they were doing it. His eyes are warm brown even in print, crinkled at the corners the way they only got when he was already two drinks in and winning. I wasn’t there that night. I know because I don’t remember that tie and because back then there were already too many evenings when my body couldn’t keep up with his schedule.
“Alessia.”
His brother’s voice finds me before I’ve taken more than two steps.
