He stepped aside and I saw a big parcel all wrapped in brown paper. He pushed it toward me and said bashfully, “For you.”
Jewel looked at the package. “I’m kind of curious myself. Luca didn’t want to go in with us on the saw and he’s been so secretive lately.”
I had some trouble undoing the string which increased the suspense. Luca looked about to burst and I got suspicious. Maybe it was some kind of prank. So I unwrapped it real careful in case there was a mouse trap or something alive inside there. Slowly, slowly, I let the string fall, and when the paper fell away, I stood back, expecting something to jump out or spring up or go off or whatever. But when I looked, I saw that it was just a suitcase, a plain brown cardboard suitcase. I stood there like a deaf mute and stared at it. From the corner of my eye, I could see Luca beside me, his face full of anticipation, waiting for my reaction.
I looked at him and swallowed hard. I could feel my bottom lip starting to quiver and I bit it to make it stop. I looked up at him again and then back down so that my hair covered my face. The silence was terrible as they waited, sensing something wrong, unable to tell what, looking back and forth from me to each other. I had to think of something to say, something that would put everyone at ease, something witty like Jolene would have done, or maybe the kind of fetching smile that belonged to Caroline. Anything. But I didn’t. I didn’t because I knew that should I try to speak, my voice would catch and that catch would betray me.
I didn’t cry in front of them. That I would never do. Old Sam was the only one who had ever seen me cry, and then not often. So I waited until I had pushed my way past them and was alone and safe in my room. The last thing I heard was Luca’s bewildered voice asking, “Didn’t she like my present?”
His present. I wondered if he had any idea of just what he had given me. Probably, he believed it was nothing more than a suitcase. How stupid he was and how little he knew about himself or me to think his gift could be just that. It couldn’t, not after the time we had talked about Kathmandu. Such a simple message that cheap cardboard suitcase carried and yet it was one that had pierced me to the heart. Did he know? He didn’t. Couldn’t, as he could not know for I would never tell him that for years afterward, whenever I was feeling certain that everything ended in nothing, I would take out that suitcase that was destined to see virtually no travel in its lifetime, and looking at it, I would feel my heart rise. It hurts to be understood if it’s the first time ever. It cracks open the shell of your bitterness and your seeds spill out.
I cried the whole night and yelled at Jewel to go away when she knocked and asked, “Are you all right?” I said I was. But I lied. I wasn’t. I never would be again. I buried my face in my pillow and cried without knowing why. I had never been more miserable in my life. And yet there was no more reason to be sad than to be happy. I felt simply split apart, my vitals exposed, as if the very deepest part of me had been opened and could never be sealed up again. Yet I had to find a way to seal it up again if I was ever to leave my room and go downstairs again. Life, up until that time, had always seemed to me a senseless progression of incidents and coincidence. Things could seldom be arranged and never controlled. But there was one thing of which I was certain in the uncertain world, and that was my own strength. I had never gotten so angry as to forfeit an opportunity, never so relaxed as to let slip a secret, and though I cared for Jewel and the girls, it was never with the blind caring that could divert me from the most practical course. But Luca had cracked the foundations of my bitterness, and if that crack should widen, the whole structure would come tumbling down. I must seal it back up, even if it cost me the thing I held most dear.
I don’t need to tell you that things were never the same between me and him after that. I couldn’t act natural around him anymore, and so I avoided him. For his part, Luca couldn’t understand what he’d done to offend me, because no matter how he tried, I would not be drawn out.
It was the kind of situation Jewel would have thrilled to pick apart at length. There was nothing she enjoyed more than endlessly pondering the motivation behind every deed. For me, that was a waste of time. People did what they did for whatever reason or no reason at all. The end remained the same. Even my own actions, I never stopped to question.
So it followed that I never questioned why I suddenly took to watching Luca when he didn’t know it. I watched him across the dinner table. He had impeccable table manners and never made crumbs. I watched him from the shadows of the porch while he flirted with Caroline. He had a courtly way about him that made you feel as if
