“It’s indeed quite late,” observed Romizi, glancing at his wristwatch, “How come your wife didn’t call you yet?”
“Hmm,” Maurizio growled, considering he had a point. Generally, if he was late and forgot to inform his wife about it, she would have called him to understand whether he was going to join them for dinner or they had to go on without him.
He slipped the mobile phone from his jeans, and with a cringe, he noticed he’d forgot the telephone was muted. There were indeed three calls and ten messages. The last one was a clear “Get yourself a sandwich, asshole.”
Peeking from a side, Leonardo grinned, “Someone’s in trouble! Is she going to let you sleep on the couch?”
“I don’t think this is what she meant, but it’s perhaps safer if I do so, after having apologized.”
“That’s why I’m not married...” Leonardo chuckled.
“No, the reason why you’re not married is nobody wanted you,” was the clarification offered by Maurizio.
“But I’m not going to sleep on the couch either, so everything considered, I think I am on the winning side,” he replied as they reached the parking lot.
As Maurizio was inside the car, he thought about what happened during the day and what was waiting for him from the moment he’d arrive home. Anna, his wife, was right, after all. It wouldn’t have taken too much for him to inform her about his delay, nor that it would have been too much to unmute the mobile.
That wasn’t the first time he forgot, and he hoped that being that a trait of his own personality, it would have been easier for her to understand and perhaps have a bit of patience.
With a sigh, he grabbed his mobile phone and, setting up the handsfree, called her, hoping to obtain her mercy, so to, at least being able to be admitted in the bedroom with his queen.
***
It was about midnight, and since Luciano decided to take a break from the University for a couple of weeks, he didn’t have to go to sleep early. Nevertheless, he didn’t have a reason to remain awake. The television wasn’t offering anything interesting, and for the moment, he preferred to be alone rather than going out with his friends.
Everything resembled a bad dream, and he wasn’t sure he was awake. The sudden ringing of his mobile phone returned him to reality, the one he was trying still to understand from the confusion of his thoughts. He grabbed it and glanced at the caller ID. Irina was calling him, and although he wasn’t convinced it was a good idea to call each other, she could have been the only connection with that new reality and decided to answer her.
“Hello...” he couldn’t formulate anything else and hoped she had clearer ideas to start a communication.
“Hi, I have been thinking about you the whole day. How do you feel?” Her voice was calm like nothing serious happened.
“I feel confused. I still cannot believe it... It’s not right. How about you?” He wondered, hoping she would have given him a way to overcome the terrible guilt.
“I understand your feelings, believe me, and I know even if he wasn’t caring about you, he was still your father, and you loved him, but...” She didn’t have any good words to say to make him feel better.
“But he deserved to die?” he almost whispered that phrase, as if someone could have heard, and arrest him for the murder of his own father.
“We shouldn’t talk about this; it’s not going to help the way you feel, nor the reality of the facts. We need to meet somewhere. Can you reach me?”
Luciano looked around; if he were in his father’s apartment, he could have invited her in. Like every time Claudio was away, she could have come and spent some time together without any restriction.
It wasn’t the fact of having to ask permission; at his age, the only thing required was to inform his mother he was going out, but he knew it would have perhaps sounded suspicious if he would have gone out to spend some time with his girlfriend or with whoever else. In his way of seeing things, the best decision was to stay away from each other at least until the investigation would have been closed. He knew he was one of the possible suspects for the murder of his father, due to the broken relationship between them, because of the money he would have inherited, or for whatever reason the Detective could have figured out.
“No, I’d prefer to meet you tomorrow at the University,” he mumbled.
She wasn’t frequenting the University. Being older than him, she completed the course work and discarded the idea to go further with her studies, but he hoped if there was someone listening to their conversation, this appointment would have sounded more like a normal behavior to be expected from him. She remained silent for a moment, and once she understood what he meant, she played along. “Sure, I will be at the faculty by nine. I’ll see you there at the entrance. I love you.”
The last sentence reached Luciano with the same effect of a punch on his face. His heart felt warmed up by the tenderness of her voice, but his senses sharpened as the presence of a girlfriend could have messed up everything. He wasn’t sure why he felt this way. That’s not the way I planned this whole situation between us.
“I love you too,” he replied curtly before interrupting the conversation. The mobile phone felt like a fire burning in his hand, and he threw it away on the bed.
He
