The Last Promise Read Online Free

to her whenever she was in their home exactly how she should be taking care of her son and grandson—taking over like a veteran pilot pulling the wheel from a trainee.
    Once, while Eliana was still fresh in Italy and newly pregnant with their second child (she miscarried in the third month), Antonella had demonstrated to her how Maurizio liked his socks ironed, emphasizing the length of time the iron should be pressed. Eliana had watched incredulously. She wanted to say You’ve got to be kidding . Antonella wasn’t. Maurizio’s expectations were not all his fault, Eliana decided. He had been well trained to accept servitude. Something had to give with these Italian women.
    A few years earlier, at Eliana’s insistence, she and Maurizio had gone to see a marriage counselor. The counselor, an older Italian man, nodded as she spoke of her frustration. Yes, he saw the problem. It was her .
    “You are no longer in America,” he said. “As difficult as it may seem, you need to accept a new life and a new culture.” He even suggested that only Italian should be spoken in the home. No more English.
    Eliana was stunned. “Forget that it’s English, this is my language.”
    “What do you mean?”
    She said, “This is my language. This is who I am.”
    “Who you were ,” he corrected. “You must quit clinging to the past in order to transcend it. You must accept a new life. You owe this to your family.”
    She cried as they left the session. Accept a new life? To what point? When she said “I do,” this wasn’t the deal she had bought into. Nor was this the man. The man she had married was romantic and caring. She felt like a victim of marital bait and switch.
    Maurizio claimed the same of her. “You used to be much more fun,” he once complained, “more spontanea . You’ve changed.”
    She had changed. She was a mother now. Parenthood is a fork in the road. It requires sacrifices and responsibility. Eliana didn’t make it that way—it’s just the way it is. It was a crucial point in their relationship. They could either grow up together or they could grow apart. For them the latter was true. Sometimes she felt as if Maurizio blamed her for the changes a child brought into their lives—especially one with special needs. She feared that on some level Maurizio resented Alessio as well and this was why he spent so little time with him. With them.
     
    As school was out for the summer, Eliana’s life revolved around Alessio even more now. Still, she never thought of him as a burden—only as her boy. A little boy with a big heart who sensed her sadness and solitude and tried to be the man in her life. She didn’t know what she would do if something ever happened to him.
    Nor did she allow her thoughts to linger on the possibility. It was far too real. There had been too many close calls in the past six years. Too many white-knuckle, late-night runs to the emergency room.
    She was weary of being strong and stoic, and, most of all, alone. She wanted a partner in life’s journey. A man to share a glass of wine and then a bed with. Someone to make her feel worthy of love again. But, as hope can be the cruelest of tormenters, she learned to avoid such thoughts. For better or worse she was married. Married and lonely and locked away in her beautiful villa in the quiet Tuscan countryside twelve kilometers from Florence.

CHAPTER 2

    “Of all the fairest Cities of the Earth
None is so fair as Florence. ’Tis a gem
Of purest ray; and what a light broke forth,
When it emerged from darkness!
Search within, Without; all is enchantment!”
    —Samuel Rogers, 1830
     
“I have seen pictures of Florence in books and travel guides and thought it beautiful, but now, surrounded by the sensuality of the city, I realize that it has been the difference between looking at a menu and eating.”
    —Ross Story’s diary

JULY 1999. FLORENCE, ITALY.
    T he Arno River flows west from the Apennine Mountains, snaking through the