Erik found a place nearby that he assured her was delicious.
"I used to live very close to here," he told her. "I'd come here for breakfast all the time."
After the waiter left them to prepare their food, they were left in mildly awkward silence. She cleared her throat.
"I think we should talk about last night," she said sheepishly.
"Okay," he agreed, looking vaguely uncomfortable. "Have you- did you change your mind on anything?"
"Oh, no! It's not like that- I just meant, well, you got to lay out what you wanted, and I was hoping that we could discuss what I wanted..."
"Oh! But of course!"
He looked relieved.
"I really do regret how I acted last night, Erik. I don't want to act like that again with you, but-"
"But?"
She shifted nervously.
"I don't mean to be grumpy, but I'm very used to my schedule. I stick to it very rigorously - I've had to, to keep sane and calm with my kind of work... I keep one hour at night for silence, and I prefer to have an hour of silence in the morning, too. When I don't get that silence, that time to recharge - I get grumpy."
"Hmm. I noticed," he teased, and she blushed.
"So my request is that I have those two hours just to myself - even if you see me in a shared room, even if I look like I'm not busy or doing anything - I'd just like a little alone time."
"Okay," he said, a little doubtful.
"It's nothing to do with you," she insisted. "It's not about avoiding you or anything. I just- I like some quiet down time. That's all."
"I can do that."
The waiter brought them breakfast, a large egg and spinach quiche to split.
"Um," she fiddled with her fork. "And also- my, uh- my music lessons?"
She couldn't meet his eye, too embarrassed to do so. She felt silly for asking for her lessons so soon after telling him she wanted time spent apart, but he had promised her music back when he had proposed.
He laughed.
"Three times a week, how does that sound? As an average, that is. We can do a little more if we're both feeling up to it, or a little less if need be."
"That sounds very good," she looked up and smiled at him.
"I'm quite glad."
They ate their breakfast with small talk about the food, until Erik brought something up.
"Is there anything else?"
She blinked.
"What do you mean?"
"Well... You only asked for some quiet time, and for the singing lessons which I already promised you. Isn't there anything you wish to ask for? Anything you wish to... avoid?"
She chewed slowly on her bite of quiche, avoiding his eye. Was there anything else she wanted?
"I don't need very much," she admitted. "I think that's it."
Two days ago she would have had some serious requests of what he refrain from doing, but those hardly seemed so serious now.
"Seriously?" he asked, incredulous. "That's it?"
She chuckled a little.
"You seem so surprised that I have no demands to make of my marriage - I didn't realize that was a thing wives could do," she teased.
"I want this to be a partnership, Christine," he replied, serious. "Of course I want to hear what you want."
She considered.
"I want you to not wear your mask all the time," she said at last, quietly.
His eyes widened.
"Or if you must, wear your house mask when you're in the hotel room. I know the one you have on now hurts you, but I really don't mind how you look, Erik. I don't want you to hurt yourself for my sake."
He looked down at his plate, flustered.
"And I want us to be honest with each other," she added shyly. "In case- in case down the road one of us wants something different, or changes their mind on something. Okay?"
"Okay."
They finished their breakfast, Erik sighing after he paid the bill.
"I suppose it's time, then," he said, oddly resigned.
"Time for what?"
"Time to be going, my dear."
"Where are we going?"
"You'll see when we get there," he said easily.
He hailed a taxi and told the driver where he wanted to go, but Christine didn't understand a word they both said.
Erik seemed nervous about wherever they were going, though.
Soon the driver dropped them off in what seemed to her to be a random area, and Erik payed and thanked him.
There was a little store that sold flowers nearby, and Erik headed straight to this. She eyed him curiously as he bought three red roses.
He was mysteriously silent as they began to walk down the old cobblestone pathway, but after a moment he held his hand out to her, giving her a look that was hopeful but hiding some old, deep hurt. He had the posture of someone going into confrontation, and she wanted to comfort him. She took his hand.
She'd thought he'd relax after she'd held his hand, assuming his vague fear was about her refusing to do so - but instead he still looked rather uncomfortable even after, and realized that his feelings must caused by something that was still ahead of him.
He led them to a cemetery. It was a veritable labyrinth of headstones and monuments, but he traversed it as though he knew exactly where he was going. They passed dozens of headstones of various age, some newer, some covered in moss and faded with age. Finally he stopped in front of one large headstone. Next to it was another plot with a marble statue of an angel.
She could just make out the first name under all the moss - Giovanni.
Erik stared at the headstone, and Christine kept quiet, not wanting to interrupt his moment. His hand squeezed hers a little tighter.
"He was like a father to me," he said at last. "He was the closest I had to real family."
"Oh?"
She took a step closer to him.
"I came to work for him when I was a young man," he explained. "I left my mother when I was fifteen, and I wandered around for a while... And eventually I ended up here. It just started off as a regular job, doing paperwork and crunching numbers - it paid well, and I was exceptionally good with numbers. I couldn't believe my luck, that no one local wanted to do it."
He laughed a little before continuing.
"I guess all the locals didn't want to get caught up in his family business. They knew better. But he took me under his wing. He was kind to me. He never asked about-" he gestured to his mask, and shook his head. "I moved up in the ranks. I was good at it all. A natural, he said. I did a lot for him, and his family, as it were. Business associates, you could say."
Christine was becoming increasingly aware that he really hadn't been joking when he'd said he was in the mafia.
"He thought of me like a son, for a while," his voice wavered. "At least he told me that he did."
He placed one of the roses at the base of the headstone.
"I did all of his correspondence, too, you know. And one day, I tried to tell him about a personal letter that had come, but he was very busy. He wouldn't hear me. Open it yourself, answer it yourself, he told me. So I did. It was from his daughter."
A smile briefly floated across his face.
"Luciana, his daughter. She was studying abroad, and she'd written to her father. Well, he told me to answer it, so I did. I wrote to Luci and told her about how busy her father was, and explained who I was, the usual snark of my younger years just dripping from the whole thing," he chuckled. "And she wrote back! She wrote to me. And she was the wittiest, sharpest creature on earth, and I was smitten. We wrote to each other for a year, as often as we could. She'd fallen in love with me - she thought she'd fallen in love with me. She was in love with the idea of me. Not the reality of me."
He fell silent, and Christine didn't push him to continue even though she was aching to know how the story ended.
"She couldn't love the real me, not when I was in front of her, not when I wasn't just words on a page. She came back, after she'd graduated university, and we finally met. We had planned to get married when she came back... And she wanted to see- underneath," he waved at his face again, his eyes looking watery. "I'd told her in a letter, but I guess she thought I was joking. We told each other some great jokes. But she didn't believe me about this."
He cleared his throat, and Christine braced herself for the tragic turn she knew the story was about to take.
"She pulled my mask off and screamed," he admitted in a hushed tone. "She told me I was disgusting, that she hated me for making her love me - tricking her into loving me - that she never wanted to see me again. I tried to calm her down and explain, but she told me that she wanted me gone, and that if I ever came back, she'd have Giovanni kill me."
"Oh," Christine felt her eyes sting and she blinked hard.
"I don't know what she said to Giovanni, but he was very cold to me the next day, and he disowned me. Sent me away. But what I do know is that Luciana burned all the letters I'd sent her, and that she got married to another man just a few months later. And I heard she died a couple years after that. I don't even know why, or how. I tried to contact Giovanni about her, afterwards, but all I got in return was a request that I leave him alone on the subject. I never heard from him again."
He placed the second rose on the grave under the angel statue, and Christine noticed the name Luciana engraved at the base of the statue.
"Do you think she'd forgive me?" he asked, his voice thick with tears. "Do you think she'd forgive me for coming back here, when she'd told me to never come back?"
She hugged his arm, resting her head against him as she looked down at the poor woman Erik had loved, and who had broken his heart.
"I think so," she whispered. "I think she would."
"I stayed away for nearly thirty years... But in the end I couldn't even honor her wishes because of my own damn weakness and selfishness-"
His voice broke and he bowed his head, unable to continue. He brought a hand up hide his face, but he couldn't disguise the shake of his shoulders that gave away the fact that he was sobbing.
She squeezed his arm, completely at a loss.
"She would understand, Erik," she murmured to him. "She would understand. After all this time- surely she would see it differently now. You don't have to feel guilty."
He sniffled and turned from her, breaking her clasp on his arm, and he removed his mask to wipe his sleeve across his face. When he turned back to her, his mask was back in place.
"I wish I could have done better back then," he said quietly, staring at the headstone. "I wish things could have gone differently."
"You did the best you could at the time, I'm sure," she said weakly.
He sighed and turned to walk back the way they had come. Christine followed after him. She glanced back one last time at the angel statue. It was so strange to think of Erik being in a relationship with someone else. She was ashamed to admit, but it hadn't occurred to her. Maybe that was why he didn't grudge her for having Raoul waiting for her at home - he, too, was holding someone else in his heart, even still.
Once they passed through the gates of the cemetery, he stopped and turned to her. She paused next to him, and he held the last rose out to her. Her eyes widened when she realized he really meant for her to take it.
"There's only been three people I've ever truly loved," he said softly as she carefully took the rose from him and held it in her hands like a wedding bouquet. "Giovanni, Luciana, and you."
She looked down at her feet, cradling the rose in her hands.
"Do you still love her?"
The whispered words were out before she could stop them.
Erik looked a surprised a moment, then his expression softened.
"I think we always love the people who were dear to us, even when they're gone," he said simply, and she nodded.
They walked on down the path, somewhat aimlessly, until they came to a gelato shop. Erik ordered for them both after Christine said he could pick a flavor for her.
"Limoncello," he told her, handing her a cup as they sat at a table on the patio. "That was Luci's favorite."
Christine said nothing as she dug the tiny spoon into the pale yellow frozen custard and tasted it. She felt strange thinking about Luciana, and she didn't know why. She wondered if she would have gotten along with her, or if she'd feel awkward around her.
"Tell me more about her," she asked, and hoped she wouldn't regret learning.
"She was my first love," he said, keeping his eyes on his own gelato cup. The tiny spoon looked comical in his large, spindly hand. "We were going to get married and travel the world, after she'd completed her studies. Her degree was in art. She was a painter. Very talented."
"Oh."
If she didn't know better, she'd say the feeling was akin to jealousy.
She glanced up from her dessert to study him. It was strange to think about the possibilities of what could have been had Luciana not snatched his mask away, or had she been able to accept his face. They likely would have married, just like Erik said they'd would have. Would they still be married even now? Would Erik be a father?
It suddenly struck her that any hypothetical child of his might be nearly the same age as herself. She didn't know how to feel about that.
If he had been with Luciana, would he have been happy? Would he have taken better care of himself, gone to the doctor regularly? His problems would have been caught much sooner, and they could have been controlled.
She bit the plastic spoon, nibbling on the end of it and worrying her tongue over the bite marks.
If Erik's child had been the same age as her, it wouldn't be unheard of to have a child of their own at this age. Erik could have been a grandfather by now.
She furrowed her brow at the thought of it.
How different his life could have been. A wife who loved him, children, grandchildren, family trips... Instead, he had a marriage on paper only, and a nurse to keep an eye on him who he felt compelled to ask to pretend to like him.
"When she broke up with me- it was a very dark time for me, after," he admitted, then hesitated before continuing. "I went to a psychoanalyst."
He let the words hang in the air a moment before gathering the courage to look at her.
"Do you think that's strange?"
"No," she answered quickly. "No, it's not strange."
He nodded a little, seemingly comforted by her words.
"I went to him every week for three years," he said. "We talked a lot. He helped me to see things better."
"Meg wanted me to go to one after Papa died," she said quietly. "I didn't. But I probably should have."
"It can be hard," he said. "Admitting you need help."
"That was very brave of you. I'm glad you got help, Erik."
"I am, too," he said, toying with his now empty paper cup. "I found a lot of solace in what he told me, but as for how things ended with Luci... I still wish it could have been different. And I thought, coming here now... I thought I could finally get closure."
"Did you?"
He stared off in the distance for a long time.
"Maybe giving up the need for closure is a kind of closure in itself," he said at last. "No closure can be closure, too, I think."
She ate the last bites of her gelato, not certain what to say.
She didn't want to be Luciana to him. She didn't want to leave him wondering what he'd done wrong, thinking there was something wrong with him, something intrinsically flawed and unlovable. He was a good man, and he needed to know that.
"I'm sorry, Erik," she whispered.
He shook his head.
"It doesn't matter now, I suppose. But- I don't want to make the same mistakes with you. I don't- I don't want to trick you. I want you to be here because you want to be here."
"You didn't trick Luciana, and you didn't trick me. And I want to be here," she insisted. "I do want to be here with you, Erik. I know I'm not-" she glanced away, pausing. "I know I haven't made it very clear, but I chose to be here. You didn't trick me, or force me."
"I hope so," he whispered, his voice wavering.
She mulled the conversation over in her mind as they went on their way down the road. The taste of limoncello still lingered in her mouth, reminding of her of that tart other woman who still held his heart. She clutched the rose to her chest, reminding herself that she, too, held part of his heart, and that she mustn't be careless with it.
"I thought about being buried here," he said softly after a long moment. "In the same graveyard. With them."
Her heart skipped a beat. It was unsettling to hear him talk about it, but she knew it would come at some point.
"There's room, you know. On the other side of Giovanni... Or on the other side of Luci... But I think that one is being saved for her husband. I wouldn't take up much space - just an urn. Except-" he hesitated. "I don't think they'd want me there. Any of them. Not Giovanni, or Luci - or her husband. I don't belong there with them, not really. It was just wishful thinking."
She swallowed hard. She knew she needed to ask him where he wanted to be buried, but she couldn't force her tongue to form the words. She couldn't say it because to say it was to admit that it was going to happen. Her Erik could never be in an urn, no, not him.
She glanced up at him, scooting closer to his side as they walked on. He seemed far too alive to be thinking of such things, but she knew from experience how quickly that illusion could fade.
It was harrowing, knowing that he had no one else in the world but her.
When the day was over and she bid Erik goodnight with a smile, she settled into her room for her quiet time, only to realize she'd never called Raoul to let him know she'd arrived in Rome.
She guiltily dialed the phone number and listened to it ring. At last he answered.
"Hello?"
"I'm sorry!" she blurted out.
"Christine! Are you okay?!"
"I'm fine, I'm sorry! I just- I was so tired, and everything here was so busy-"
"I was worried sick about you! Anything could have happened! Your plane could have crashed-"
"I know," she winced.
"Erik could have murdered you-"
"Well that one couldn't have happened," she insisted with a frown.
"First not seeing me before you leave, and now this-"
"I saw you before I left..."
"Lotte, what spell does he have you under? It's like you've forgotten everything that's really important here!"
She paused, trying to form the words in her mind.
Erik was important. She knew Raoul was important and it was important to not let him worry, and she loved him and it was important to keep in touch and keep him updated, but Erik was important too. And not just because he was leaving his fortune to her - he was important because he mattered, because he was kind and sweet and he had been overlooked for so long in his life, and he deserved a bit of attention now. That was important.
"I- I'm sorry-" she stuttered, thinking to tell him off but leaving it at an apology.
"Is everything really okay?"
"Yes! Oh, you would have hated it at the airport - they lost our luggage for a while, but it was on the wrong flight. Anyway-"
She filled him in on everything except the fight between her and Erik, and the truce between her and Erik - and what Erik had told her about how he loved her. As far as Raoul was concerned, it was a normal trip that had gotten off to a rough start. By the end of the call, things had been mostly patched up between them, with the promise that she would call more often.
She went to sleep that night feeling strangely unhappy, her door closed but not locked, and Erik's rose on her nightstand.
Erik spent the next three days showing her around the areas he used to frequent as a young man, bookstores and cafes and parks and trees he was particularly fond of sitting under.
"Oh, I wish we could have known each other back then, Christine," he said wistfully, his eyes sparkling with nostalgia as they strolled in the park where he'd first begun writing Don Juan Triumphant.
She wrinkled her nose.
"I wasn't even born back then, Erik."
He cringed.
"No, but pretend-"
"I wouldn't be born for another five years."
He groaned and put a hand over his face.
"Don't say things like that!"
She ducked her head and snickered.
"What would we have done back then?" she asked.
"Oh, everything."
"We would have been different people," she reminded him with a smile. "Our lives shaped us and brought us to this point. We wouldn't have been the us we know now if we'd met back then. We might not even have liked each other!"
He shook his head.
"No," he said. "No, I think we would have hit it off, even then. I think no matter when or where it was, we were destined to meet. We'd be drawn to each other, no matter what, in any time or universe."
"That's what you think?" she tilted her head as she glanced up at him.
"It is," he smiled warmly. "Destiny binds us together forever."
"Hm!"
"You could have been my Aminta on my album," he told her, grinning.
Her face colored.
"Who was she, anyhow?"
He shrugged.
"I never even saw her in person, my dear, there's no reason to be jealous," he chuckled, and she gasped theatrically at his accusation. "One of the producers found her, and she and I spoke over the phone a few times. She recorded her lines in a different studio and they sent the tracks to me, and I dubbed them in to the music."
She pressed her lips together. She'd be lying to say she'd never fantasized about being Aminta.
He lifted a finger up as though something just occurred to him.
"Remind me, my dear, that I must make a phone call when we return for the night."
But she didn't have to remind him, because he still remembered after their dinner out, and after they were settled in to their room, Erik sat on the couch and picked up the phone, wiggling his finger for Christine to come and sit by him.
She looked at him, curious, but he offered no clue of who he was calling as he dialed then waited, motioning for Christine to sit even closer so she could hear too, both of them listening to it ring on the other end. At last someone answered, a man's voice saying "Hello?", and Erik smirked.