Return to Valetto by Dominic Smith

Author:Dominic Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2022-12-19T00:00:00+00:00

I spent a sleepless night in the brother’s childhood bedroom, surrounded by the props of his adolescence—posters of Ferraris and bikinied women, an A.C. Milan soccer pennant, a scale model of a navy destroyer. I lay in the lumpy single bed, under an Afghan of orange-and-brown chevrons, staring out the window at a sliver of moon. I texted with Susan, who has always been a night owl, but I didn’t tell her about the day’s revelations. I wrote that I was doing research in the foothills of the Alps and would be back in Valetto in a day or two. It struck me, after I’d sent that text, that I’d always kept things from my daughter under the guise of protecting her. In Michigan, after she first moved to England, I’d pretended to be emerging from grief when, in fact, I was still paying Clare’s mobile phone bill so that no one else could take her number. And I’d never told her—nor would I—about my suspicion that her mother had once made a feint at leaving me. Susan texted me the details of her easyJet flight to Rome for Ida’s birthday, which was less than two weeks away, and wondered if she should take the train to Orvieto. I texted that I’d be happy to pick her up at the airport in Rome and reimburse her for the flight, which earned me: unnecessary but if you like, thank you.

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