The Don’s Secret Child
Not once in five years had my husband chosen something for me—no dress, no scarf, not even the smallest trinket.
When I finished packing, I looked at the gifts I had once chosen so carefully for him—watches, cufflinks, leather-bound journals. All unopened, untouched, stacked in the corner like relics of a one-sided devotion. I boxed them up, not with tears, but with a steady hand, and sent them away with the scrap dealer.
Every effort, every quiet smile, every moment I had tried to bridge the distance between us—it had all dissolved into dust.
Just as I turned to go back inside the villa, a sharp car horn pierced the quiet.