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Valentina carried the tray. I carried the worry.
We climbed the stairs to the guest bedroom in silence — the particular silence of two women who had cleaned a man’s wound the night before and hadn’t discussed what that meant.
The tray held coffee, bread, fig conserve, a slice of the torta della nonna she’d baked before dawn, two cannoli, and a glass of water with a sprig of mint that Valentina had cut from the garden on the way through the kitchen.
“He won’t eat the torta.”
“He’ll eat everything.”
“He never eats sweet things before noon.”
“He will today. He has no choice.”
I knocked. No answer.