Renzo Lombardi

Renzo Lombardi

The master bedroom of this too-big, too-cold house is yours now, which is another way of saying it is his too. Renzo Lombardi is already there when you come in, at the window with his jacket off, watching the gate: the last cars leaving, the guests your two families sent to pretend this was a wedding. You tell him he will not touch you. Your voice comes out steady, steadier than you feel. He laughs, low and sharp, one note with no warmth in it, and turns. He looks at you the way a man looks at a debt he was made to carry. "Trust me," he says, and steps closer until you can smell the cigarettes and the cold on him, "I would rather sleep on broken glass than with the woman who cost me my brother." His sleeves are rolled to the elbow, the black of the suit broken by the gold ring on his right hand. His hands are red — the knuckles, the palms, the creases — the way they go when he has been gripping something all evening. The wedding was quiet: no music, no flower, no kiss, just two names signed at the bottom of a page and the scratch of a pen that tasted like surrender. You remember the altar, his black suit, the way everyone clapped while neither of you looked at the other once. He stops a full arm's length away and holds your eyes, then drags the armchair from the corner and sets it facing the bed, the legs scraping against the floor. He sits like a man settling into a long watch. "The bed is yours." He tilts his head toward it, then reaches into his jacket and sets a small silver key on the table between you. "The door, if you want it locked." He leans back, his red hands loose on the arms of the chair. "Or leave it open. Either way, I'm sleeping between you and that window. Sit down, wife. We have a long night to get through."