“No, I didn’t mean to…Actually, it’s very elegant. It suits you,” she said.
Sandro’s opened arms were a gesture of resignation.
“Slave to a law firm, unfortunately.”
“Right,” she said, unsure whether she was meant to laugh.
They stared at each other and there was a brief silence, as though they had no idea what should come next. Then Emilia smiled uneasily.
“Yes…? What’s the question?”
“Right….It’s just a…it’s a silly question, actually.”
“Go on.”
“What do you mean exactly when you say, ‘Open your heart’? I mean, is it a movement of the chest or a shift in attitude, an inclination?”
Emilia’s face lit up.
“It’s both. It’s a shift, mental and physical. You’ll see how everything changes when you become more aware. You really need to open up more, Sandro. To release. I’ve noticed you are pretty locked up.”
Sandro frowned, but it flattered him that she had noticed something about him.
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
She placed the tips of her three fingers on his sternum and tapped it lightly.
“Right here.”
Sandro inhaled deeply and felt his chest expand. As ever, her touch was magical. He was slightly overwhelmed.
“See?” she said. “You’re already opening up.”
“Wow. That’s impressive.”
“We all walk around carrying internal steel barriers, and our bodies mirror that. Opening up the heart not only means coming forward with your chest, but, more profoundly, letting go of your defenses, being open to possibilities and change…”
Emilia paused for a second, holding her breath.
“And more open to love, of course,” she added.
She still had her fingertips on his sternum, and Sandro felt his heart begin to race. Something inside his rib cage—a surge of air, a tiny creature?—spread its wings and flew out of his lungs, following which, a vigorous erection blossomed.
* * *
A few days later, after class, Sandro asked Emilia whether she’d like to join him for coffee in a new place that had just opened across the street from the studio. It was the end of the summer, it hadn’t rained in months, the city was parched and dusty but that morning the weather had turned. The air felt humid and sticky and it had just begun to drizzle.
They sat near the window while darker clouds clustered in the west; the steam exuding from the heat of the crowd in the café had fogged the windowpanes and it felt cozy and intimate to be sitting inside, tucked in a corner. They tried to jump-start a conversation, but they were both too nervous and overexcited to find a sensible topic. They dropped spoons and cups, and kept giggling, blushing, sweating, unable to concentrate. At one point Emilia casually mentioned the fact that she was married. The revelation she had a husband somehow caught Sandro unprepared. There was an awkward moment of silence, and he perceived a shift in their communication, as though they were entering a new phase, where, in order to proceed in any direction, the exchange of relevant information regarding their status had become imperative. In turn, he mentioned in passing Ottavia and their daughter, Ilaria. He noticed a flash of disappointment dart across Emilia’s face.
Thunder rumbled loudly in the distance, then suddenly there was a downpour. Through the fogged glass they could see the trees shaking, lightning flashing behind dark clouds, then rain and hail pelting the cobblestones. People inside the café rejoiced, as if the rain were the gift everyone had been waiting for.
Outside, passersby were waiting under awnings or inside shops for the deluge to taper off, but Sandro quickly paid their check and grabbed Emilia’s elbow, and they ran across the street, holding on to each other’s arms, exhilarated, getting drenched. Once they reached her bicycle, he didn’t let go of her, but pulled her close and kissed her on the lips while rivulets of water ran over their faces and slid inside his collar. Emilia threw her head back and laughed.
“In any case, I’m crazy about you,” he announced, somewhat theatrically, before spinning on his heel and running away through the rain.
A week later they had sex for the first time.
* * *
When the previous yoga instructor had fully recovered from her bike accident, Emilia went back to teaching morning classes at another studio and giving some private lessons. But at that point Sandro no longer needed an excuse to see her, and as a result his interest in yoga dwindled and eventually waned. One month into the affair, he was so smitten by Emilia that he had surprised her by renting a one-bedroom in an anonymous neighborhood on the north side of town. The apartment—it had come with sparse, drab furniture—was to be their safe place, a sort of stage where it was possible to mimic a conjugal life. However, since they were allowed only tiny windows of time away from their usual routines, and they both had to constantly come up with elaborate excuses with Bruno and Ottavia, their encounters were inevitably brief and heartbreaking.
After the first few euphoric rendezvous, their lovemaking became more intense, verging on the dramatic, as though they needed to invest it with the desperation of their imminent separation rather than the solace of being reunited. Such is the fate of adulterers, Sandro would think when he held her tiny frame in his arms. Clandestine love was insatiable, like an eating disorder. There was no joy in it, only desire. No fulfillment, only longing.
Both he and Emilia were suspended in an identical situation. Once their lovemaking was over, they both rushed to their respective phones, checking the time and whether they had missed a message from their respective spouses. They would take a quick shower in the tiny bathroom and rush off into their respective cars, heading in opposite directions toward their respective families.
But now their situation was no longer symmetrical. Emilia could show up late for dinner, forget to pick up groceries. It was easier to make excuses with the girls. They didn’t know a thing about trysts and grown-ups’ secrets, and if there was no food in the fridge, they would obediently eat cereal.
* * *
It took a couple of months for Anita and Sofia to perceive what the loss of their father had produced. Once things had quieted down—the shock, the tears and the continuous attention that adults had been showering upon them—they realized that a thin crack had been moving along an invisible path, splitting their world in two. As the fracture deepened, like a running fault line before an earthquake, they felt more and more separated from what was left on the other side of the chasm.