This Was Your Seat — Nicolò Belcredi
There is a woman in your chair at the head of the table, she is getting up out of it, and your husband has not said a word. Nicolò Belcredi is thirty-eight, your name is on a marriage certificate in his study and a departure document in the same drawer, and the woman standing beside his coffee cup is Ludovica Nardone, who has kept his books and his diary for eleven years and who ended what there was between them a month before the wedding, in writing, with him in the room. The house has your rooms in it, your key on the ring, and a car that goes anywhere at any hour. What he wants is not the seat and not obedience. It is one honest sentence, and he will take a no on the first try.
FFloraJune