In a matter of three seconds, I feel little Dante’s body being ripped from my arms. I hold on to a strong, muscular wall.
It’s Dario or maybe his twin.
My God, I can’t believe this is happening to me! Since when did Dario have a twin? This is something I hadn’t thought of before. It can’t be! This can’t be… Oh my God, it can’t be!
Suddenly the memory of the night of pleasure with Dario comes to my mind. What if I didn’t really sleep that night at the lake with my husband but also with his twin? Oh no! No… no… this can’t be! This can’t happen to me.
I feel my body slacken a little more, how the tingling in my hands increases, and my legs don’t cooperate to re-establish my walking and get out of here.
This can’t be. I repeat it over and over like a litany. My body is cold, although the sweat on my hands tells me that at least one part of me is functioning. Unfortunately, that part is not my brain. In short, it is not my brain that is running well at the moment.
“Are you all right? Tatiana, tell me something, please,” Dario blurts out.
Maybe it’s the other one.
I blink, but the same image is still conjured in front of me.
There are two of them.
“What’s wrong with her? Did you get her pregnant that fast, bro?”
“Shut up, Dawson. You always have to come out with one of your little jokes. You need to grow up already!” he scolds him.
They both sound alike. Same voice, same height, same eye color… They’re identical.
Damn it!
This wasn’t in the wedding contract! When I agreed to get married, I never thought that Dario would have an identical twin.
“Tatiana,” expresses the twin holding me, and I assume it’s Dario.
Or maybe not.
However, there is no other way to know. I don’t think the brother knows my name. And if I slept with my husband’s twin that night, I don’t think I remember telling him that. It was a few hours thing. No premeditation, no calculation. It just happened. Now the regret is almost palpable.
That’s why Dario was behaving so strangely! He wasn’t the one who spent the night with me! He must have thought I was crazy when I asked him if he didn’t remember what happened between us. Oh, God! Of course, he hadn’t answered about the night of pleasure. He was referring to the wedding. We were both talking about different things.
“Get her some water,” Dario asks or instead orders his brother.
I watch as the other half-smiles and walks away with Dante in his arms. The boy looks over his uncle’s shoulder at me.
Save me, little weevil, I think as I watch him go.
Dario still has the black suit and white shirt from the ceremony. For him, I hear, the banalities of fancy clothes and cars are just that, trivialities and extra things. But, on the other hand, my mother has made me wear three kinds of clothes on the day after the wedding.
“Do you want to sit down? I don’t think I’ve ever provoked such a reaction in any woman. In any person, actually,” he corrects himself.
“Yes, I think sitting down would be good for me.” I settle into the black couch off to the side, attached to the wall, with a tall vase full of bamboo stalks that almost touch the ceiling.
“I’m sorry… you know, I’m sorry you were scared to see me with Dawson. I didn’t know he was coming, and I was planning to tell you about his existence tonight.”
“You have a twin.” I know he says something else, but I can’t make it out.
I can only think of the two pairs of gray eyes looking at me a few minutes ago.
“I have a brother, yes.”
“Identical.”
“I think so. According to our mother, we’re identical twins.” I sense his teasing tone.
I let out a grunt.
“Very funny. Do you think I’ve had an easy day? Do you think marrying you without knowing you is the best thing that ever happened to me? This is not for jokes!”
“Anyone in this castle can assure you that I am not a man for jokes or humor. That’s what my brother is for. He’s the one who believes in little birds in the air.”
“Sometimes, you need to let go a little of that eternal hatred of life.” My comment sounds more like advocacy than mere words. “Start enjoying what you have around you, just like last night at the lake…”
“Hatred of life?” he interrupts me with a scowl. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, woman.” He sits down next to me. He doesn’t smile. His eyes look at me with the same intensity as always, and as they have in every encounter we’ve had, as if he hates me. “I don’t have to apologize. I will anyway. I’m sorry you had to marry a guy like me. Unfortunately for you, it’s done, and there’s no rewind button. The quicker it sinks in, the better.” I scrutinize him, not knowing what to answer. “Regarding my brother, don’t worry, since you won’t see him much. He’s always traveling. He came for my wedding and was late.”
An idea pops into my mind.
“He wasn’t here yesterday?”
“No.” He looks at me, confused. He doesn’t understand my question, but I do.
My soul drops into my body, and I let out a sigh. It means I wasn’t with Dawson the night before, so why is Darío pretending he didn’t touch me? Why his coldness and reproach as he looks at me?
“Here.” Dawson bursts in and hands me a crystal glass of water.
Dario gets up from the couch, and I do the same. I walk over to my new brother-in-law. Surprised, I almost pass out again. I look at him before taking the glass; the resemblance is uncanny. It is extraordinary how they both resemble each other. He doesn’t wear a shirt as white as Dario. It’s more beige than white, although, with such a face, no one would notice what each twin is wearing.
“Thank you. I’m sorry to inconvenience you,” I express, uncomfortable. “Can you give me Dante?” I finish my water in two gulps and set the glass down on a book-filled cabinet to the right of the study.
I think it’s Dario’s office. Or at least, at one time, it was a place for work and meetings in the castle. There are three pieces of furniture filled with books of all kinds, trophies of which I can’t make out the award and documents in envelopes—a computer on the desk and two black chairs that look very uncomfortable. At one end of the office, I see some hand-painted pictures: two with black horses and one woman with dark hair falling over her semi-naked body. In the meantime, I was trying to reach an apple from the leafy tree full of these red and green fruits.
Dawson intimidates me with his stare and doesn’t give me the boy. I look at Dario for some comment from him. The brothers have unfinished business, not to say they’re carrying a problem between them, which I don’t want to be a part of.
“I think you better get some rest. It’s been a lot for you today. Tomorrow you can spend the day with Dante.” Dario takes the baby from Dawson and analyzes me, frank. “You’re tired. If we hadn’t been here, you could have dropped my son.”
“I wasn’t going to let…”
“You don’t know that it could have happened.”
“Let her take him. You and I have issues to discuss.”
“We’re not talking about this on my fucking wedding night.”
“What? Are you going to tell me you intend to fuck her today?” wheezes Dawson, causing my cheeks to flush and an uncontrollable urge to bolt.
“I’m still here, you idiots,” I mumble, annoyed, and from Dario’s arms, I snatch Dante. “Argue all you want. I’ll be with Dante, I’ll shower him, and I’ll sleep. If you wish to have sex on your wedding night, as your brother says, find me. That’s what you bought me for, after all. I am your wife, and I will do what I must.”
I walk out of the studio and leave the twins with their mouths hanging open.
The last thing I perceived in Dario’s eyes was anger and shame.