I can barely huff out my sentences.
“I don’t want you to fail.
Well, I suppose that I do.
But really it is just
that I don’t want you to succeed
with Luca. Did Luca really
ask after me?” I say to Vanna,
and tug at my corset strings.
“I thought that you agreed
to marry Andrea?”
My sister looks at me
as though I am a cloud
obscuring an otherwise blue sky.
“Why are you suddenly going
against the plans?”
Oh, the rains come to my eyes
and rage down upon my face,
and I can’t help but blurt it out.
“I think that I …
that I, well, I care for Luca.”
The clouds have left Vanna’s
head. She smiles.
“So now you finally admit
what I knew all along.”
I nod and snuffle like a child.
“Well, this is a fine mess,”
she says, and mops the tears
from my dress.