After Dinner
Vittoria and Ottavio lay in their bed that night, a tangle of limbs. Ottavio lazily stroked patterns on Vittoria’s back, while humming nothing in particular. It was how most of their days came to a close, when the night was dark and thick with stars.
“I suppose he’s a nice enough young man,” Vittoria said, her voice breaking through the comfortable not-quite silence. It was clearly the end thought of a caravan which she had not been saying out loud. Ottavio opened his eyes and looked down at his wife, a slow smile spreading across his lips. She worried about getting old, but Ottavio thought she was just as beautiful as the day they’d been wed.
“Yusuf?” Ottavio asked, since clearly Vittoria wanted to talk about it.
“Yes. At the very least, he does not seem to wish to take advantage. He has.. good intentions,” She supposed, though there were clearly things she wasn’t saying. Ottavio could guess at them, but knew her well enough to know that she wanted to verbally tell them to him and hear what he had to say.
“But?”
“But I worry about her marrying a Turkish man, Ottavio. What if we want to go back to Venezia? He would not want to come with, his homeland is here, while ours is not.”
Ottavio resisted the urge to heave a sigh. This was an old argument between the two of them, one he did not particularly wish to bring up and rehash tonight. Vittoria lived with the idea that they would eventually move back to Venice, that living in Costantinopoli was only a temporary situation, despite the fact that they’d been living there for almost twenty years. Ottavio did not feel that way. He did not know whether or not they would move back to Venice, it was certainly a possibility. Vittoria often argued about how unsafe the city was, though Ottavio was sure she wasn’t remembering the dangers of Venezia accurately.
“Maybe he would come with, for Sofia,” Ottavio chose to say, instead of many things he could have said.
“Maybe he would, or maybe she would stay with him. I am not saying we turn him away now, but we need to keep this in our minds, Ottavio,” Vittoria entreated.
“If you think it is important, I will certainly take it into consideration.”
“Thank you. That is all I ask.”
Ottavio went to bed that night with a troubled mind. He could sense the coming conflict around this issue, not only between himself and his wife, but also between Vittoria and Sofia. Perhaps the boy would lose interest, perhaps he would do something to disinterest Sofia before it reached that point. Somehow, though, Ottavio did not feel that would happen.
