What Remains of the Fair Simonetta by Laura T. Emery Read Free Book Online Page A

and white nun’s habit. I hesitantly approached the secret compartment and lifted the folded habit—complete with veil—out and set it aside. Underneath was the servant’s dress, identical to Antonella’s.
    Sensing my urgency, she quickly helped me out of the green velvet ensemble, and into the frumpy brown and white dress, then shoved my ample hair under a skull cap—the twin of her own. Since there was no need for a corset or petticoat or any other article of torture, I was instantly quite fond of the frumpy dress.
    Before Antonella had time to chastise me again, I flew back down the stairs and out the door, where I discovered Mariano already walking without me.
    “Mariano!” I called, as I spotted him strolling down the Borgo Ognissanti. He stopped and turned with a look of disgust, presumably at the casual manner in which I addressed him. “I’m sorry. I mean Signor Filipepi.”
    “What is it you require of me? Surely you have enough attention from all the other men of our great city-state.”
    “I want to talk to you about Botticelli…I mean Sandro.”
    “Oh?”
    “I know I’ve just met Sandro, but I’m very fond of him. He’s so intelligent and talented. I couldn’t help but notice you have something of a strained relationship with each other. It’s obvious the two of you care for one another, but aren’t able to show it.” He stared at me quizzically, as I continued. “It’s been my experience that the people we love aren’t always around long enough for us to tell them how we feel.”
    And yes, I’m being a total buttinsky.
    “Your parents are alive and well in Genoa, are they not?”
    Shit.
    “Yes, but I’m here. Unable to see them.”
    I hope.
    I wasn’t referring to Simonetta’s relatives. In my own mind, I was speaking of my actual mother who got sick and died when I was so young, and my father, whom I didn’t even meet until I was thirty-eight. I appreciated both my parents because I was aware of their, and by extension, my own mortality. Sandro and Mariano clearly were not focused on theirs. Sandro would soon be called to paint the walls of the great Sistine Chapel, during which time Mariano would die in his absence.
    “Imagine if something happened to one of you,” I continued, “And today’s conversation was the last you ever had. I can’t explain it, but I feel it is my duty to put things right between the two of you.” I felt how stupid and contrived the words sounded, even as they fell out of my mouth.
    Mariano paused and sighed. “Yes, I suppose you are correct,” he conceded.
    Okay. That was far too easy .
    I felt a rush of relief and a shudder of panic at the same time. If I was able to get Mariano to see the light and turn his relationship with Sandro around, then my mission was complete. No more reason for me to reside in this world. But I wasn’t quite ready to depart; nor was I sure I ever would be.
    I continued to walk down the Borgo Ognissanti with Mariano; the street in which Mariano, his son, and I—and even the real Simonetta—would reside in our marble and metal graves six centuries in the future. As we crossed in front of the Church of Ognissanti, I resisted the strong pull to enter.
    The façade of the church was different during this period—ugly, and gothic, and much plainer than the one to which I had grown accustomed—but it still had the Medici coat of arms prominently displayed. The concrete piazza of the future was now just a meadow of wild grass. I cringed a bit when I saw children playing “knucklebones” in the grass with actual bones. Mariano didn’t seem to take notice.
    “All Saints is your family church now, is it not?” Mariano motioned over to my future home.
    I could intuit that it was not a matter of whether or not I went to church, only a matter of which one. “Yes, and yours as well,” I replied softly. This much I knew for sure.
    I had almost forgotten the meaning of the word Ognissanti . The church was unusual in the