PART 5 – Farewell in the Arrival Hall
The bustle in the arrival hall of Rome Fiumicino was overwhelming. Travelers with rolling suitcases, screaming children, and taxi drivers with name cards rushed past each other in a cacophony of sounds. I stood by the baggage carousel waiting for our stroller, with Vittoria firmly on my hip. My head was still spinning from everything that had happened on the plane. Luca's business card burned in my jacket pocket as if it were glowing hot iron.
"Looking for someone, sister?"
A cheerful voice broke through my thoughts. I looked up and saw my older sister Chiara walking toward me, her arms wide open and a wide smile on her face. She threw her arms around my neck, almost hitting Vittoria, who began to giggle in response to Chiara's enthusiasm.
"Oh, Chiara, I'm so glad to see you," I sighed deeply, letting myself be embraced. The past weeks fell off my shoulders like a crushing weight now that I was finally with family.
"Let me hold that princess," Chiara said immediately, taking Vittoria from me. She chatted as she walked toward the baggage carousel. "And tell me everything. How was the flight? Anything crazy happen? Because you look like you've seen a ghost."
I was just about to answer and tell her about the mysterious captain, the paparazzo, and the intense moments in the air, when in the corner of my eye I saw a tall figure in a dark pilot's jacket walking away toward the staff exit.
It was Luca.
He walked with long strides, his duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He didn't look back. Among the hundreds of people streaming through the hall, in a fraction of a second he seemed to vanish into the crowd. A feeling of emptiness shot through my chest. Was this it? Would I never see this man again, the one who had carried me through one of the hardest moments of my new life in such a short time?
"Elena? Are you listening?" Chiara asked as she pulled the stroller off the belt. "I asked if you're hungry. I made lasagna."
"Yes... yes, sorry, I'm just tired," I replied quickly, staring one last time at the exit where Luca had just disappeared. I squeezed the business card in my pocket firmly.
The coming weeks were all about rebuilding. Chiara helped me find a small, affordable apartment in a quiet neighborhood of Rome. I registered with a temp agency to get back to work as a graphic designer, and Vittoria began taking her first steps on the wooden floor of our new living room. Slowly but surely, the scar of the divorce from Stefano began to shed into a full-fledged lesson in survival. I thought about him less and less. But to my own surprise, I thought all the more about Luca Ferri.
Until that fateful Tuesday morning, six weeks after our flight, when the mail carrier delivered a thick, registered letter to our address. The sender immediately made me gasp for breath: a law firm from Milan, on behalf of Stefano.
