Luca rubbed the back of his neck — a tell-tale sign of the acute social discomfort he was struggling to mask.
"H-u-s-b-a-n-d," he enunciated the word slowly, sounding it out for good measure.
The grandmother — a formidable woman whose stillness usually preceded a seismic event — stared. For a long, terrifying moment, her gaze was fixed and unblinking, the colour draining from her formidable face like a tide in the dead of night.
Then, with a gasp that seemed to vacuum all the air from the room, she dramatically fall to the ground.
"Oh my God, Grandmother!" Luca sprang forward, his cultured composure utterly shattered by the domestic drama.
But Elena, who was no stranger to the theatrical nature of her kin, waved him back with a sharp flick of her wrist.
"Don't bother. I know how to handle this particular display," she murmured, a trace of battle-weariness in her voice.
She approached the recumbent figure on the antique Persian rug, leaning in conspiratorially.
"Grandmother," she whispered, her tone laced with cool, almost condescending amusement. "The performance is over. I know you're shocked, but not nearly enough to genuinely swoon."
An eye snapped open with remarkable speed — its glint sharp and dangerous. In the very next instant, a hand, surprisingly quick for a woman of her age, shot out and seized a handful of Elena's carefully styled hair.
A light, yet distinctly punitive, rap followed atop Elena's head.
"You little fool! Were you hoping for my actual demise?" the formidable woman hissed, still prone, but now radiating an energy that belied her supposed faint.
"A week! You vanish for a week, and when you deign to return, you bring a husband? Are you out of your mind, girl?"
Her indignant gaze finally swiveled to the tall, well-dressed man watching with wide-eyed disbelief.
"And who, pray tell, is this? I have never, in all my days, set eyes on this man! Where did you unearth him?"
Luca tried to interject, to explain the intricacies of the situation, but Elena silenced him with a peremptory gesture that was, frankly, a perfect imitation of her grandmother.
"Sit. Just sit there and let me handle my grandmother alone."
So Luca retreated, seating himself gingerly on a silk-upholstered divan — a reluctant spectator to the unfolding, distinctly Italian-style family melodrama.
The matriarch finally hauled herself upright, shooting a look of pure, distilled venom at the newcomer before Elena could fully drag her away by the arm.
"Grandmother, truly, ignore him. Ask me what you need to know. I'm the one you should be interrogating."
"Let go of me, you lunatic! And you!" She rounded on Luca, her finger pointed like a loaded gun.
"Me?" Luca pointed to his own chest, a picture of bewildered innocence.
"Yes, you! Who else? Tell me the truth, young man — you didn't marry her because she's pregnant, did you?"
A profound silence descended, thick enough to choke on. The two of them froze, their eyes locking in a horrified, shared moment of shock.
"Pregnant?" they mouthed in perfect unison.
Luca, recovering first, moved with surprising tenderness. He guided the old woman to a sturdy armchair, gently holding her shoulders.
"Grandmother," he began, his voice soft and falsely solicitous.
"I am not your grandmother," she corrected him with stony conviction.
He offered a strained, brittle smile. "Ha-ha, no, of course not. But I promise you, with absolute certainty, that she is not pregnant. Are you, Elly?"
He appealed to his 'bride'.
Elena snapped out of her bewildered trance. "No! No, I swear I'm not pregnant!"
"And you expect me to believe you, you reckless pair of miscreants?"
The old woman leaned forward, her eyes narrowing to suspicious slits.
"You will leave this instant. Go out and purchase a pregnancy test. Now."
"What?" Luca stammered, utterly blindsided.
"Grandmother!" Elena wailed, a genuine cry of exasperation.
"Silence, you! I will not allow you to ruin your life a second time!"
Luca, deciding that any action was better than the crippling awkwardness, rose and headed for the door, then paused, his hand on the knob.
"Grandmother, where is the nearest chemist's shop?"
"End of the street. And be quick about it!"
He left, feeling every inch of his height and elegant tailoring a source of shame.
Finding the pharmacy, he had to swallow his pride. He scanned the aisles, praying for an unmarked box to leap into his hand, but of course, he had to ask.
"Ahem… do you, by any chance, sell pregnancy tests?" he muttered to the cashier, his voice barely a breath above a whisper.
The man, a genial-looking fellow, beamed. "Certainly, sir. Right here. I hope you'll be blessed with a beautiful child."
"Yes. Thank you," Luca mumbled, forcing a smile that felt utterly unnatural.
Returning to the house, the atmosphere was a hundred times more oppressive.
He extended the discreetly packaged test towards Elena, but then a crazy, paranoid thought — born entirely of the day's stress — flashed through his mind.
He pulled her aside, his voice dropping.
"Look... you're not... you're not actually pregnant, are you?"
Elena gave him a look of withering scorn.
"Seriously? Where on earth would I get pregnant? Are you losing your mind, just like my grandmother?"
"I'm not accusing you," he defended himself weakly. "But I just thought, well, perhaps you had a pre-existing... arrangement."
She snatched the test from his hand and strode towards the downstairs bathroom.
"I'm a virgin, you arrogant wretch! Get out of my sight!"
A moment later, she emerged, the test stick held aloft like a small, white banner of victory. She thrust it towards her grandmother.
"There! Are you satisfied now?"
The grandma scrutinized the results, a slow nod of acknowledgement finally relaxing her face.
"Satisfied on that front, yes. Now, tell me how you met him — and how exactly you managed to fall so utterly.'"
Silence again. Elena hesitated, an unfamiliar flutter of genuine nervousness crossing her face.
"Well, you see... it was love at first sight."
"First sight, you say? Hmm. Continue." The grandmother leaned back, an archly cynical expression fixed on her lips.
"You don't believe me, do you?"
"Not a single word."
Elena threw her hands up in a gesture of capitulation.
"Grandmother, just look at him! He's tall, he's handsome, his shoulders are magnificent. He has impeccable style, he's well-mannered... well, perhaps he could use a little more refinement..."
"Yes, that much is obvious," the matriarch drily agreed.
Luca watched their silent, shared assessment of him, feeling like a prized bull at a strange auction.
"I am still not convinced," the grandmother announced, folding her arms.
Elena pursed her lips, then gave in with a sigh of weary surrender. "He's wealthy," she mumbled, as if forcing the words out.
The grandmother's eyes immediately lit up.
"Ah. Now I am convinced. You would never truly love a man for anything but his finances."
She looked at Luca, a challenge in her gaze.
"And you? Do you have a problem with the fact that she loves you only for your looks and your money?"
Luca shrugged, utterly unfazed.
"It's a form of love, isn't it? I love her body. Isn't that also a form of love?"