Everyone at Colibrí, the Santangelo family winery, knew of Clio's early return, of course, but that was as much as they did know. Francie must have put the word out that no one was to question Clio about why she had come back so soon, because no one asked, not even Brina, whose need to know was sometimes so great that it threatened to overwhelm her being.

They just enveloped her in a warm cocoon of family love, from when she arrived, around eight o'clock that night, until she said she wanted to go to bed, around eleven-thirty. It was a cold January night, but the great room at the front of the Santangelo compound was warm and cozy. A fire burned in the huge fireplace, and the adults and older children sat around with glasses of wine, while the children sat on the floor and played with their Christmas presents or with the dogs that roamed the darkened room.

Clio rose and turned to face everyone. Francie, who was of course going to bed with her, stood at her side. "Grazie tantissimo, thanks so much," she began. "Thanks for not asking me about why I came back so early, and for not bugging me about anything," she continued in Italian. "I really needed to be with you guys, just be with people I loved who loved me back." The girls went to kiss their parents, grandparents, and great-grandma good night.

"We'll be up in a little bit, topolina," Pete told his oldest girl. "Try to sleep, okay?"

Clio nodded and sighed.

"You, too, mimma, don't stay up all night talking," he added to his second-born.

Daisy shook her head. "Why bother, Pete?" she asked with a soft laugh. "Especially when Lottie and Brina are going to sleep in their cousin's room? You know those two are going to talk all night."

Pete shrugged with a laugh of his own. "I know. It's nice that they have each other. Remember when they were babies, and Francie would climb out of her crib with her elephant to go sleep with Clio?" He swiped at his eyes. "Oddio, we're getting so old, cara."

"Hey, speak for yourself, fella!" Daisy teased. "I was at the mercato today and about five guys hit on me, I'm doing fine, thank you very much! Some of them were really young." She nudged him with her elbow. "I was wearing my droopy in the butt sweat pants, too, so there!"

Pete side-eyed his beautiful wife. "Why do you torture me like this?"

"Ah, be quiet and drink your wine, Santangelo. Pour me another glass and I'll even let you have your way with me later."

Pete smiled and rose to oblige his wife.

🦋🌹🦋🌹🦋🌹🦋🌹🦋🌹🦋🌹🦋

Upstairs, on the other side of the house, Francie and Clio were in their warm PJs already, brushing their teeth for bed.

As they entered the bedroom, Francie asked, "Do you want to slumber party?"

Clio nodded wordlessly, and Francie grabbed her pillow and went to her sister's bed, climbing in so she'd be next to the wall.

Clio got in and scooted up close to her sister, both for warmth in the bedroom of the drafty old villa, and for emotional sustenance. She felt her sister's arms go around her, and finally gave in to the tears she'd been holding off all night.

Francie let Clio just cry for a while, knowing that she had to let it out. She reached over her head a couple of times for a tissue, holding it so her sister could blow her nose, carefully setting the used one on the table so she could throw it away in the morning.

Finally, when the worst of the storm seemed to have passed, Francie lifted Clio's head and kissed her forehead. "Okay," she said, her voice even. "Tell me what happened, and don't leave anything out. I won't interrupt, I promise."

Clio nodded, sniffed, and began with the party Archie had attended in her absence. By the time she got to his inability to perform, she'd started to cry again, but Francie still hadn't heard anything that would precipitate her beloved sister's premature return from her trip to France, the trip she'd been looking forward to so much.

"So then--then, oh god, Francie, I can't--"

"Shh, just say it, it's okay, they're just words, Clio."

So, haltingly, Clio told her about the pictures, and even offered to get her phone and show them to her.

"No, that's fine, looking at them again would only upset you," Francie said, her voice tight. "I'll find them and look myself, later." She pulled Clio tighter, and stroked her brown hair. "And what did he say when you confronted him?"

"Well, I didn't exactly confront him," Clio faltered. "I just, you know, left. The lodge."

"Oh. So he followed you?"

Clio nodded.

"He caught up to me at the place we were staying, wanting to talk about it, to explain, but I didn't want to hear. Unless he was tied down and forced or something, which he so obviously wasn't, there's no explanation he can give that I want to hear."

Clio began to cry again, sounds that were like knives to Francie's tender heart.

"Well, what did he say? I understand that you didn't want to hear, but he must've said something."

Clio hiccuped, which made Francie smile briefly in the darkness. She could hear their parents moving about in the next room, and knew her sister could as well, and would be careful to keep her voice down.

"He said something weird about a pantomime or something, Francie! A--a skit, a game! Does that make any sense at all? I mean, it's so obviously a lie that he might as well have told me that he was hit over the head and knocked unconscious! That would've been more believable, you know?" Clio broke down to uncontrollable sobbing in her sister's arms, pulling her knees up between them.

Francie took a deep breath, hating Archie Spencer as she'd never hated anyone before. She'd trusted him, she'd accepted him into their lives, she'd believed he was good enough for her precious sister whom she loved with all her heart--

She would never forgive him.

Never.

"Then he said he really couldn't tell me more now, that I'd just have to trust him for now."

At least that was what Francie thought she said, she wasn't sure, because Clio was talking through copious amounts of tears, and her nose was running again, and she still had hiccups.

Francie reached for another tissue.

"Did that bitch Willow have anything to do with this?" Francie asked grimly. "The pretty girl who nearly killed Lottie at Wollman when you guys were skating that day?"

And in spite of the circumstances, Clio had to laugh. "Oh god, Francie, you do exaggerate sometimes! She did not 'nearly kill Lottie'!" She just let go when she shouldn't have and Lottie, who's not a very good skater, accidentally skated into the wall. Jesus." Clio shook her head.

"Whatever. I don't like her, Clio and it wouldn't surprise me at all if she were somehow involved in this unholy mess. Not that that would excuse Archie or anything."

Clio took a deep breath, and Francie felt the warm exhalation on her neck and chest. "So should I text him, or call him or something? You know, talk to him and clear the air? Because he's not going to contact me for sure."

"How do you know that?"

"I asked him not to," Clio said simply. "And he was feeling so awful by the time I left that I know he'll try really hard to do what I asked, even if it kills him, at least for a while. Maybe by the time we go home, if I'm still not talking to him, he might try, but not now, it's still too soon."

"But you don't want to talk to him, do you? I mean, it kinda sounds like you do, Clio."

Clio hesitated. "I miss him," she said simply. "And maybe--"

"Maybe what?"

Clio could tell, even though she couldn't see, that Francie's face must look like a thundercloud, dark and threatening.

"Maybe--maybe he has a good explanation."

"Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, Cliona Rose, how can a person explain away photographs of himself having sexual intercourse with another person when he's supposed to be in a relationship with you?" Francie was beyond frustration at her gentle sister's forgiving nature.

"I know," Clio backtracked in a whisper, but--"

"No 'buts,' Clio," Francie admonished sternly. "The way you looked when you got out of the car tonight, honestly, if you could've seen yourself--you looked like you'd just survived something terrible, like you'd just come through a war or something. I heard mom gasp, I really did."

Clio started to cry again. "I can't help it if everything shows in my face," she lamented. "I've always been that way."

"I know, I know," Francie comforted, patting Clio's curved and quaking back. "The next time I see that fucking Archie, he gets it in the family jewels, and good, from me, that's for sure."

At the mention of Archie's name, Clio began to cry harder. "What I don't understand is why, you know?" she asked rhetorically. She clutched at the front of Francie's PJs. "Wasn't I enough for him? He always acted so happy to be with me, like I was all he wanted, all he'd ever want..."

"I know," Francie said again. "He seemed happy to me, too, sis." She, Francie, had never misjudged anyone so grossly, and she knew Clio felt the same way. How, how could anyone ever find anyone if relationships were such a minefield, so fraught?

"You want to talk to Zeke about all this?" she suggested. "Obviously not now, but tomorrow, when you're both up?"

Clio shook her head. "I think it would be too hard," she admitted, her voice soft. "He'll be all comforting and nice, but he'll be thinking 'I told you so,' somewhere, I just know it."

"You think so?" Francie mused. "He doesn't seem like that sort of person to me."

"I just want to talk to you," Clio reiterated. "Is that okay?"

"Of course," Francie assured her. "Now let's try to get some sleep. Tomorrow we're going to make Bisnonna's famous grappa with some of the leftover grapes from harvest, and probably that frozen fermented grape dessert, so be prepared to be seriously blitzed out drunk by noon, okay?"

"Okay," Clio said with a laugh. At least she'd be busy and have less time to think about Archie. And possibly because she hadn't slept much the night before and had spent an exhausting day crying in the car for an eight hour journey through the Alps, Clio was actually able to fall asleep fairly easily.

Francie waited until her sister's deep, even breaths indicated that she was indeed in deep slumber, then she stealthily climbed over her and padded across the room to where their phones were sitting in their docks, charging. She grabbed Clio's phone, entered her password, and scrolled to Archie's number in the contacts. She highlighted "block this contact" and hit "enter."

She carefully placed the phone back in its dock and crawled back into bed next to Clio's peaceful form. She looked at her sister, resting at last, though her nose was still red, and she was still sniffling a little, even in sleep. It was toward Clio that Francie had taken her first, wobbling steps, read her first words, swum her first proud doggie paddling strokes.

Francie would defend her and protect her from all comers.

Bring it on.