Jack frowned, looking down at Lottie. For her part, Lottie stared at him and then proceeded to stuff her fist in her mouth.
“Humph.” Jack’s frown deepened, shooting glances at the children hiding underneath his desk. “Humph,” he said again.
He kissed Lottie’s head before propping his book back up, positioning it in front of the baby.
“I bet your mother only reads Byron to you, Lottie. Scandalous, I say. Let us peruse some Homer together, shall we?”
The tableau seared into my soul.
Jack cradling Lottie, protective and gentle. Light streaming across them from the window behind.
Even in my dream, tears pricked at my eyes. Obviously, this scene wasn’t a real memory from Jack. How could it be? Just my stupid mind projecting for some reason. Would the Jack I know ever have behaved like this?
But the underlying truth remained.
How much had Jack lost?
The answer was simple, I supposed:
Everything.
Jack had losteverythingthat had ever mattered to him. Not just a way of life and his position in society. Not just his very identity. But his entire family, too. Death of a loved-one was still death, no matter when it happened. The people he loved were still gone. He would never see them again.
Loss swamped me. How would it be to lose everyone? My mind couldn’t encompass it.
I had only lost one person close to me . . . my father.
Of course, thinking about my father sent the scene swirling and morphing, moving from fantasy to memory.
A different room appeared. The large drawing room in Villa Maledetti. Not as it was now, but as it had been when I was a child. Older furniture and a television that was more box than screen. Sunlight lapped the room and all the doors and windows were thrown open in hopes a breeze would stir the heavy warmth of summer.
I rested against the curve of my father’s shoulder, Cesare’s arms around me. Dante, Branwell and Tennyson crowded onto the couch with us. But Daddy’s arms were all for me.
We were watching television. Nothing more.
Why had my memory dredged up this? I had to be around ten, making the triplets fourteen. One of the summers we had spent with ourbabbo—daddy in the Tuscan dialect—after he and mom had decided to live apart, us kids living with her in Portland while Babbo stayed in Italy.
It wasn’t as if Babbo and Mom hadn’t loved each other still. They had. That was the tragedy of it all. But by that point, Babbo had become increasingly unstable. The visions and feelings that assaulted him on a daily basis were overwhelming. He wanted to be with us but feared inadvertently hurting us more. His hold on reality had been tenuous, fragile. And so he had sent us away, knowing that the safest place for us was far from him.
I didn’t care. I was daddy’s little girl cuddled into the security of his arms, breathing in his distinct scent: expensive cologne, peppermint and something else that was indefinablyhim.
My brothers laughed. A poorly-designed puppet alien had appeared on the screen. The alien awkwardly stumbled about, the Japanese actors saying wooden lines in badly dubbed English. Outside voices gave sarcastic commentary on the campy film.
Mystery Science Theater 3000.It was a ritual with us.
Babbo’s arms tightened around me and I snuggled closer, not caring that the warmth of his body made me simmer in the July heat. I had missed him so much this past year and didn’t want to waste a single minute of the time we had together. A slight breeze rustled through the room and thunder rumbled in the distance, both promises of rain in the near future.
The boys laughed again. The alien stomped on an obviously cardboard city, firecrackers going off in what were supposed to be impressive explosions. It was so dorky. I pressed my ear against Babbo’s chest, reveling in the sound of his rumbling chuckle.
A sparrow suddenly darted into the room, flapping around the furniture and chirping omens of winter.
“Ah, man!” Branwell groaned.
“I told you we shouldn’t leave the doors open.” Tennyson stood up, making a shooing motion to get the bird out of the room.
“It’s fine,” Dante grumbled. “You’re blocking the TV, Tenn.”
Tennyson chased the bird around the room, the poor thing evading his hands and the windows. It finally landed on the TV, head angled as if to say,What are you looking at?
