“Okay. That’s okay,” I told her, kissing the back of her hand like I had the day that I’d left for California. “I’m not mad. You’ll do it as soon as you can, I’m sure. You know how when I gave you that burner and had you call me, you teased with our ‘Yes, husband’ thing? I told you not to do it so I wouldn’t be hard when I was trying to work. I take it back. I don’t give a flying fuck about work or anything but you anymore. You’re all I think about. You’re the one I look forward to coming to bed to. You’re the one I feel so happy to see every morning. You’ve made my life so much better, you’ve mademeso much better, so I need you. I need you back. As soon as possible.
“I’m just going to stay right here until you wake up. And then, we’re going to go home, and I’m going to spoil you rotten. We'll have more dinners out on the patio, or we can travel if you want. We can travel all around the world. The sky’s the limit.”
I glanced down at the sheet covering her stomach and the miniscule amount of roundness that was only visible when she leaned a certain way while in the buff. And even that had been a recent development.
“I meant to tell you that you’re starting to show. Two mornings ago, I noticed it for the first time, that little baby bump. And you know what? I think it makes you even sexier, if such a thing is possible. You were always so alluring to me. I always felt hot for you, even if I was a bastard about it in the beginning. I want to watch you grow big and round. I want to feel our baby move and be there when it’s born. I never knew I’d want that so much, but I do. It’s another reason why you need to come out of this.”
I continued to talk to Lucia for a long time. Long enough that I felt my mouth go dry and my throat go raw. Long enough that my voice sounded like it’d been through a cheese grater. But she stayed unconscious. Over the next few days, I told her everything I could think of. Things I was proud of—most of which had happened once I’d fallen in love with her. Things I was ashamed of—a much longer list.
I told her about my childhood, about my mother, about how Savio and Natalia went to live with our grandmother while Marcello, Gianni, and I had been raised by our father. I told her about the dreams I’d had when I was small that I’d been told by Angelo I could never pursue. I told her maybe I’d go ahead and chase that dream once she woke.
And I rubbed at my throbbing hip.
A week passed. And then two. Lucia remained unchanged, and with each sunrise and sunset, I felt my hope dwindling. Dr. Shapiro told me that if the coma stretched beyond weeks and into months, her status would be updated to a persistent vegetative state. If that happened, her odds of ever recovering dropped exponentially.
After he’d told me that, I’d spoken to my wife more passionately than ever before, loud enough that thefamigliasof other patients cast me dirty looks, but I couldn’t have cared less. If myfarfallaneeded me to scream at her for motivation, then I would do it. And I did. To no avail.
The only silver lining that remained to me was that Lucia had not miscarried. They’d been anticipating it heavily on those initial forty-eight hours, but when she showed no bleeding or other signs, they’d become cautiously optimistic. I clung to that sliver of hope as if it were the last ounce of water I had while stranded in the desert. It was all I had.
And yet, I didn’t want that to rescue our baby from Lucia’s womb like some ancient artifact excavation. I needed her to wake and to become an active participant. Although I’d had a wonderful mother, I’d grown up most of my life without her, and I’d felt the damage that had caused. I wanted better for this baby. I also knew that if I had to do this alone, there was no way I could ever be enough. What if the darkness in me crept into this child, warping and twisting it? I didn’t want this baby to grow up only to break its mother’s heart.
After the second week passed, Angelo came into the hospital. They’d moved Lucia into an adjacent wing to the ICU, a location where they could maintain her constantly while taking her out of the hotbed of beeps and incessant noise. I’d been pleased by this when they’d told me. Excited to regain a bit of peace. But this backfired on me. All the muted quiet only served to remind me that I hadn’t heard Lucia’s voice in far too long.
When my father entered her room, I didn’t acknowledge him. Apparently, this pissed him off.
“I have had enough of this. You have been neglecting your duties, and I won’t stand for it anymore.”
In the past, I might have punched him. Or at least shared an explosive argument with him. But my priorities had transformed so much that when he made his threat, I simply let him.
“Don’t then,” I said, favoring him with my gaze but also stroking Lucia’s hand.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t stand for it. Disown me. Make Marcello the heir. Go open a MacDonald’s, if you want. I. Don’t. Care.”
“You are a Cavetti. You have a legacy to uphold, and I’m not going to allow you to squander it on a woman who’s essentially garden mulch.”
The sheer callousness of his words knifed through me, leaving me full of holes. And yet, I’d come close tobeinghim. The thought was sobering. If the worst-case scenario did come to pass, I knew in that instant that I had to choose to be better than him. If Lucia died and our baby lived, I had to provide that child with a healthier, more compassionate role model than the one I’d been given. Even if that meant walking away from everything I knew.
“That is not your decision to make,” I told him, imminently sedated.
“Like hell it’s not.”
“No,” my voice grew a backbone of steel. “The decision that’s open to you is whether you’ll be patient enough to let me do whatever needs to be done for Lucia. That’s the only one you have where she is concerned. And this will go one of two ways. Either you will back off and give me space and time to see how her condition bears out, or you I will leave you and thefamigliabehind forever and start over on my own.”
Then, I delivered my next and most persuasive blow. “Just remember that you have been using me as your main business lifeline for years. I know everything. I know where all the offshore accounts are hidden. I know the accounts numbers and how many funds each of them contains. I know what the secret caches of the Bonifacios are and how to access those, as well. I know the workers in every warehouse and manufacturing facility we own by name. I know how to collect the chemicals, make and refine each of the ingredients necessary to create every product we sell. So if you want to dump me, your most valuable asset, the one person you’ve invested in the most, Father, feel free. Because I’ll be staying right here.”
I turned back to the love of my life then, shutting out Angelo for good. And though he did knock over a table by the door which held a stack of metal kidney-shaped trays, causing quite a clatter, I maintained my vigil.
I would maintain it from now until eternity, if necessary.
29
Lucia
Ihad been through a few traumatic instances in my nineteen years, but not one of them was as simultaneously frustrating and enlightening as being in a coma. Everything existed as a duality. I was both aware and unaware, awake and asleep, able to see the living but able to interact only with the dead.
My hospital had been crowded. In the chair sat my anguished and dedicated husband, showing me new depths to his spirit and soul by the minute. If I had ever doubted that this man had turned over a new leaf, or that he might not love me as much as he claimed to, those weeks in a coma had provided a mountain of evidence to the contrary. He would talk to me nonstop, and I adored hearing his voice. It was such a balm to me.
