Seven Years Later
“Orlando!” I screamed across the groves. “Bring me your bucket.”
“Let him go,” Rocco said, smiling at me as he passed. “He is just being a man.”
I pursed my lips, shaking my head. “He is not a man,” I said. “He is a boy.”
“Mamma,” Orlando said, coming to stand in front of me. “But I, ah—”
“Ah-ah!” I put my finger to his lips, trying not to laugh when he went cross-eyed at me for a second before his eyes looked up and focused on me. I ran my hand through his sweaty black hair. “No excuses. We donothit with buckets.”
“He told me, ah, that, ah, I was moving too, ah, slow!”
He had a habit of punctuating his words withahwhen he became upset.
“It does not matter, son,” I said. “We keep our buckets to ourselves. We can respond without using our hands.”
“Bucket,” he said.
“Bucket.” I nodded. “Tell him you are not moving too slow, he is moving too fast.”
He scrunched up his nose, like he wanted to growl. I told him to go play nice with the other children before he could see me laugh. I kept his bucket, though, because it was the second time he had used it as a weapon.
“Mamma mia,” I said, watching him run to his sisters like a freight train toward mountains. Ele was helping another smaller child put oranges in her bucket. Alessandra was next to her, watching, trying to direct.
A blood orange dropped in the bucket I’d taken from Orlando. I looked up into the eyes of my husband. The sun broke through the amber, making them turn almost gold. His hair was black, starting to streak with some silver. His skin was warm and tan from working in the groves all day.
“You leave me for one second, and the lions smell fresh meat,” he said, sliding his arms around my waist. He pulled me closer, kissing my neck.
“Tell me the truth,” I said, thinking back years ago to the day in his office. The day that almost destroyed me. “If Uncle Tito had not sent Rocco to grab the hat he left on purpose... ”
“The thought of him sniffing around my family after I was locked behind bars changed my mind. That’s why we’re here. Why I’m here. Prison wouldn’t have killed me. The thoughts would have. The things I would’ve missed.”
We turned together to look at the table full of people on our property. Family and friends gathered around our home to celebrate. Nothing in particular. Just life.
Laughter rose and echoed. Kids ran from one spot to another. A few of the men were drunk and started to sing. The sun was starting to set. Soon hundreds of lights would brighten our property in Catania.
It was the perfect distance to all of our family and friends. We were secluded, tucked away, our own little slice of the world where no one could find us—unless we allowed them to.
I sighed, taking my husband’s hands in mine, intertwining our fingers.
Every word I had spoken to him in his grandfather’s office was true. I was prepared to spend the rest of my life faithful to him, to our marriage. Not even bars could separate his life from mine. I had a code, too, and I was willing to sacrifice my entire life to see it through.
Though I had known Rocco was one deciding factor in my husband’s decision, there was more to it.
“Didn’t I choose you, too?”Corrado had said to me one night.
I hadn’t known what he meant until the next day. We got on a plane to Sicily and never looked back.
The four of us did not exist any longer, not the same way we did before. The plane that was supposed to bring us back to New York crashed over the ocean. We went down with a set of names and came up with a new set of identities.
A new life that came with its own sets of unique wins and struggles.
I rested my head against his chest, looking up at him. “You look tired,il mio amore.”
He only nodded.
Even though Alessandro Palermo lived for each new day in his groves, he wrestled different demons every night.
