A sigh escaped my lips. I gazed out at a world frozen by the power of the season’s harsh grip. We were so deep into winter that I had almost forgotten how vivid the green of grass, how colorful wildflowers could be, and I wondered how it was possible for such things to harden or shrivel, and then come into full bloom once again.
The light seemed to glitter along the car door. It caught the ring on my right hand, third finger. The ballerina ring. It was such a part of me that sometimes I didn’t pay much attention to it. Though if it somehow slipped from my finger or was taken off, I knew immediately.
I loved the way the light danced along each facet, sending ripples over each round of diamonds. Each one represented the layers of a tutu. In response to the soft light and the diamonds, my skin seemed softer somehow, more delicate. All of the small veins stretching beneath the surface were visible. The band on my left hand was equally as beautiful—both rings symbolizing who I was to him. His wife,for as long as we both shall live, and even beyond. But I’d had the ballerina ring longer. It was the first ring he’d ever given me, at the house on Snow.
We drove in silence for miles. He stared out of the windshield, and I stared at the ballerina ring basking in the cold winter’s light.
“Brando?” I whispered.
He didn’t answer. He was too lost in his own thoughts, but I knew I could break through.
“Did you tell her that you’d leave your number?” I asked. “When you were in Fiji?
“Yeah,” he whispered.
“You didn’t?” If nothing else, Brando was a man of his word. If he gave it, he kept it.
“Scarlett.”
My name was a warning, but not because he didn’t want me to push. He didn’t think I could handle the truth. I assured him that I could.
For the briefest of seconds, he met my eye—sometimes when I answered his thoughts, it still surprised him. I was the only one who could do that. However, it wasn’t his thoughts; it was his feelings.
He nodded once. His grip around the steering wheel tightened. “We drank a lot on that trip. Even now, I can’t remember all that happened. She came along. We had sex. She asked me if I’d leave my number and I agreed. Before I could write my number down, we—” He glanced at my face and let me fill in the blank. Perhaps he felt I needed the slight mercy.
“I forgot to write it down. Or maybe I did and stuck it in a drawer. But we still had some time left on the island, or so I thought. Time seemed to escape me. We left that evening and I didn’t think of it or her again.”
“Until I showed you the picture I found.” I turned my attention back to the ring on my finger. “Did you…want to talk to her after that?”
“No. I had never had long-term intentions when it came to anyone but you. I didn’t have any intention on answering her call—after I gave her my number. That’s all it would be to her, a number. I told her that. That even if I was leaving my number, I’d never pick up—she said I would.” He thought on that a moment.
“I was never the kind of man who promised what I couldn’t deliver. I made no vows or gave a woman any reason to think it was more than was it was. Some people think they can change a person even when the person is telling them the truth.”
I believed him. Still, we both became lost to the silence, and we said nothing as Brando found a parking spot in front of our house. Neither of us made a move to get out. We sat so long that the entire windshield became coated in snow.
A group awaited us inside, their figures visible behind the windows. When the family was under duress, they came together, stronger as one unit. But a strong unit was not what Brando wanted. He wanted the two of us, in our home, finding some kind of peace and solace in the situation we found ourselves in.
Even when life was on the straight and narrow, there were times when he wanted a quiet house—no men, no family, only the two of us.
There was no help for it. Sighing, I went to open the door, but he stopped me.
“Close the door.”
I did.
He got out on his side and came to open the door for me. “You should know better,” he said. Then he took me by the hand as we climbed the steps leading to the brownstone.
If it was quiet we were looking for, we had entered the wrong house. Maggie Beautiful was upstairs at it again. All of Brando’s brothers and their wives were huddled around the table. Guido seemed to be deep in thought, his eyes facing the window in the living room, but not really seeing whatever it was his eyes were on. Tito and Lola were on the sofa, their heads bent close together. The conversation seemed terse.
Glass shards were scattered all over the floor, like hundreds of dangerous marbles. More wildflowers were tossed here and there. Eunice was mopping up water.
“What happened?” I asked, shaking off the last remnants of cold that clung.
“Wildflowers!” Maggie Beautiful shrieked. She appeared on the steps a second later, her face pale, her hands trembling. “Again!”
A knock came at the door. Maggie Beautiful jumped. Guido blinked a few times and went to get it. Burgess stepped inside and Eunice went to greet him, leaning the mop against the wall.
“Send them back! Send them back to hell!” Maggie Beautiful yelled at Brando once she realized it was Burgess. “You were supposed to!”
