“How is he?” I took her hand. Cold as ice, all of the veins snaking underneath so apparent from the paper thinness of her skin.
“He—he wants to talk to you.”
I nodded and then kissed her hand. “Guido is out in the waiting room—he’ll sit with you. Have Nino make you a cup of coffee.” I kissed her once more, this time on the lips, before entering his room.
Everett was hooked up to a monitor, the scene so familiar, a reflection of Mitch’s situation. The flush on Everett’s face had waned down to melted candle wax. All of the strong bones in his face were highlighted by the dim light. The circles underneath his eyes made him seem ghostly.
Taking the seat beside the bed, I waited for him to wake up on his own. When he did, his eyes were red-rimmed and far away, but they still met mine. Gaping like a fish, he went to speak but closed his mouth. He wasn’t hooked up to a breathing machine, not like the one Mitch had, but whatever the doctor had given him fogged his mind.
“Take your time,” I said. “I’m in no rush.”
Using his finger, he was barely able to call me closer. “Son?” his voice croaked.
Elliott or me? A cold hand seemed to touch my neck, and I looked over my shoulder, checking to make sure no one stood behind me.
“Brando,” I said.
“I know,” he barely got out. He licked his parched lips. “My second son. Come closer.”
He lifted a hand for me to take. He pulled at me until my ear was close to his mouth. The secret he whispered in my ear stopped my heart and froze the blood in my veins solid.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Scarlett
Whatever happened in that hospital room between my husband and my father sent my husband out of the room pale-faced and tight-lipped.
Brando hadn't been the same since. Yet he refused to talk to me about it. He'd just shake his head and say,“Are we out of the woods yet?”
“No.” I'd shake my head. “Not yet.”
I had never experienced anything like this before. My feelings were usually aimed at one situation or another, each one individual, with individual results. But it was as though a tornado had swooped me up, and I was lost to the entire feeling of the calamity around me, and every so often something would pass before my eyes and I was able to point and say,You see?There it is.
It was all much greater than me, except for when a situation would pass by and I could deal with it as a solitary dilemma.
Brando couldn't seem to understand this, but then again, he wasn't paying much attention. He was lost to the truth. Whatever the truth of the matter was. And whatever it was, he kept it close to his heart.
There were only two situations imaginable that would make him feel fear. One would be an impending pregnancy,mine, and the other, an impending death—again,mine. Other than those two, there was nothing in this world that could scare him or cause him to retreat so deeply inside of himself.
No one could keep up with him; he was a savage during his many workouts and left little time for me to sleep each night.
The days blurred together, and before I realized, we were at the beginning of September. Though we were in fall, summer was not willing to relinquish its steaming existence to fireplaces and the turning of leaves, a cool freshness that could be felt in the lungs, not yet as piercing as a cold winter’s wind.
My father had survived open-heart surgery and was still on the mend, all well physically. Emotionally was where he suffered. He had been touched by death, and for a man accustomed to being in control, he didn't appreciate the reminder that he was a mere mortal.
Neither did Mitch, who had taken time to reach what my father did so soon after his experience. The two men sat together for hours on end, both wallowing in what theyalmostlost.
With Mitch's new outlook on life came Violet’s aversion to it. She was never a woman to mince words. And she didn't like the fact that he seemed to be getting bogged down by what could've been instead of what was.
Mick, on the other hand, had become more observant of their behavior. Sybil Lewis had started coming around more, making comments here and there that made me raise my eyebrows.
Because of her presence, Violet spent even more time at my parents' house. The woman was inadvertently sending Violet closer to Mitch, which was starting to rub Mick the wrong way.
I had urged Violet, for once in her life, to seek the truth. But Violet had always run from it.
Even though the truth was simple enough, it wasn’t easy. Violet was in love with two men—two brothers. Brothers who had always had a precarious relationship, based on one never feeling as worthy as the other, and the other always indifferent to this, and at the root, another woman. Sybil.
I had overheard an argument between Mitch and Violet when they assumed they were all alone, everyone outside. Mitch wanted the truth, wanted her, and she couldn't say yes.
