“All of the important things we have. Us. The music box. The camera. The cat. I’ll have Mitch bring the rest when he comes.”
Mitch had decided that living with Charlotte was too stressful. He worried that she’d see him as a traitor and do something wicked to him in his sleep. His house was almost complete, so one more person to add didn’t seem to matter much. Though somehow it did.
I wanted the time for the two of us, to rediscover an important part of us that we had left behind. Scarlett had come home to me. To a place I had bought and redone for the sole purpose that one day she’d be my wife, and we would spend our lives growing old inside its sheltering walls.
Only the two of us were included in this dream. Italian soldiers, brothers, cousins, and friends had invaded the vision. Not that I minded on occasion, but I had limits. I wasn’t a man to share her time, or to wait for anyone to move so I could get what I wanted—her. I didn’t care about anything else enough to have the same reaction. I never had.
Then again, something about the house seemed to protect the time we did spend together. Unpacking and redoing—the quiet moments meant that much more to us. I had built her a ballet studio in house, and I had used the room to collect memorabilia of her career over the years.
“This is almost creepy,” she said, but with a smile on her face, when she entered the room and realized all that had been saved.
“You were missing,” I said. “This room needed a part of you that I could keep here.”
“All right,” she whispered, keeping her eyes on the stacks and tubs. “Let’s go through it. Your favorites, we’ll find a place for; the rest we’ll pack in protective wrapping, since you went to so much effing trouble.”
Fucking trouble. I almost laughed.
This theme continued—unpacking wedding gifts that we had never gotten around to opening, finishing up the boxes that old man Snow insisted that I keep when I first bought the place. Then she cried when the wedding gift I had given to her—the telescope that moved with us to each new place—arrived on our doorstep, along with the framed star maps from our anniversary.
We had decided to rent out the brownstone in New York for a year, enough time for Scarlett to heal, and for her to make a decision about her career. Eunice and Burgess were going to manage the place for us, since he was there almost all year round, and Eunice only flew back and forth for visits to Louisiana.
Little by little, we settled into our home again, sometimes stopping in the kitchen, or in our bathroom, during the most mundane of tasks, to stare at each other, corny fucking smiles on our faces, over the fact that we were home. Her essence didn’t just linger anymore. It was so present that it sometimes stole my breath.
I could watch her washing dishes, sweeping the floors, cooking some delicious meal, twirling in her studio, reading a book, or decorating for hours on end. Our entire house smelled of cinnamon tea, a wood-burning stove, and the definite undercurrent of us.
Even the porch had been touched by her hand—she had placed mums, cinnamon- and mustard-colored, in handmade wooden pots. Three-tiered topiaries in terra cotta, a lavender plant or two, along with what seemed like endless pumpkins had been placed in strategic positions around the mums.
She had gone beyond simple decorations to a magazinespread.
I tapped my boot against a pumpkin she had carved the number of our street address on,7, grinning because it was fake. The rest were real, but she was afraid if she carved something too soon before Halloween, it would soften and attract flies.
Feet hitting gravel made me turn around. Romeo ran toward me, earphones in. He must’ve been jogging for a while. His hair was slicked back with sweat, even in the chilled weather. When his hair was that way, the resemblance between us was almost frightening. Our difference came in height; he was the shortest of the three, at exactly six feet tall, not includingthehair.
He held up his hand in greeting. Though I hadn’t been around him most of his life, the white-gold ring on his left finger gave me a jolt. Out of the three of us, Luca, who had named each of us, had been spot on with his last-born. Romeo. Or did our names have a hand in dictating who we turned out to be?
“What’s going on,fratellino?” I said as he approached.
He lowered the earphones and music still bumped through the tiny speakers. He used his arm to wipe the sweat from his brow. Juliette’s name was tattooed over his left wrist. He always wore a pendent around his neck of the archangel Michael. The silver glinted against the bronze tint of his skin.
“Ah,non molto. Luciano is on his way withmia moglieand Viola. The four of them are coming to pick up Sissy, Lou, and Nino. Then I will return home for a shower and be back. But first I have come to collect Guido. He is beginning to acquirestrato di blubber.”
I started to laugh, and he slapped me on the shoulder with an “ah?” Guido and Romeo were not only cousins; they were also tight friends. Romeo had been giving him hell about marriage being hard on the middle.
All of the women were going for a spin class and then dinner afterward. When everyone was in town, they planned a night for themselves. I didn’t like it, but I preferred none of the men to get tasered by a desperate woman. Guido had the day off, so Nino was going with Scarlett.
Besides, a ridiculous rule had sprouted like a thorn—none of the men married to any of the women could go along. Since Lou was going, Guido was ousted.
Luciano pulled into the driveway, and Romeo ran over to the car. The window came down, Juliette’s arm came out, and her hand wiped sweat from Romeo’s head before he leaned in and kissed her. Violet was in the back seat, her stomach full of twins bobbing up like a buoy.
The door to the house opened and Guido strolled out, followed by Lou and then Nino. A few seconds later, Scarlett emerged, a bag over her shoulder.
Jet flew out before the door shut, eager to hunt. Her temper had evened out after we left Scarlett’s parents’ house and she became the queen of the castle once again.
“Brando,” Scarlett called, stopping to straighten a pumpkin. “Don’t let her out long. I don’t want any more presents.” She shivered from the memory of the dead mouse, neck broken, that Jet had set at her feet the day before.
I made it to her in a few long strides, blocking the steps down. Spin class was first, and she had dressed for the workout in a light purple top and matching leggings. She had draped a gold sweater over her shoulders, but her tiny waist was still in full view.
One shorter piece of her hair had come forward, softly falling over her eye when she bent to fix the pumpkin. She tucked it back with a thin finger.
