“Say it.”
“Fate.Destino. I believe in serendipity. The stars. But that doesn’t mean I don’t doubt sometimes. I’m human, with faults. As much as I have faith in our love, it causes human fears because it’s bigger than who I am.What ifis a hell of a thought. Pun intended.”
We were both quiet for a little while, staring at each other from across the garden, but it could’ve been from across a galaxy. The night felt almost aquatic, that sense of floating without control, arms and legs a slave to the tide, stars above seen through a thin veil—one that separates two worlds.
Scarlett stood, moving toward with me so quietly that her feet hardly seemed to touch the ground. She took my hands in hers, looking up at me, her eyes as sincere as a child’s.
“This is not about you and me, is it?”
I squeezed her hands. “Yes and no.”
She nodded. She became as quiet as the reflection of a face in water.
“Old Man River, do you remember him?”
Why did this story always begin with the man?Once upon a time, there was an Old Man River…
Her face went blank. “No,” she said after a few minutes. “I don’t.”
No, she wouldn’t have heard. Her life had been centered on the ballet, not ghost stories passed along from one kid to another.
“He was a terrible drunk. Couldn’t even drive because he was never sober enough to. I don’t even remember him. I was six—almost seven—when he disappeared, but stories about him used to be passed around. ‘Say Old Man River three times and he’ll appear in the mirror’ sort of thing.”
She nodded but said nothing more.
“Luca met him in the bar the day the sheriff’s wife was killed. Details about how the two left together are vague, but the point is, it wasn’t Luca driving the car that killed the sheriff’s wife. It was Old Man River. Luca gave him the keys, too drunk to get behind the wheel, and Old Man River tore through the street, not seeing her, and then crashed into a tree.
“You know the sheriff’s wife was killed; so was Old Man River. All of the drinking gave him a heart condition. Luca was so gone with drink that he didn’t even know he had killed anyone until he woke up in the hospital and was told that he had. He had no recollection of any of it, not even Old Man River. Luca hit his head, too.”
Scarlett squeezed my hand. She made a noise that sounded like “uh” and then cleared her throat.
“I don’t understand.”
“The sheriff and his brother, Grey, saw the entire accident. They were walking behind the sheriff’s wife and had only stopped to tie Nick’s shoe. Both men were the first on the scene. Old Man River was removed, and an unconscious Luca had been removed from the car and laid out.
“Grey took Old Man River away before more help arrived on the scene. The man had no family, and most of the town knew what a lush he was, and about the heart condition. It was no big shock when the sheriff claimed that his remains were found in a secluded area. Most of the town thought he’d die in the woods someday, or on the train tracks.”
“No one else saw this happen—”
“Just one man.”
“My f-father.”
I nodded. “Your father decided to have a talk with Luca after he heard the trouble he was causing for Maggie Beautiful. By this time, I was friends with Elliott. Your father followed Luca and Old Man River from the bar, seeing how erratically the car was swerving, but before he could find a phone to call it in, Old Man River had killed the sheriff’s wife.
“After your father came clean to the sheriff about what he’d seen, all parties agreed that the best course of action was to keep Luca locked up. It satisfied the Stones, to some degree—for some men, being locked up feels worse than death—and kept me with Maggie Beautiful. Then there was Marzio to consider. The Stones thought that if Marzio found out that it wasn’t Luca who killed the sheriff’s wife, he would take his son back to Italy.”
Scarlett was quiet for so long, staring up at me, not blinking, that I whispered her name to get a reaction.
“I need to sit,” she said faintly.
I picked her up and brought her over to the bench, keeping her pressed against me on my lap.
“You—when did my father tell you this?”
“Earlier. Right after you left for spin class. He’s still at our place watching the fight. Or he was before I left.”
“I see.” She fiddled with the cross around her neck. “What are you going to do, Brando?”
