The panic rose up from a place only a mother who has lost a child knows, as clawing as frantic hands, empty arms reaching into the darkness to bring them back.
It took Sam and two of her friends to get Sybil into the car. Uncle Tito stood by, talking to the group, and then offered her temporary peace in the form of a shot.
In a blur, my body tilted toward the final goodbye, as Violet lurched herself toward her husband, her wails going off like sirens in the middle of the night, bloodcurdling and piercing. It was a cry fighting to puncture the veil between heaven and earth so she could reach him once more.
* * *
“I wonder where he went?” I asked Brando. “Do you think he’s all right?”
Brando lifted his hands from the steering wheel in a clueless gesture. Mitch had disappeared from the gravesite after Peter had picked his mother up and carried her to the car. A small get-together was planned at Violet’s parents’ house, but neither of us felt up for it, or eating.
Mitch and Mick and Violet were still the center of our thoughts—the children as well.
It was hard to gaze at the cemetery and not think of the beautiful years Mick had left behind, and how he and my brother were taken much too soon—their lives coming to a crimson-smeared, tragic ending.
Then there was Mitch, who walked among the land of the living but had given himself over to the land of the dead. So it was no wonder that Brando felt he would return here after all the mourners had gone to find his brother in the purple haze of oncoming twilight.
Some of the trees still held their strongest leaves, but the weaker branches were bare, black shapes imprinted against violet, stretching like emaciated arms during slumber, their roosting birds perched and tucked into their feathers for the night. Stars began to shine in the distance, diamond eyes blinking in the sky.
Brando had warred with himself about what to do—send me home with his brothers or keep me with him. I refused to leave his side, so that was that.
Guido and Lou delivered two hot drinks to us, being as thoughtful as they were— peppermint tea for me, since my stomach had been upset, and coffee for Brando, which he hardly touched.
Neither of us said a word as we watched Guido take a private moment to himself. He had lost his best friend and cousin in Italy and never had the chance to say a proper goodbye. I imagined that he felt Mick was still close, and he told him whatever it was he wished for Thomas to know.
My imagination had been running rampant. I felt too much and could clearly see all of the macabre thoughts that one avoids thinking of, especially when it’s their loved one left behind to be sealed in cold marble.
Brando seemed to know this; after we had left the gravesite, he had taken me by the shoulders and shook me, anxious that the feelings would somehow consume me.
“I’m all right,” was all I had the strength to say. “I’m all right.”
Still, I glanced at my hands to make sure that none of what I had imagined earlier was true. There was a dried bloodstain on my palm, but I made the connection between the thorns of the rose piercing flesh and not the loss of blood that would make me feel weak and then fade. I had been holding on too tight to the rose’s stem.
At that moment, my stomach chose to make a noise akin to a wild beast growling in extreme famine. Brando glanced down at my stomach and then at me.
“You’re going to eat.”
I held my hands up in surrender. “Only if you’ll have a bite with me.”
The phone was already to his ear. “More than a bite,” he almost growled. Then he gave Guido instructions to find out if Eunice had any soup left—she had made chicken noodle the night before—and some toasted breadsticks. If so, he wanted Guido to deliver it to us.
I must’ve fallen asleep, because when I woke up again, the sky was a deeper shade of violet, almost black, the bare branches starting to dissolve, and a few degrees colder. The day was giving way to a brutally cold night.
A blanket covered me, and the starchy smell of pasta filled the car, not hot soup. Brando grumbled something to himself at the sight of it. He had always felt the Italian’s need for pastina when sick a spoof, but my feelings on the matter were contrary. It was light on the stomach. Somehow comforting without overwhelming—as was toast to a bitter stomach.
Though, after falling asleep, the grief I felt earlier seemed to cover me in a purple blanket of sadness. I no longer felt hungry but almost put off.
He tried to feed me a bite, but I pushed it away with a hand.
“No, thank you,” I said. “I’m not hungry.” And I snuggled closer into the blanket, my teeth starting to chatter, though not entirely from cold. My muscles seized in intervals.
He sighed, long and hard, catching my attention. I could see him steeling himself toward it, and then, opening his mouth, he took a big bite. He nodded, chewing, flicking asfacciato(cheeky) little pasta that fell from the spoon from his pants. “Bene.” He smiled. “Share with me, baby.”
It hurt, but my mouth twitched, almost a smile. I opened my mouth and he fed me. It took a few bites for my stomach to relax, but after it did, we went back and forth, sharing the warm pasta and the breadsticks Eunice had sent along.
I picked at a breadstick, breaking it into smaller pieces with my fingers. “Tell me something,” I whispered. “I know why you think Mitch will come back here, but why are you so sure he will?”
He took another bite of pasta, swallowing before he took a sip of water Guido had brought along. “I did the same thing.”
