His daughter needed her father. I needed my husband.
I wasn’t sure if I had ever seen so much blood. The water didn’t even seem enough to wash it clean. The look on Brando’s face when he first saw me was a grim reminder that he had seen the same amount when I had almost died. When we lost our first child, Matteo.
It was so much that I had to breathe through my mouth at times. The metallic smell was hot and clinging as I helped wash her clean.
“Scarlett Gorgeous?”
“I’m here, Maggie Beautiful. I’m here.”
I started to hum after that to let her know that she wasn’t alone.
Uncle Tito arrived three hours later, in the complete stillness of the night. Brando rocked Maggie Beautiful in the chair my mother had sent over. She had a chair for each of her children that she used to rock us when we were infants.
After Uncle Tito looked Maggie Beautiful over, murmuring soft things to her as he did so, he gave her a shot to help her relax. She drifted off soon after in Brando’s arms. He brought her to our room, setting her down on the bed, and then told Uncle Tito to keep an eye on her.
The old doctor nodded, adjusting his glasses, wiry hairs frazzled from lack of sleep and stress. After, he looked at me, assessing. Brando had been staring at me.
“I’m fine,” I said, patting my stomach. “She’s staying put, for now.”
Uncle Tito nodded. He took a seat in the armchair next to the bed and, after digging in his medical bag, took out a crossword puzzle and a pencil.
Wordless, Brando took me by the arm and led me into the bathroom. He almost ripped the soiled nightgown off, throwing it on top of the pile of Maggie Beautiful’s. I stood in the middle of the room, shivering, until he turned the water on and steam started to fill the air.
It still smelled of iron and death. I hated it. I hated that my baby was possibly touched by all of this. Brando must’ve felt the same, because he took out a strong-scented cleaner and scrubbed the shower before he held out his hand, helping me step inside.
The water burned my skin at first, but I didn’t complain. It eased the ache in my joints and melted the cold. Brando stepped in behind me, soaping the sponge and scrubbing me clean.
“Enough,” I said after a while—he was almost scrubbing me raw. “Enough, Brando. That’s enough. I’m clean.”
His eyes were almost crazed, but so still that I could’ve sworn they were made of stone. Turning to face him, I went to wash his chest, but he seized my wrists, pinning me up against the tiles. The sponge fell from my fingers, plopping against the ground with a splash.
The bulge between us stopped him from coming too close, but he seemed to consume the air, shifting it by will alone. He didn’t need to be in my face to be close.
At any moment, I thought the darkness in his eyes was going to assemble into forms, converge into one, and the monster that lived inside would be set loose on the world.
“Brando,” I whispered. “Mio marito.”
“Tell me. Tell me that you’re still here.”
“I’m fine.” I wiggled against his hold with my left hand, and he let me go. Putting his hand to my heart, I made him feel the beat. “Il mio cuore. It feels like a drum. It’s pounding against your hand.”
“Tell me,” he said once more.
I nodded, taking his hand and moving it lower. “She’s asleep.” As to dispute this, or get more comfortable, she shifted, half of her weight resting on one side. My stomach rolled and tilted. It was almost uncomfortable, the tightening, the stretching.
Keep moving,my love, I thought. Her movements calmed me too, gave me hope that all that had affected me had been shielded from her.
“Brando…listen to me. Promise me. Promise me that you won’t leave me. I need to hear it. I need you to say the words.”
I looked up at him, water collecting on my lashes, into the face of a man so possessed with both rage and loss of control that it made my knees go weak.
There were times I felt that if life didn’t do me in, the intensity in his eyes would at some point. If I cried, his heart broke. If he stared at me withthatlook, my heart would stop.
No, there was nothing normal about this,us,it, at all.
That was when I felt it even deeper, the electrical current of rage underneath skin, jolting his muscles and making them tremble. Before I could collapse, he held me up, most of my weight bearing down on his arms, but it was as if he were keeping a rag doll from falling into a puddle.
“I can’t do this without you, Brando.Ho bisogno di te.”I need you.
