All I could remember was my wife. Needing and touching and no space. Her laughing. Snow in her hair and on her eyelashes. Warm sweaters and hot drinks. Lights surrounding her in small bursts. A soft touch here, a desperate grab there, wanting to barricade her in our room until hibernation was over.
During those three weeks we heard nothing from Nemours and nothing from Ettore. Detective Marinetti had ruled the three deaths homicides but had ruled me out as a suspect.
Lack of evidence and a tight alibi had rightly set me free, but Marinetti’s forty years on the job had already told him what he probably felt that night on the scene: I had nothing to do with the murders.
Stone didn’t seem so easily shaken, but his interest in me was personal. He popped up every once in a while, where I least expected him, and usually when Scarlett wasn’t around—for instance, when I went to a jewelry boutique on Madison Avenue to pick up Scarlett’s Christmas gift. He’d smile and wave at me, purposely placing himself in a spot where I’d see him.
My gut feeling told me that Nemours and Ettore were keeping their distance because after Ettore killed those three men, police activity around the family had increased. Stone didn’t realize he had inadvertently been keeping the enemies away for free.
Then the holidays came and went, and the peace we found seemed to be coated in hard, glistening snow.
Through our frost-crusted window in the living room, I watched as an unbelievable amount of snow blanketed the earth. The night seemed to glow. We were being packed in tight.
“February, Fausti,” Scarlett said, sitting on the sofa in our living room, needles clacking away as she knit me a pair of socks.
She had gotten an absurd amount of knitting paraphernalia as gifts, and she and the other women had formed a group. It was her night off, and she knitted along with the others. The entire room seemed full to the brim with a bunch of clickers who made the same noise with their needles.
“February,” I repeated. I hadn’t been paying much attention to the conversation. The clicking noise seemed to soothe or bore me into a trance.
All of my brothers had bailed on me, along with Mitch and Mick and Donato. Romeo even claimed he had to wash his hair. They were all probably at Rocco’s watching a boxing match on TV.
“I have performances in London, Verona, and Paris.” Pausing her movements to gage my reaction to this, she watched me closely.
I nodded.
France wasn’t my favorite place, but she still had performances there. Winter and summer were her busiest seasons, and the ABT (American Ballet Theater) traveled.
“I need a new look by then,” Violet said, looking up from painting her nails. Violet didn’t knit; she just came for the wine and the girl talk, or so she said. “Actually, I need a new look by this weekend. I want to be stylish for your mother’s birthday.”
Scarlett made a frustrated noise. “Don’t remind me! I don’t know why she couldn’t have planned something small.”
“Ha!” Violet laughed. “She skipped over her annual Christmas party for this. It’s going to begood.”
Scarlett’s father had planned a rich birthday celebration for her mother at some big ballroom in the city. The gold engraved invitations claimed her father was throwing it, but Scarlett said Pnina and Charlotte were the ones in charge.
“You only celebrate birthdays once a year,” Rosaria said, thumbing through one of Maggie Beautiful’s romance books. She didn’t do the knit thing either, or so she said. “I do mine in style, too. Or Rocco does.”
“Will this fit Donato?” Chiara asked, holding up what I thought was some kind of sweater.
All of the knitters quit their clacking and assessed the mysterious work.
“Which Donato?” Carmen asked.
“Ah!” Chiara threw the wool in the air, falling over in a plop behind it. “I will never get the hang of this…thisknitting!”
“What about crochet?” Scarlett asked.
“Perhaps,” she grumbled from the floor.
Rosaria pointed at Violet. “You should see Maria Lourdes Goretti,” she said, bringing the conversation back to hair. “I love what she did to my hair.”
“It is Lourdes Maria Goretti,” Guido corrected.
Rosaria waved him off. “I will call her a wonder with the scissors.”
“I went to her for a trim,” Juliette said. “Love her! She reminds me of someone. I just can’t figure out who.”
Guido grunted and set his fork down. He seemed to be done with his spaghetti.
