I didn’t. After we had moved inland, I couldn’t escape the feeling that we were being watched. At first I chalked it up to my chat with Aunt Lola about Luca, or the fact that sharks were on my mind, but this was a close, solid form that I couldn’t escape. “I feel like—”
“—someone is breathing down your neck,” he said, finishing my thought.
“Yes. Do you feel it too?”
“I do. Let’s go back to the island.”
The feeling followed me back but faded with each passing day. Once again, we were immersed in our own world. The spirit of the island continued to heal us, time floating by with amazing grace. There were times I wished the second we were in would stop, our forever with it, and I could live the rest of my life in that capsule of a moment.
Out of all that we did, my favorite times were the nights spent on the beach. When the sky was magnificent with stars in a watery sky, as though someone had poured silver glitter into a glass jar filled with black liquid and swirled it around to watch it settle and twinkle.
Captain, or one of his many workers, had placed an old, blue wooden chair on the edge of the shore, close enough that the sea could rush in and swoosh around legs sunk in pliable sand. Brando and I took advantage of the chair every night. We would settle there with me curled up on his lap, a thin blanket over my legs, fruit or some cold dessert to snack on, and a drink. He always had a beer, while I navigated between a pineapple-and-coconut rum concoction, a strawberry white-wine spritzer, or some fruit-filled mojito.
Ever since the stint at the club in Greece, I didn’t dabble much. Here, I felt safe enough to flirt.
When Brando would gaze at the stars with me back home, it led to his confessions, my feelings on the matter, and then absolution. Here, our conversations reflected how happy we were. Our voices came out as whispers, our laughter raspy, with no one to bear witness except for the breath of the sea, its heart protecting the secrets and memories being created between us. We talked about everything and nothing, closer to home than we had been in much too long.
Brando pointed to an exceptionally bright star. “Do you ever make wishes?”
I laughed a little, not from his question, but from something he had said right before his eyes took a journey to the sky and his mood lowered with the tide. “Not really.” I sighed.
“For a girl who loves to gaze at them so much, I find that almost unbelievable.”
Our eyes met and we both smiled. He smelled of summer and tasted like cool beer.
“I prefer to observe instead of use, if that makes sense,” I said, watching as his darkened eyes reflected the stars like a mirror.
“It does.” He took a pull of beer, swallowing. “Like anything else, some people use for their own purposes instead of observing for the good of the cause.”
“Do you make wishes?” I returned his question.
He thought for a moment before he answered. “No. Not before tonight. I’m not supposed to tell?”
“No,” I whispered. “You’re not.”
“I want to,” he said. “I want to tell you everything.”
He dropped the mask and his face turned to glass, needing me to see what he had wished for. This time, I had no clue.
“I won’t tell you what I wished for,” he said, a simple grin making his face seem friendlier, in a mischievous way. “But I’ll tell you what I’m thinking. It would’ve been beautiful to see you pregnant.”
His words stunned me. All I could do was stare at him. Tears burned my eyes. He wiped them away when they fell, rubbing his finger against his lips. Then he spoke in Italian. “You should know that I dream of it sometimes, my wife. In these dreams, I’m so proud that you’re mine. Everyone knows that the baby you carry is ours—I gave you the part of myself that you wanted. I feel like a king, but I still wake up sweating and shaking, knowing that who I am in those dreams is not really me.”
I thought his words would haunt me, but they didn’t, perhaps because I knew how much they cost both of us. He struggled so damn much with who he thought he was and who he wanted to be. It killed me to think that his truth disguised itself as Luca Fausti. Yet, how could I hate the man, meet him in my dreams and release my anger on him, when the man holding me in his arms was created in the image of that one?
“If I could,” he said, resting his chin on my shoulder. “I’d keep you here and we’d stay forever. Only you and me.”
He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.The words seemed to rush in with the tide, healing and everlasting. The reason Brando brought me here suddenly became as clear as his unguarded face.
“Where you go, I go, my husband,” I whispered, tucking my head underneath his chin. My eyes turned to the sky, to the same star he had made his wish on, and I answered his plea, making his wish come true.
I will love you despite who you think you are. Always.
* * *
Two days before our scheduled departure, Brando told me to get ready. We had plans. So accustomed to this, I asked him how I should dress and then let the mystery live. Brando left me to speak with Uncle Tito, who bobbed up and down in a speedboat, Aunt Lola next to him with her hand on his shoulder. Brando had mentioned that he came to deliver something from Captain O’Malley.
Any time we needed Captain O’Malley, or he needed us, one of the residents of the island would deliver notes in a glass bottle. There were a few of them on the shelves for this purpose. But Uncle Tito delivering this message made suspicion skitter up my neck.
