His fist came down on the table with a deafening crack. All hands on the table bounced with the blow. The noise startled me, made me flinch, as though I had been hit.
Brando’s hand came up to take mine, so warm in comparison to the coldness of my flesh, my own blood not up to the task of warming me. “Yes,” Brando said, accepting the fault as his own. “She would.”
No!I thought.No!It was so easy for other people to blame him because they saw him as a man of power, of integrity, and when the chips fell, the aggrieved party always placed them at his feet. Santina’s parents were grieving, and their grief was somehow made easier when they could blame someone, give her death fault, a cause, instead of the senseless act that it was.
“No.” I spoke softly. Brando’s hand tightened on mine, a signal that he wanted me to be quiet. I went on, despite his wishes. “What happened to Santina should have never happened. I understand. We love her too. But Santina’s death is not my husband’s fault. Neither is it Livio’s. The blame goes to a cowardly bastard named Ciro!”
Santina’s father stared at me. I refused to move, holding his gaze, hoping the hurt and remorse I felt shone through, despite the tears that refused to come. Whatever it was that had turned to stone inside of me created a well of tears not able to rise high enough to release.
“Ah,” her father said, clearing his throat. He was all choked up, emotion threatening to suffocate him. “I have seen you entertaining those monsters. No place for a woman like you. It was no place for a girl like my daughter. No man takes a wife knowing this is the life he welcomes into his home, if he truly loves her. Be thankful that it is not you who rests cold in a grave.”
Santina’s mother sobbed at this, her sisters coming in close, helping the woman stand. She hid her face between her daughters as they led her toward the door.
Santina’s father stared at me another moment more, before yanking Livio’s hand toward his face, forcing him to feel the tears that fell from his eyes. “The least you could do is shed a tear for your wife!La mia bambina! Il mio!”My baby girl! Mine!
Livio took his arm back in a violent movement, turning his back on the man before his cold departure swept over us, as though a ghost passed through the air.
My parents huddled together by the door, listening and watching.
“Look closely at her today,” Santina’s father said, coming to stand directly in front of them. He pointed at me. “Memorize her face, the sound of her voice, her scent. My daughter today. Yours tomorrow.”
I could tell my father was attempting to keep his anger in check, appalled that the man would even have the audacity to put that fate on me. Brando too. I had to keep my hands on his shoulders to keep him pinned down to the chair.
“Lui è afflitto,” I whispered to him.He is grieving.
“Non a scapito di mia moglie.” He kissed my hand.Not at the expense of my wife.
Pnina was far from angry. Panic overcame her countenance. Her face was colorless, devoid of blood. Santina’s father’s words had hit too close to home. She had buried one child. The fear of living through another loss became thick and tangible in the air, like the living presence of grief.
“Mati,” I said. “I’m all right.”
Turning her back on me, she set a fine-boned hand on my father’s shoulder. I saw her knuckles turn white when she squeezed.
If I wasn’t attending to my domestic duties, I danced. Some days, I did this upwards of nine hours or more. Giving myself over to something separate from me, almost greater, an integral part of my makeup, allowed me to escape the horrors of reality.
That was what I needed then—to escape.
I leaned down and put my mouth close to Brando’s ear. “Non c'è vita senza di te.Io sono ovunque tu sia,” I whispered, and then kissed his temple.There is no life without you. I am wherever you are.
Let them try to send me awaywas the last thought I had, before I lost myself to the music and the steps. Brando watched, losing himself in me.
* * *
A two-headed beast was how I thought of Brando and Rocco’s current relationship. Ever since the attack on us, they had been operating as one body, but with two separate minds.
With Lothario and Bela gone, we all had our duties. Brando and Rocco oversaw all of the men—no one came in or out without their permission. All of our food was brought to the villa, personally chosen and delivered by two men who came for a list of items I needed once a week.
Since it had been brought to light that Marzio left the villa to Brando, it was my duty as his wife to see to the domestic chores around the place.No one comes in or outmeant that, as far as domestic teams went, the team was comprised of Eunice, Chiara, Rosaria, and me. Some days Aunt Lola graced us with her presence, but after the attack, she required quiet time, usually out on the terrace, sipping coffee and watching the sea. “We all have ways to heal,” she had said to me. “This is mine.”
So it seemed the constant organized chaos in the kitchen kept all of our minds together and busy. I suppose in some ways we worked as a four-headed beast.
I still couldn’t touch or see any animal that needed to be cleaned, even fish, so Eunice gladly took over the cleaning and preparing. My love affair with vegetables and fruits had grown, and there was nothing violent about their picking. (Apart from the time I was picking carrots and Romeo screeched as I yanked one from the ground.)
The two men who went to the markets to buy our food were new (to me): Vincenzo and Luigi. The men at our villa made up only a small number of Rocco’s force; it seemed the men in his employment went deep—as deep as Sicily, where apparently some of them hailed from.
The business that Marzio had left to his family was not the business he had inherited himself. Not entirely. Marzio had left a civilized trade, white-collar workers who greased into high-power positions, gaining their power through name and then rank, but times change. And a man who could move with the times while also keeping the Fausti’s traditions alive marked a great leader. Branching out but staying rooted would only make this family more powerful.
Vincenzo and Luigi were far from white-collar. There was something about them that gave me the impression that they liked to get their hands dirty, and they had been stained crimson for a while.
