We found new rhythms to our days and nights, two of them, two of us, but we found a way to come together, creating a life that was solely ours.
Though with all the new arrivals, it was hard to pass over family dinners and decline invitations for one event or another. If we did, family came to us, afraid to miss a moment with Mia and Matteo. But Scarlett and I both knew this newborn stage didn’t last long, and the time we had, we wanted to spend it as a family.
It was a conscious choice we had made when Mia was born, but she’d been born in September, not long before winter, when the days grew shorter, and the long nights were ours alone.
This time, after the doctor gave Scarlett the go ahead, we decided to go to England first. Spend time at our flat there, where we could take the kids for walks in the parks, and then after that spend time in Positano.
Marzio had left us his villa there before he died. Then, when Matteo was a bit older, we’d allow fate to choose our next move.
A map and a dart—we’d let her fucking fly.
I’d felt some resistance from Luca. He wanted his sons where he could see them—his thumb hovering close.
He kept a closer eye on Romeo and me, probably because Rocco and Dario had decided to stay at his place in Florence indefinitely. Romeo had taken off as soon as he found out I had.
Before we’d left, we were summoned back for a meeting. Luca gave us a time limit. He’d said that even wars paused during winter, and he would give us the same courtesy, but when he said the wordreturn, he meant it.
Scarlett had nodded in an off-handed way when I’d told her, but she had said nothing else. She had been on bed rest at the time, and I was making all attempts to keep her stress level low.
She didn’t want to be bothered with it either.
Instead, we’d picked out a movie and settled in to relax together. During the time of bed rest, we watched more television than we ever had, or I read to her.Sometimes she’d pick out a book and then submerse herself into a tub of warm water while I read to her by candlelight.
Those days were a luxury we couldn’t afford anymore. With two children under two, sometimes we fell into bed exhausted, not even remembering where most of the time went.
At night, we fell back into our old skins and became separate from the parent role. I refused to lose that with her—who we were together. She refused it too. It would be a conscious choice to nurture our marriage as well as our children.
Violet and Mitch recommended date nights put aside for us, so after we’d settled into the villa in Positano, and family started to trickle in—Eunice couldn’t wait to get her itching hands on Matteo—I made arrangements to take Scarlett out on a date.
Mid-October in Positano was a prime time to visit.
It wasn’t as hot as it was during summer, but that also meant tourists were not boiling over into the streets, flooding the beaches and all the restaurants and shops.
If I’d been worried about Scarlett taking all the steps after giving birth not long ago, I didn’t need to. She’d snapped back into shape faster than she’d done with Mia.
I actually worried that she was too thin. She ate, but Matteo was big and eating just as much.
I’d feed her myself tonight at dinner.
Standing from the table out on the veranda, where family and friends were talking, I headed toward our bedroom to see what was keeping her.
Everyone came here to celebrate. It was Luca’s first time back after being in prison for so long. He shed tears as he walked around the property, quietly reminiscing. Ettore refused to step foot on the property, seeing as it was ours.
Scarlett had told me it was really that he felt too much guilt.This place had been Marzio’s summer home, and one of his favorite places to visit. He had bought it for my grandmother right after they were married.
It also held painful memories for us.
The villa in Positano was where we had all congregated in celebration of Marzio and Grazia’s marriage—a tradition that was held once a year on their anniversary. The year we came, our first time, it ended in betrayal, vengeance, and murder.
Livio’s young wife had been murdered, and so had Thomas, my younger cousin. He was more of a brother to Romeo and Guido. In the presence of the sprawling villa, both men were quieter than usual, the ghosts of the souls we’d lost sometimes passing before their eyes. A reminder of the pain we’d all suffered at the hands of a man we’d calledfamiglia.
I could feel them, too, sometimes. A passing laugh that belonged to no man or woman brought memories of Santina close enough to swim in my vision.
Laughing at something Livio had said to her.
A brush of a shoulder touching mine, though when I turned to look, no one was around. It mostly happened in the kitchen. Thomas’s favorite place to be.
Sometimes in the middle of the night I could hear the melody of a violin playing with the refrain of the sea—a quiet note underneath the constant shushing, and then wake up to find only the sea speaking to me in its watery tongue.
