By the time Scarlett had reached toddlerhood, she had more stamps on her passport than some middle-aged adults, but during all her travels, she was made to rehearse, to concentrate on the ballet.
The fun she had, she had through learning. Not only did her grandmother and mother prepare her for the country and the people she would be preforming for, but she’d taken an active role in learning all she could. Though most times, she’d told me once, she rarely explored the places she visited. Not in a way that would make someone want to travel more.
She hated to be thought of as spoiled by her upbringing. She wasn’t. Far fucking from it.
A new experience to her was still a wonder, something to be appreciated and absorbed. Since she was free to explore—with me, our children—excitement seemed to radiate from her being.
Sometimes the thought of her being imprisoned by the same thing that gave her freedom made my heart constrict painfully. All the years—all the dancing—and she deserved to have time to be…happy. Her mother, maybe not realizing it, or out of fear that freedom would make her quit, had squashed that for her.
Scarlett’s life was the total opposite of mine. Mitch had once called us Saturday and Sunday.
The thought made me smile, bringing me back in time.
He’d started calling us that during a concert I’d taken Scarlett to right after we’d started dating. Gin Blossoms.
I’d always been wild, but my wife—pure grace. At that concert, though, she’d seemed freer than I’d ever seen her.
“And Saturday taints Sunday,” Mitch had said, nodding toward me, then her.
I found myself grinning even harder, even though my wife’s attitude toward me had frosted a bit, whether she noticed or not.
She thought I was poking fun or suggesting that she shouldn’t care so much about the history of this place, or appreciate the grandeur surroundings, because she’d seen some that could rival it.
I slipped my arms around her waist, and her hands stilled on a cream silk undershirt.
“We’re going to be late, Brando,” she said.
Thinking back, I remembered the one song from the concert that had stuck out to me. I smiled against her ear, my teeth grazing her lobe. Using my mouth to mimic the guitar at the beginning of the song, I felt her body relax slightly into mine, a smile starting to form on her lips.
I moved her in time to the music, as we had done years ago, then started singing as much as I could remember.
“Lights out in the schoolyard,” I sang.
She laughed so hard that she shook us both. “Nights, Brando.Nights. You’d do better singing some old song Maggie Beautiful taught you. You know all the words to those. Or Led Zeppelin.”
“Ah,” I said, holding her even closer at the dip my stomach had taken when I thought back on that time. She still gave me deep dips, hard enough to make me breathless. “There’s nothing special about those. I never saw them in concert with you.”
“Oh God!” She covered her face, laughing even harder. “Yourface. I can still remember it. So many fangirls bumping into you as they screamed and sang. One of the girls even ripped the scrunchie out of her hair and flung it at the stage.” She was laughing so hard she could barely breathe. “You really did love me!”
I barked out a laugh—it was love that drove me to bring her to that fucking concert.
At the loud sound, Matteo sighed in his sleep. After he’d fallen asleep during the tour, Scarlett had put him in the center of the bed, surrounded by pillows. Sans thick hat and jacket, his navy wool clothes clung to his solid form, his feathery hair a mess against the light-colored bed.
We both became quiet, waiting to see if he’d wake up, but he didn’t.
A squeal of laughter peeled behind us, and then another one, lower, raspy, while Eunice’s voice trailed behind.
Mia was running from Angelo, while Eunice ran behind both of them.
Letting Scarlett go, I went out and hauled my daughter up, putting a stop to the chaos. Once the rowdier of the two, my daughter, had been corralled, I set her next to her cousin, who looked up at me with huge eyes, straight from his father’s head.
Eunice stood behind them, looking down, her cheeks flushed, her chest rising and falling—she’d been running after them.
“Listen to me, both of you,” I spoke in Italian. “We must be careful not to wake the babies, ah? We need to be quiet.” They also needed to give Eunice a break.
“Shhh,” Mia said, sticking her pointer finger to her mouth. “Il bambino sta dormendo.”
Angelo looked up at me, uncertain.
