20
Brando
“She passed on, but we were able to bring her back. For the time being,” were the doctor’s exact words when the light came back into my eyes again and the staff was confident that I wasn’t going to kill the woman. “You might want to prepare. I do not give her the night.”
There was no proof that she had tried to leave me. The room was still in order. Not even an empty packet left on the floor to prove the struggle the staff had had with death.
The smell of her saturated the air. Even through the fog of disinfectant and whatever else they used, it seemed the only scent I could identify.
Luca still sat with her. He had demanded to stay, refusing to leave her alone. Again,poor family, so we got what we asked for—besides, no one with a sane mind would turn him down.
Luca didn’t budge when he heard me come in. I knew he had heard me, though. He didn’t miss anything.
“Ah—” He cleared his throat. “She attempted to leave us. I did not allow her to go.”
“Go,” I said in Italian, standing at the edge of her bed. “Leave us.”
“Take her hand,” he said.
“Go,” I said. And I wouldn’t say it again.
After kissing her hand, he stood, staring down at her for a moment. Then he came to stand beside me. Lifting his hand, he hesitated before he squeezed my shoulder.
“Nemours,” I whispered. “Do not even attempt to take my son to see what will be done to him in vengeance, in her honor. That is my decision to make, when the time comes.”
He would. He would make the man suffer before I came to finish the job. If it was the last thing I ever did, I would. His life was connected to ours. If she died tomorrow, so would he. The three of us would be buried in the same month of the same year.
He squeezed my shoulder even harder, then turned to leave, when I stopped him.
“Thank you, Father,” I said in Italian.
“I have been here, waiting,” he said. “I will not go. I will not leave you.”
He did just that, though, when he walked out of the room.
The breath left me, but not the pressure sitting on my chest. It made it hard for me to take in air, to have the scent of her touch my lungs.
I wasn’t sure how long I stood at the bottom of her bed, staring at her, allowing the silence to let me hear things not usually heard. The kind of silence that whispers all the ways a soul can die while still being forced to live.
Taking a pen and a piece of paper from the table, I wrote.
A note to her parents. Directing them where to find all the things Scarlett had saved over the years for our children. Letters she had written to each child in case something were to happen.
In a moment of true reflection, signs were revealed to me. Little things she had done here and there—subtle things. But none of them as strong as this.
Scarlett had never truly been comfortable with cars. She preferred to walk, ride a bike, or take a plane. It was as if she had always known this was going to happen to her.
Glancing up, I could feel the time like it ticked in my bones.
The sun had gone down, and I knew it was now or never.
The doctor said the odds were not in her favor, not even the night, and this time I agreed.
She was running too fast for me to catch up this time. The air felt tense around her. I was chilled to the bone. Ghosts whispered, making the hairs on my body stand, and my skin seemed to contract.
Setting the letter aside, I took my place at the bottom of her bed.
Stay away from my wife. Do you hear me, Elliott?
