The kids were outside, playing fetch with the dogs. Even the dogs looked bored and hot, panting as though the temperature neared one hundred with ninety percent humidity. Which was the truth.
We had experienced a couple days of rain—storms hard enough to knock the power out. And the yard was full of puddles, the green even greener, and the air even more soggy. Therefore, all the small biting things came out to enjoy any living flesh in close range. They were so plentiful that when the children and the dogs ran through the grass, they floated up as though summoned by bloodlust.
Using the sunhat on my head, I fanned some of them away, trying to shoo them with straw. I doubted even a nuclear holocaust could clear them out. Themandcockroaches.
Turning toward the old oak tree fanning over the swing my father had set up, I lowered my Ray-Bans, narrowed my eyes, and searched. Cockroaches were known to build nests in the trees, especially oaks, and when least expected, either plopped down or flew.
All safe, at least from what I could see.
Sighing, I opened the book again, trying to get into the story. My heart hurt too much, though, and I couldn’t get rid of the feeling of standing on the top of a massive building while looking over the edge of it.
Brando and Matteo had only been gone for three days, and the distance constantly felt as though it grew longer. Even though Brando had Matteo call to tell me that he was safe and having fun.
Italy, they had gone back to Italy. I didn’t even bother asking why. I doubted Matteo had either.
My stomach clenched and growled at the same time. Food was no longer a priority to me. It became one of those things that went ignored.
Guido lowered his glasses as he slapped a mosquito on his face. He scrunched his nose when he drew back and found a smear of blood on his palm. Then he pulled another disgusted face on me.
“If you do not eat soon, I will be forced to feed you.”
“Have you ever tried to make a grown woman eat before?” I asked.
“No,” he said, flicking the squashed mosquito carcass to the grass. “But I am up for a challenge. If you do not eat, your husband will force me to eat somethingIwould prefer not to.”
“My husband?” I almost laughed. Then I almost cried. “You told him?”
He lifted his thick eyebrows and then lowered them, creating a menacing look that would’ve worked on anyone else. “You know this. He knows all.Sempre.”
“So, he ordered you to force feed me?”
“Sì.”
“Well,” I muttered, picking my book back up, hiding my face from his. “That’s someeffingnerve.”
I thought I heard Guido laugh, but when I lowered the book, his face was back to firm. He had gotten harder since working exclusively for Rocco. Luca didn’t tolerate much joviality unless his mood called for it. Rocco’s moods had become similar to his father’s, and he was out to condition his men to fit the mold.
Since Guido would indefinitely be with us, I knew it would take time for him to relax. If he ever did. Especially given the circumstances of his return.
The family had considered the accident a failure on their part to protect their own. A personal insult. I tried to explain that no matter what they did, things would’ve still worked out the way they had. But those words fell on deaf Fausti-men ears, so I stopped speaking them.
Instead of attempting to read past page fifty-five for the hundredth time, I settled back into the lawn chair, hardly noticing the whining of my children—something they rarely did—about being bored. Their voices became a hum in the background as I set the open book on top of my face and closed my eyes.
Sleep, sleep called to me like a long-lost lover.
“Get up!”
“Ow!” A loud smack had brought me back from the throes of a nap, and I popped up like a puppet, simultaneously putting a hand to my smarting thigh and lifting the hat from my face. The book had smushed it down, but in the thrill of sitting up, the book had taken a dive, and the hat stayed stuck. I glared at Violet. “That hurt.”
“Would you rather I allow the bitchy mosquitoes to carry you away now? Or wait for nightfall so people can report the woman-shaped UFO flying in the air? It’s only the females that bite, you know. The boys only suck nectar from the flowers. People claim the male species is violent. I call bullshit. They don’t have the balls to bite like a woman.”
“Yuck,” I moaned, flicking the dead bitch with its smeared lunch off my leg. “Where are my children?”
“Inside.Notbeing carried away by things with wings that carry viruses.”
“We’ve lived here most of our lives. We’re impervious to their viruses.”
Violet returned the glare. “Fine.” She waved a hand. “But we both know that’s not true. And if you want to get technical,yourchildren were not born here.”
