He gave me a smile that Casanova would have been jealous of, reminding me of Romeo, and tucked his head into my neck, laughing.
“I thought so.” I grinned. She had organized the two older boys’ baths, gave Marciano his, and I was instructed to get them into bed while she readied for our night out.
Matteo stood up straighter. “I will take him, Father.”
Father. I almost scoffed. He called mepapà(daddy) on occasion, but when he waited for permission or wanted something, he became formal about it. If it didn’t grate on me so fucking much, the situation would be almost comical.
Every child is different. Matteo could inspire great love in me, but also my greatest frustration. He and I were like two rams, still circling each other. One day I hoped that it wouldn’t come down to ramming horns.
Matteo waited for my nod to move, his eyes hard on mine, until I gave him consent. Like he needed it to kiss his mamma and to get his little brother to bed.
“Aspettami!” Mariano called, trailing after them.Wait for me!
Neither Scarlett nor I ever dreamed of having children whose names all started with the letter “M.” We caught some shit for it, but we always said we did it in honor of Marzio. Which was partly the truth. The other half of it was that it just happened that way.
Scarlett said it bonded them together. I worried that someday we’d start getting their names screwed up.
Following in their tracks, I could smell the scents of boys and baths lingering in the air, and the more subtle hint of lavender coming from my daughter’s room. The door to her room was cracked, and I stopped to check on her. She and Livia, Livio’s daughter, sat on her bed, doing some kind of book where the little dolls needed to be torn out of the pages, along with the clothes that went with them.
After Livio’s murder, Cerise moved to Florence, and Luca offered her a place behind his gates. Livio was hailed as a hero, and Livio’s widow was given all the help she needed. And with Scarlett close by, even if we spent most of our time in Tuscany, Cerise felt comfortable. Livia was just a little younger than Mia, and being the only girls, they instantly bonded over a love of the ballet.
Not long after Cerise and Livia moved to Florence, Cerise married one of my cousins, Dimitri. He had vowed to raise Livia as his own, though she’d been told since a young age that he wasn’t her father by blood. I kept an eye on them, making sure that Livio’s legacy lived on and that his family was taken care of.
Over the years since the Venice attack, we lived a full life. Every day wasn’t always beautiful, but when I looked back, even then, every day added to what Maggie Beautiful had always called our beautiful years. Our children were growing, thriving, and were constantly on the move. We spent summers in the pool, winters skiing, or we took them to warmer climates where they could swim some more.
In between those times, we worked.
I continued to work for the family business, not fulfilled but content enough, since each day I had the freedom to spend time with my own family. Scarlett still contributed to the ballet when she could. She had earned a name and a place in that world, even respect as one of the greatest choreographers. Occasionally Hollywood would come calling, and that was when Mia decided to make her own talent known.
Scarlett had always known that Mia was gifted. Her feet were an echo of her famous mamma’s, her still famous great- grandmother’s. Whenever Scarlett wanted to lose herself to her talent, to the music, Mia held her hand, both of my girls off to spend time together. But Scarlett never pushed her or made it seem like a big deal that she could do what she could do.
During a music video that Scarlett danced in, Mia copied her moves turn for turn. It drew so much attention that the director and the singer both asked if Mia could dance with Scarlett.
She’d changed the entire theme of the video.
Scarlett became an older version of Mia. She took the little dancer by the hand and they danced together, one admiring the other. Scarlett, what she could do in her youth. Mia, what her older self could do in time.
It had given me a pang to see it, remembering Maja and young Scarlett developing a similar relationship, though there was a gaping difference.
Mia wanted it with all her heart. Scarlett had fallen in love but had not always been appreciative of what she could do. Despite that, though, whatever she felt, she gave over to the dance. That made her one of the greatest artists in history. To take a natural love for something and turn it into art is one thing, but to take a love that’s not so easily given—rage, resentment, sadness, all those things that make us the most vulnerable—and turn it into something others called beautiful, ethereal, graceful…that took blood.
The hunger for it existed in Mia’s eyes. She would bleed for what she could do, too, and willingly. But I could already sense her path would be different. It came easier to her because she’d fallen in love the first time she twirled, but patience was not her strong point. She wanted it all before she’d earned it.
Scarlett had taken control, though, and demanded that she go to school with the other girls and learn just as they did, even if Mia was well advanced. Even the teachers gave my daughter wary looks, knowing who her great-grandmother was, her mamma, but Scarlett insisted that she be treated like everyone else.
It had always been drilled into Scarlett that she could be better—a better version of herself. Her only competition. Scarlett wanted to instill that in Mia, too, because she’d been down that road and could see her journey so clearly.
When the calls started from all the schools, my heart ached, and my hair grew even more silver. All those emotions came back to me. The memories. The love and sacrifice of it all. The very thing that had, essentially, started me and my wife on the path we were on.
At that moment in time, our past was in our daughter’s hands—or feet.
Even if Mia didn’t know our wars, she knew who she came from. I could see the pride in her eyes when someone in that world gasped at her mamma’s name, or she read articles in honor of the great ballerina, the brightestétoile, Scarlett Rose Fausti.
Feeling my presence, those green eyes, more doe-shaped than feline, lifted to meet mine. Her hair was pulled into a tight, perfect bun, showcasing a beautiful face. No matter who the world said she resembled, I saw so much of my wife, with my coloring, that it stole my breath at times.
A smile came to her face, one that always made it seem like I had grown an extra heart to accommodate all the love I felt.
“Hello, my heart,” I said in Italian. “Are you and Livie all set for the night?”
