She nodded her head. “We’re good,Papà.”
“You might be,” I said, my voice firm, “but I’m not.”
Her eyes narrowed, thinking, before she stood on the bed, coming to the edge, and opened her arms for me.
“That’s what I was missing,” I said, holding her tight. She’d always be my little girl, even when she was ninety. “Listen for your brothers while Mamma andPapàare out, ah? Eunice is getting too old to keep them in line.”
“I will.” Then she gave me big Italian kisses on my cheeks, like I did to her. “But you know Matteo will keep them in line before I do.”
“Who’s going to keep him in line?”
“Me.”
“Right.” I hugged her so tight that she giggled, squirming to get back to her book. “Don’t ever leave yourpapà. My heart can’t take it, little girl.”
“I won’t,” she whispered in my ear.
Then I let her go, releasing her back to her fun.
“Night, Livia,” I said, winking at her.
She smiled shyly, and her face turned pink.
“Your father issohandsome,” she told Mia just before I shut the door. “Mamèretold me he is the first man who ever made her blush.”
“Eww! Livia!”
They lapsed into French after that, and I was fucking lost. I was the man of this house, and I couldn’t even understand my own wife or children sometimes.
Shaking my head, glancing at my watch, I followed the lingering scent of roses that led to our bedroom. I found my wife with one son on her hip, the other two staring at her as though she had hung the moon. She was alternately holding Marciano and applying makeup. One of his fists were in her curled hair, the other holding on to the cross around her neck, the lion wedged between.
Matteo and Mariano were standing side by side, shoulder to shoulder, laughing at something she’d said. It did my heart good to hear Matteo laugh. It was a hard-won prize.
“He really did,” she said, giving the two older boys a wide smile. “You don’t believe me? Ask your uncles.”
“I do not believe it,” Matteo said, all traces of humor lost. “There are no such things, Mamma.”
Her eyes softened when she looked at him through the mirror. “Do you find it easy to sleep, my love?”
He wanted to answer,yes,but shut his mouth before he did. All my sons knew that their word was their blood.
“I am your mamma,” she said in Italian, winking at him. “I know these things. So, believe me, your daddy has slayed the monster of sleep many times. If he can do it, you can, too. You’re going to be just as strong as him one day.”
Lord have mercy on the world, on me, her face seemed to say. I grinned to myself.
The grin fell from my face when Matteo asked if he would be as strong as hisnonnosomeday.
Scarlett’s lips pinched for a second before she nodded. “Yes,” she said. “You will. And you’ll be just as handsome as your great-grandfather, your grandfather, and your father combined, too. All of you.”
Mariano stood taller, his shoulders squaring. Matteo had never released his tension. He usually did around her, but lately he’d been having a hard time sleeping. We found him up during the night, reading underneath his covers with a flashlight to pass the time.
Before the conversation could continue, Marciano’s head popped up, and Matteo and Mariano spun around at the sound of their grandfather’s voice. To announce his entrance, he’d come in the villa singing opera. He seemed to have a cave buried somewhere deep inside of him, and from it, a boisterous voice that could echo in any space seemed to emerge.
All three boys flew past me, one behind the other, heading to wherever he was in the house.
None of them even noticed me in the shadows. One day they would, but that day hadn’t come yet.
Rolling my shoulders, I searched for the one being who kept her light burning for me in the darkness. She’d removed her silk robe, hanging it on the door, and was standing in nothing but underwear and heels, leaning toward the mirror, fixing her lipstick.
