“My brothers?”
“You’re their sister, but you have eyes, Leo. You know they’re both beautiful boys.”
Okay, I’d give her that. Both of my brothers were going to be extremely handsome men, just like our dad. Which got him into a lot of trouble, in my opinion. He was good-looking and knew it. He used it to his advantage. Not only did he deal in criminal underworlds, but he was a philandering gigolo.
“Is it over?” I whispered. “Between you and Rocco?”
“Yeah,” she said. “It was never meant to last. I’ve just been…”
I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and pulled her close, giving her a fat kiss on her temple. “I know. Lonely.”
“He made me forget for a while, and I made him forget…” she took a deep breath “…how lonely he is.”
“I guess the mutual agreement he has in place with his wife is for a reason.”
“We didn’t talk about her, but I could tell. He was as starved as I was for a connection that runs deeper than just the flesh. It’s all in his eyes. His touch. The way he kisses…”
“Is that what you found? A connection that runs deeper?”
She was quiet for a minute or two. “No. Maybe if he would have offered it to me…I would have thought about it. But it wasn’t on the table. I mean…” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, but it took off again with a gust of wind. “He’s perfect, but not the boring kind of perfect. It would have been hard for me to spend another day with him andnotfall in love. He sang to me. He cooked and fed me in bed. He danced with me, like…he’s from another time. Then he’s rough, protective, full of honor he would die for. But my heart would only get broken—I didn’t look beyond the second with him. I’m done with that. Having my heart broken. The situation with Joe works for me.”
“Until it doesn’t.”
“I’ve never been unfaithful to Joe. Not until recently.”
“You don’t have to explain anything to me, George. Life is complicated.”
She looked at me and smiled. She knew I’d be the last person to judge her. Georgia wasn’t the type of woman who ran around with married men. Like me, she was an advocate for women and would help them in any way she could, but I knew the situation with Rocco was different. He was married but had an agreement with his wife—she had affairs too. Even if we thought she was a complete bitch, Georgia wouldn’t have done that to her if she wasn’t doing the same thing with other men.
Georgia nodded to the opposite side of me. Rocky. She had gotten up from the table and had made her way to the edge of the mountain too. She was looking over it, moving her wedding band up and down her finger, like she was contemplating throwing it over the side. I wasn’t going to stop her if that was what she really wanted to do, but I could tell she was torn. Georgia and I made it over to her, wrapping our arms around her.
“Want to talk about it, kiddo?” Georgia asked.
She opened her mouth, then shut it. “That’s a deep void.” She nodded down.
We agreed.
We stood there for a few minutes until I felt eyes on my back and turned. Kitty had stood and was watching from the table, but her face…it wasn’t stern, but it was easy to tell she wanted us to come back.
“I think Kitty wants us to come back,” I said. “Maybe she’s ready to go.”
We walked back and Kitty nodded to our seats, telling us “sit” in Italian. Or I thought that was what she’d said.
The three of us glanced at each other before we took our prior seats. Lidia poured us each another glass of wine. Lidia was having the time of her life, and I knew one of the men from the car Big had sent was going to have to drive us back.
“What’s going on?” Kitty asked us in a tone that matched the set of her face—stern.
“Oh, you know,” Georgia waved a hand. “We were contemplating the void.”
“Thinking about the accused and all they went through,” Rocky added.
Kitty nodded. “While we were walking earlier, I remembered something my mamma had once told me.” She took her glass and drained it. Lidia half-way filled it again before she could ask for it, but she pushed her glass closer. She wanted it filled to the brim. “Every woman has a story, and every woman has been burned like a witch in one way or another for the secrets she keeps.That was what my mamma had said to me.”
“You have a story to tell,” I whispered.
Kitty shrugged and said something in Italian. Lidia translated and said it was close todon’t we all.
“Will you tell us yours?” Rocky asked. “I’d love to hear it.”
