“Has anyone said arm?” I grinned.
He lifted a finger. “Once. A very smart seven-year-old gave me that answer. He said it was the only reason he resisted hitting his younger brother. His conscience got bruised when he did.”
We both laughed at that.
“Kids, ah?”
“Kids,” I agreed.
“Over the years, I have learned that I am just a tool to help save lives, but I cannot do it alone. I am guided by—” he chucked his chin toward the sky “—and it was my job not only to heal flesh, but to help my patients release the darkness they kept in that place inside of them which contained their souls. It is likedrowning our liver with alcohol or flooding our heart with too many unhealthy fats. Just because a doctor cannot see a soul does not mean it does not exist inside of the body. It does not mean that it does not sometimes need medicine too. Have you heard the passage, “Man shall not live by bread alone?”
I shook my head. No.
“It means that we need more than world fulfillment. We also need spiritual fulfillment—healing. That was what my mamma was trying to teach me. To look past my schooling and see the body for more than what it looks like on a diagram. I am not a man of the cloth, but I do believe that healing goes past the flesh. If we do not heal this place inside of us, the only thing we will take when we leave this earth, it will make us sick, just as any organ will do if we do not take care of it.”
I looked away from the old doctor, toward the stars, knowing what he was trying to tell me. I felt his point in my bones. That the sadness I couldn’t let go of at the thought of my mom not being here, after everything I’d been through, could possibly make me sick. And he was helping me by giving me the diagnosis, but maybe I’d have to come up with the medicine on my own.
“I understand what you’re saying,” I whispered. “And I will face it. I will. But right now, it’s just nice to have company who understands what I’m going through. How lonely I feel sometimes… even in a crowded room.” I turned to face him. “How did you know I needed this right now? That I needed you?”
He used the chair to brace himself and stood, coming to stand next to me. “Years of watching.” He folded me in his arms, and even though I wanted to cry, break down, I didn’t.
There had to be some rule about not crying on the eve of my wedding, right? I’d learned that most of these Italians were superstitious, and maybe there was something about crying onthe eve of a woman’s wedding—like rain on a wedding day, but the opposite, because that was supposed to be good luck. But it was hard, so hard, not having my mom close. Not having a father to walk me down the aisle.
As if the thought summoned him, Marciano knocked on the door. I invited him in, and he smiled at us.
“Is my best uncle giving you word puzzles?” He squeezed Uncle Tito on the shoulder.
“I find her vocabulary to be stellar,” Uncle Tito said.
“That’s because all I had, mostly, to read was a dictionary with thesaurus all those years while I was in solitary confinement!” The words just came out in a rush. Blurted, more like. I’d told Matteo how Henri had left me books, but I hadn’t shared that with anyone else.
That was probably the reason why Rosaria had called my situation a lie in passing once. She was probably wondering why I didn’t have the vocabulary of a child. It was because of Henri. He gave me the dictionary/thesaurus, which would bore me to death sometimes, but I’d read it backward and forward. At one time, I even remembered all the insulting words and would think them about Régine and her wicked daughters like it was some kind of payback.
Both men’s eyes hardened, then softened.
Marciano touched my shoulder. “They will pay,” was what I think he said in Italian.
Uncle Tito nodded. Then he looked at Marciano. “Have you come to try to sway the decision, Marciano?”
“What?” He jerked back some. He pointed at his broad, chiseled chest. “Me, do such an underhanded thing?”
“Remember,” Uncle Tito said, fixing his glasses. “I named you!”
“Therefore, you know me.”
“Exactly! You were born to be a fighter!”
Marciano made a playfuljab, jab, jabmotion at his great uncle, and the old man slapped at him.
“Go to sleep, Marciano,” Uncle Tito said. “We have a wonderful day ahead of us tomorrow.”
“I—” Marciano started.
Another knock came at the door, cutting him off. Mariano peeked his head in, and when he saw Marciano, his eyes narrowed.
“She’s already decided, Marci,” Mariano said.
“My feelings state differently, Mari,” Marciano said.
