“Get your mamma,” I said to Oscar in a low, sharp command.
“No!” Sistine seemed to harden. “I was just not expecting…that. Blood does not usually bother me, but watching the cutting…” She shivered.
I shot Oscar a hard look, and Sistine shot me one.
She smiled at Oscar. “It is okay, Oscar,” she whispered. I could tell she wanted to reach out to him but thought better of it. “I think that is very romantic. Noemi would be lucky to have you. You took good care of me when my husband was not able to do so.”
Oscar stood as proud as a fucking winner getting the highest reward from the most prestigious woman in the world. My wife.
“Perhaps you should have your mamma look at that?” She nodded toward his hand.
Oscar looked at me. I nodded.
He turned and left. As soon as he was out of the stable, my wife shoved at me.
“Why did you do that?” She sounded aghast, truly affronted on his behalf.
“Shit,” I said. “He’s gotten to you too.”
“What are you talking about? That was just pure mean to do that to him.”
“What I’m talking about, Annie, is because he looks like…Oscar, the puppet, as you call the characters on thatshow, it’s endeared him to all the women.”
She took a breath, and I could see the wheels turning behind her eyes. “This is true. There is something about him that is…sweet in a grumpy way.”
I laughed and she shoved me.
“Quiet, Fausti,” she said, picking up on Mamma calling Papà by our last name at times. “It is very romantic what Oscar is doing for her. Noemi.”
I pulled her closer, wrapping my arms around her. She looked up at me.
“It is.” I leaned down and kissed her.
“Not as romantic as making love to your wife in the hays.” She wiggled her eyebrows at me.
I grinned at that. Both the compliment and how she saidhays,just like she sometimes saidhairs.We locked eyes, and a slow song started playing through the speakers. The horses seemed to like country music. No fucking shit. My wife did too. I danced with her.
“One ofoursongs.” She smiled as I turned her out, then brought her in, swaying with my arms wrapped around her.
“One of,” I said. “You’remysteady heart.”
A gust of wind blew so hard at us, all the extra pieces of hay from our clothes took flight and were caught in an eddy. The broken sign swung and creaked; the one metal chain keeping it attached rattled, and so did the one hanging on by a thread to the sign itself.
“The sign,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said. “I need to fix it.”
“Here,” she said after the song was over. She handed me one of the tools I’d brought out.
“Thank you, my Annie.” I set it on one of the rungs and climbed the ladder.
Sistine kept her hands on it, looking up at me.
I nodded to the side. “I’m all right, Annie. I don’t want you close.”
“Why?”
“In case I fall.”
