“Yes,” I whispered, watching as my husband jogged not behind Matteo, but next to him. PapàBrando was the leader. Matteo and Mariano behind him. Marciano and Maestro behind their two older brothers and their father. The brothers always had a sibling next to them. It was Brando who ran alone. “Unless it is a woman.”
The words slipped from my lips naturally, and Scarlett squeezed my hand in agreement. I was sure there were times Magpie attempted to prepare her for what life with a Fausti meant, even if she did it clothed in leopard print and glitter. Or, perhaps, with a showgirl hat on her head, plumes drifting in the wind.
The thought of her made me grin.
Scarlett did as well, as if she read my mind. “Usually Romeo will join my husband,” Scarlett whispered. “Or any of his brothers will if they’re around. Rocco has a lot going on right now. Dario has always stuck close to Rocco. Romeo went to be with his wife’s family, who live not too far from here. One of Juliette’s aunts isn’t doing so well.”
I said nothing as my husband disappeared again.
He was right. He was running in circles.
Even if he ran away from me, he always returned to me. I turned my ring around my finger, finding peace in the everlasting meaning behind the circle of my bands.
Scarlett sighed, and it was a wistful sound. “Perhaps I don’t always have all the answers to my feelings. The wires being as twisted as they can sometimes be. However.” She squeezed my hand. “I do know one thing for certain. I can feel it in the marrow of my bones.”
It took me a second to look at her.
She was still gazing in the distance, the path her husband and sons had gone in.
Then her eyes, the color of a lush tropical forest after a long series of storms, looked directly into mine. “Your eyes are truly beautiful, Sistine,” she whispered, “and they reflect my son as he is. Who he is. It’s easy to fall in love with a Fausti, but to figure out how to live with one without lessening who she is, who he is…that’s special. Whatever you do, as with the son of my heart, the other daughter of my heart, you do out of love for my son, Mariano. As a mamma, I couldn’t ask for anything more.”
We stared at each other, before we wrapped each other in a hug that brought us to tears. We rocked a bit, holding on tight. Not only for the love we shared for her son, my husband, but because we also shared a kindred spirit. We both knew what it meant to be hurt by the people who were supposed to protect us.
This thought, for whatever reason, encouraged me to confide in her about what my sister did to me as a child. How she had pushed me down the steps.
Scarlett pulled away, shaking her head. “My sister tripped me down my parents’ steps years ago,” she said in camaraderie. “It almost killed me. I thought I was dead for a second, until the pain hit.”
“Faccia di culo.” I called her sister an ass face. It meant, sort of like, “theaudacity!” but in a more disrespectful way.
She wrapped her arm around mine, pulling me in close. “Yes! Both of our sisters. Ass faces.”
We laughed and then she sighed again, perhaps because she kept feeling the loss of her father. As she had said, the regret was, perhaps, even heavier than the loss for her.
PapàBrando came around the corner, but instead of running with his sons, he stopped, hands on his hips, using his shoulder to wipe his drenched head. Scarlett stared at him, and he stared at her, and a shiver stole over me. It was as if I was watching a version of my husband stare at me. As if I was having an out-of-body experience.
In that moment, no one existed except the two of them.
She swallowed hard—I was almost positive I heard it—and then he came running for her. He was in complete control of his feet and stopped a breath in front of her, and in a second, he had her in his arms, carrying her back to the house. His stare locked in the distance. He chucked his head in my direction after.
One of the soldiers emerged from the shadows, watching me with an intense look on his face. He seemed to harden at the same time the dogs’ ears stiffened. With two greatwoofs!they both began to run to the front of the house.
I was not sure if the dogs were allowed to go that far. I started running behind them, the hems of my pants soaking, even wearing boots. Even if it was not chilled outside, the house always seemed to hold a draft, especially after I was outside. The saturated air made clothes feel frozen, so I had decided to go with a long-sleeved black shirt that clung to my form and was cut low in the back. I jazzed the outfit up with jewelry.
I did not realize until I came to a stop in front of the house that the man who PapàBrando had ordered to watch me was running behind me.
What a scene we must have painted.
A growling motorcycle was parked in front of the house. Two people were straddling it, a bearded man in front and a womanbehind him. She took her helmet off and shook out her rainbow-colored hair. I had met them at the funeral.
Mitch and Violet…Lewis.
Mitch and Violet were friends of Scarlett and Brando’s when they had lived in Louisiana years ago—school friends, Mariano had said. Mariano had not gone further, but by watching the entire family, I could tell they were all on good terms with Violet, or Viola, as she was known in my head, but with Mitch…it seemed as if the family was split. I was not sure why this was. Mitch and Viola seemed okay to me.
Viola smiled at me. “I wasn’t exactly positive at the funeral,” she said, moving closer, “but…you aresomuch like Sandy.”
“Sandy Who?” I asked.
Viola looked at her husband, and they both laughed.
