He stood by the entrance to the office part of his business, leaning against the doorframe. His blue overalls were stained with oil. So was the rag tucked into his back pocket. A handkerchief was wrapped around his head. He used his shoulder to push against the wall when my eyes acknowledged him.
He ambled toward the red and white refrigerator further in his garage. A small pool of light lit the dim corner when he opened the door and removed two bottles of chilled beer,removing the caps and dropping them into a glass jar he had on a shelf, collecting them for some reason. He closed the door to the ice box, as he called it, and that area of the garage went dim again. It was tucked in the far back, far enough back that the sun couldn’t touch it.
He strolled to where I stood and handed me one. We clanked bottles and took a drink. Mitch hopped up on a stool, and I chose to lean my back against the Mustang.
“Seriously, man,” he said, studying my face, “you’re the spitting image of your old man, except for the color of your eyes.”
“I’d say all my brothers are the spitting image of my old man,” I said. “My sister is a mixture of Grazia Angeli,my old man’s grandmother, and Mamma.”
“I know who Grazia Angeli is. And yeah, that’s all true, but there’s something carbon copy about you. When you walked in here, at first, I thought it was Fausti himself. I had to put my glasses on to check. He never comes around anymore.”
I made an agreeable noise at that, taking another drink. I fucking figured out why my old man didn’t come around. This man had made a statement to him he didn’t appreciate. Mitch Lewis was fucking lucky he had a decent history with my old man. Any other man would’ve made some comment like that, he wouldn’t be sitting. He’d be six feet in the ground.
“See.” He motioned to me with his hand. “You even make the same noises as him.”
“Yeah, I do,” I said.
“Just takes me back is all.” He took another long pull from his bottle. “Where’s that spicy Italian wife of yours?” He whistled but didn’t add to it, but I knew what he was fucking thinking. She was gorgeous enough to cause me trouble.
She was.
Not only physically, but she also had something deep inside of her that made men like me feel.
Let all my challengers fucking come for me. I’d put each one in the dirt.
“Eating with the women.” I took a drink of my cold beer instead of shattering the glass with a squeeze of my fist.
“That’s right.” He nodded, picking at the label on the outside of the bottle. The glue was coming loose from the condensation dripping down the glass. “Violet went.”
Fucking different.He didn’t always know where his wife was. I knew where mine was always. I couldn’t live with the alternative. I’d go fucking mad.
I wasn’t going to confirm what he probably heard from his wife and probably forgot about. If he had any good sense about him, he would know for fucking sure.
He sighed. Then he launched into what I already knew. Updates on the car. He said he would be finished by the next day. Good. I was gifting my wife with the Mustang before we left for Italy. I wanted that meeting with Nonno and Lev about Iggy as soon as fucking possible. I was struggling with containing the need to kill and doing as my wife asked of me—not killing.
All I did was nod at the new and old information he was wasting his breath on. If the car was finished by the time he told me it would be, all was good. We didn’t need to have a conversation about it.
“You got something on your mind, Fausti?”
My eyes met his.
He lifted his hands. “Told you—I know your old man, so, I know his offspring.” He cleared his throat. “This have something to do with your wife? I heard there’s already been some trouble, and I’ve never seen you this way before—inhabiting your old man after he got with your mamma.”
Mitch’s son was married to a woman who didn’t live far from my parents’ place in Tuscany. Mitch’s son’s mother-in-law spent a lot of time in my mamma’s kitchen. They were both present forthe Remo scene. I was sure Mitch’s son, or his daughter-in-law, had delivered the news to him or Violet before we left Tuscany for Louisiana.
“Explain that to me,” I said. “Inhabiting your old man after he got with your mamma.”
He sighed. “Your old man was always serious, as his sons are too, but…he was more fucking fun before he got with your mamma. She changed him. Pulled the Fausti out in him full force. Like the responsibility of keeping her safe had hardened him to a point he hasn’t been able to relax since. He’s in that mold for the rest of his life. I never thought your brother—Matteo, I mean—could get any harder.
“I was proved wrong. After he met his wife, he has. You’re a hard motherfucker, but with the women, you always had this passionate spot that was like fucking lava.” He took a swig of his drink. “You’ve become your old man. And don’t take this the wrong way. I love your mamma. Always have. Years ago, we all hung out, became family.”
“That fucking changed when you made the comment about my parents’ relationship causing too much trouble.”
He shrugged. “I’m no Fausti. I’m not that honorable. Not to mention, I value my family’s life—my life. It was constant trouble back then. The kind of trouble a man like me doesn’t need in my life. I cause enough of it on my own.” He tapped his thigh, the thigh to the leg he was missing a portion of.
“So, you fucking tucked your tail between your legs and got the fuck out of dodge.”
“Call it what you want, Fausti. I did what was right for my family. At the time, I was giving your old manmytruth.”
