I wasn’t sure who was holding on to who, but we ended up outside.
Rain droplets from the trees kept hitting me in the head, sliding down my face. Mamma didn’t disguise her tears. She allowed them to fall freely. With a trembling breath, she stopped moving at one of the most picturesque areas on the ranch. It had a garden Sistine had described as lovely, and I had planned on building her a covered place to sit and find…peace. Maybe even a hammock. She loved to swing above the water in Fiji.
Mamma nodded toward a box. “Open it,” she whispered, giving my hand a hard squeeze before she let go.
On autopilot, I did. I opened it. My eyes rose to meet hers. Then my heart started to race in my chest: my wife was racing out of the house, my sister on her heels. I hadn’t seen her move that way since before…what had happened. She took a spot beside my mamma, and mamma took her hand, squeezing. Then they all left us alone.
Alone with a box that was going to be buried in the ground—a spot like the one mamma and papà had in Tuscany for the first Matteo. Even though it was warm out, my wife stuck her hands underneath her arms, trembling. My old man—I shook my head, growling some, attempting to get my emotions in check—had dug the hole.
“A knife.”
My eyes swung to my wife. Her voice was soft, low, cracked, as if she hadn’t been getting enough to drink. I leaned down, taking the one from my ankle, and cut my palm. She did thesame. We allowed our blood to swirl and mix inside of the box. I sealed it, and after, I set it down in the deep hole. After I covered it, Sistine set the plaque mamma and papà had commissioned over it.
The engraving was the same as the one in Tuscany, except our son’s name was engraved.
Leopoldo’s Garden
Un po 'di lei. Un po 'di lui. Sarà sempre. Protetto in cielo.
A little of her. A little of him. Always will be. Protected in heaven.
We stood side by side. My wife was swaying. My feet were rooted to the fucking ground. Our palms dripped blood as we stared at a physical representation of the son we would never get to know. Our hands were close, a breath away, but neither of us moved to take the other’s, stopping each other’s bleeding.
A breath…my wife ran from me. She ran toward the house, holding herself as she did.
I didn’t know what to fucking do with myself. My heart was falling out of my chest, and I didn’t know how to fucking deal with it. To catch it before it hit the ground and my life shattered around me.
I did what I always did.
I ran.
I ran until I came to the stalls. I was going for Guerriero when a hand reached out and grabbed me by the shoulder. I would have swung on him, but he just stared at me with a look that stopped me cold. My old man. Even if the color of our eyes was different, he was staring at me through eyes that saw himself.
At one time, he had been in my shoes.
I was realizing that, the older I got, the more I understood Brando Fausti and all the choices he’d made. Fuck if the world would always approve of them, including his daughter and sons, but whatever he did, he did out of love for my mamma. I couldunderstand that better than I could understand the turn my life had taken.
He squeezed my shoulder, refusing to allow distance to come between us. I wasn’t sure why, but I nodded. I had no control over my reaction. No control over my own self. This wasn’t like me. I was out of control, spinning, spiraling—flying off that cliff afterGuerriero bucked me off. I wasn’t holding on this time.
Not if my wife didn’t fucking want me.
Then again, my heart was revolting in my chest, ordering my feet back to my wife.
I was so fucking messed up. She wouldn’t fucking look at me.
My old man pulled me in, keeping my head against his chest. Then, just as fast, he put space between us so I was forced to look him in the eye.
“Open your eyes, my son,” he said in Italian, then switched to English. “Fucking open your eyes. She’s looking straight at you. Straight at you.”
He’d read my thoughts, or this situation was playing out for him for a second time in his life, this time watching as the younger version of him experienced it again. Maybe he wished someone had been there to tell him the same things he needed to hear.
He pushed me in the direction of the villa, and when I walked up beside it, I turned my eyes up. My wife was at the window, the curtains drawn to the side by her fingertip, and she was frantically looking over the land. I could tell by how quickly her eyes moved—searching. Then she looked down and our eyes connected. A moment passed, and she disappeared on me. I moved toward the villa, about to storm it, when my wife came tearing out, my brothers surrounding her, my father somehow in the mix.
We both stopped.
Marciano reached out to her. So did Maestro.
Her eyes.
