Bianca Watt. MyZia. My father’s sister.
In our family, she was considered the one who got away. The irreverent sheep who refused to bow down to tradition and chose what she had thought was love years ago. A Fausti from a Sicilian branch had fallen for her the moment he saw her working at her table in the jewelry store. The table I used. My aunt took one look at him and said her heart hit the floor. There was something mysterious and dangerous between them.
Except when it was time to put his heart where his mouth was—he decided not to tempt fate to such a degree.
My aunt and the Fausti were going to challenge fate for the blood diamond.
My grandfather was against it, but at the time, Marzio was the head of the Fausti family and had ruled that, if the couple wanted to attempt the test, they could take it. Marzio had been willing to part with the rare red diamond, if that was the way fate ruled. My grandfather reminded all parties of this very important consequence.
If fate was not for it, the man would also lose his life.
Marzio had nodded at this.
Then the Fausti had changed his mind. As my aunt had told me,The man my heart thoughtit loved was not the man for me at all.Not long after the Fausti recanted his offer, my grandfather sent my aunt to a ranch in Tennessee. She was about all things equestrian. She loved the history of the Wild West. She fell in love with Bear Watt when he was at the same farm for a foal.
They married in Wyoming, where his family’s ranch was, a week later, and she never returned to Italy to stay.
It was not until Atta was born that she returned for a trip, at the tearful request of my grandmother. My father was thrilled that she was gone. My father and aunt were both up for the coveted role in our family, the role of leader, and after my aunt left, my father received the title by default. My grandmother, before her death, had told me my aunt was close to nudging him out.
I believe this was the only reason my father allowed my friendship with my cousins over the years. As if to say,See, this is what your life could be!I had learned early on that he sent me not to have fun, but to be miserable. When I would return, I would grumble and pretend to be sooo tired from cleaning up animal crap…
…when in reality, I would grumble about being back and sleep for a week straight because I was too depressed to get out of the bed. I had trouble converting over to who my familyin Venice expected me to be.I love designing and creating art, but it was the rest of the expectations that felt strangling. I was expected to marry a man I did not love so the match would look ideal to the world. It would also bring our family together with another worth mentioning.
I did not want to even think aboutwhat’s his name. The one my father wanted—would perhaps, at some point, demand that—I marry. The one Anselma had invited to the country music festival in Italy.
Another grin came to my face when I thought about his face when I whacked him on the head. I did it on purpose so he would give me some breathing room. It was like what Atta and Ty did to each other out of fun. Smack the other on the forehead and say it was because they were squishing a mosquito. I did not givewhat’s his namethat much of an explanation, but he got the point. What I was doing was taking the fun out of the joke.
Out of all my family, Bianca Watt was the only one, even over Atta, who could understand my position. Where I stood, stuck between a rock and a hard place, the space between my art and my heart. When I had first arrived, she gave me a look that meantI understand, a stiff hug, and then she disappeared into her safe space. With her horses.
The song playing through my earbuds was a movie score to the scene in front of me.
My aunt sat high atop her horse, her wide-brimmed hat shielding her eyes. Her blond hair, just like Capri’s, was slicked back in a ponytail landing right at her collar. Her leather overcoat reached to her knees. She was leaning over some, her weathered hands covered in turquoise and silver rings. As the song said, she was going to let that pony run, be reckless as she took her mare through rivers and narrow paths.
My aunt’s life was no fairytale after she moved away from home. Perhaps in the beginning it was, when she had met hersoul mate and thought life was going to be perfect forever. When Atta was seventeen, Ty sixteen, Bear was killed when a drunk driver struck his truck. It was such a devastating blow. And not only because they had lost a father, a husband; they also lost Bear’s father and his two brothers.
My eyes scanned the property and found Hannah. She was from Maine, from the Mi'kmaq tribe (or MicMac, as she told me to call them when I could not pronounce the name correctly with my accent), and she had met Bear’s father in the same way Bear had met Bianca.
At the time, the Watt Ranch had been a cattle ranch, but Hannah did not care for it. She was connected to the land, and she said sending all the animals to be slaughtered did not feel right to her. The last of the cattle were kept, and the ranch turned into an equestrian farm. Even though it teemed with a lot more.
Atta and Ty were like Hannah in that way. They loved all animals. They loved the land. They respected nature.
At one point, when Bianca and Hannah were close to losing the ranch, Atta convinced them both to turn it into a Dude Ranch. Running a four-thousand-acre (or hectares, as it was called in Italy) ranch was no easy feat. For a while they offered it to the public until Atta landed a recording deal (after going viral for covering a popular song) with a country label and had enough money to save it.
My eyes scanned the property for Hannah.
She was outside, sitting in her usual spot, sketching, her hands blackened by the coal. Her sketches of bison were hanging in galleries across the country, along with ones she did of the land. Her baskets were on display as well. Hannah was one of the most skilled artists in basket weaving. The items she needed for her craft surrounded her, along with a few spectacular baskets she had finished.
Hannah herself was the most spectacular sight of all.
She was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. Her hair was long, silky and black, and her eyes were as deep as Scarlett Fausti’s in depth. Her hands… Sometimes my skin anticipated her touch. It was cool and soft, so comforting. And it almost felt as if she could weave together the threads of my life when her hand came to my arm.
She seemed to feel my eyes on her. She turned her face, the wind snatching a piece of her hair and bringing it over her face. I smiled at her and she smiled back, pulling the blanket around her shoulders tighter. Although it was stifling outside, she kept it around her. She had told me once, a few years ago, that ever since her husband had been taken from her, she could never get fully warm. Which was why she had called him Bear, although his name had been Clay. Bear, my aunt’s husband, was named after him.
My eyes roamed back to the spot where my aunt had been. Dust swirled up in her tracks. She had taken off, perhaps to get lost in the sprawling land. Her time to grieve the memory of her husband alone.
Atta walked toward me, her boots kicking up dust. She set her arm around my shoulders. “You smell too good,” she said with a cheeky smile. “We’ll take care of that in no time.”
I smiled back. “I know.” I lifted my arm and she pushed me away, laughing.
