Her entire face, as soft as it was, was…more on display, and there was no doubt, the entire male population was going to see her as if she was more dangerous than a shotgun. The perfect invitation for men who ran in my world.
“Bella,” I had said to my brother’s wife, before I knew I had a brother called Brando, my eyes attempting to bring Scarlett in closer. “I prefer your hair that way. You look like a…woman.” I had said these words with such passion that she had turned away from me out of respect for her husband.
These words were coming back to haunt me.
“My wife,” I breathed out.
She did not look so sure that I was her husband. She took a few short steps back, her arms crossed again, until she realized I was crowding her in, her back about to contact the wall.
She lifted her chin. “You don’t like it?” She touched her hair.
“This is not my hair,” I said, and then I cleared my throat. The words were wrong, but they were exactly right also.
“No,” she whispered. “It’s mine.”
“I do not understand the reason for this.”
“Well, I don’t understand the reason for all the violence.” She motioned toward me, the many bruises I’d accumulated over the week, and when she went to reach out and touch my face, I moved it out of her reach.
She had the nerve to look affronted, although all that I loved about her was changing before my eyes.
“I don’t understand what’s going on, Rocco! Why all you do is fight after that night.”
“I am fighting against the ghost of my past!” I roared. “All the choices that I made, that were made for me, haunting my love. When my eyes are closed, I do not see rotten fruit coming at you, but swords, guns, all things that will steal my love away from me.” I looked her up and down. “It has begun.”
“This is not all for the world,” she said. “This is for you. Who I am behind closed doors is who I’ll always be, but I refuse to allow them to shatter your pieces any more than they have. Who I am to the outside world is for all to see; who I am in our private world will be only for us.”
“You will wear a mask.” Even to my own ears, the statement was accusing. I knew a thing or two about masks and what they could do when the mask faded into the skin.
“So what if I do?”
“My wife will not wear a mask to appease the outside world. She will be herself, or she will not be anyone at all.”
“I’m still me, Rocco! Just because my hair is cut differently, I’m better at speaking Italian and now know Sicilian, and my clothes are more expensive, none of that means who I am to my core is not the same.”
I stood next to her, our eyes meeting from the side. I leaned in close to her, so close I could feel the warmth her body against the ice in my veins. Her eyes fluttered shut, her lashes reminding me of butterfly wings, her heart beating just as fast as if the small creature was being chased, and I whispered in her ear, “When you began prioritizing the world that belongs to me over me, your husband, you are not the same. You seek their approval, not mine.” With that, I left her standing alone in the empty gym.
Ermanno ran in behind me as I left.
That night, I packed our things and drove my wife and I back to Piemonte. We were silent the entire drive, and once we arrived home, not much was shared between us.
For the first time in our marriage, I did not understand her language, and she did not understand mine.
It was the first time in my life that I felt unhinged. My wife was not changing as a natural course of her life. My wife was changing so that my life would become easier. This was not the way of things. I had sacrificed my entire life for the family and its needs and wants. I would not allow her to do the same.
However, each time my heart pulled me toward the door that led back to her, my feet stayed planted. This could have been because foolish pride kept getting in the way.
Also, I had drank enough to fell a full-sized lion.
I was out in the barrel room, staring at the headlines from the opera by firelight, my eyes going in and out of focus. Even in the middle of December, smoke purling out of my mouth from the clash of the cold weather and the warmth of my breath, I had long ago shed my coat and only wore a thin undershirt and my pants with work boots.
I moved the lantern over a bit, my eyes swaying with the flames. I was burning as hot as one with no cure for the heat. The only cure was inside, humming to herself as she began to bake bread as soon as she was back in her kitchen.
Her bread.
Her focaccia.
She knew my weakness.
