“Yeah,” she whispered. “That’s something I can believe.”
“You were designed for me,Vita Mia.”
“That’s something I believed the moment I saw you. That’s something I’ll believe in for the rest of my life.”
I barely got the one word out. “Bene.”
She smiled at me again. “Have you done this before? Fish the bayou, I mean?”
One nod. “This will be my first time with a partner.”
“This will be my first time at all.”
My smile and hers came slow. Then she began to laugh, the musical sound echoing through the cypress trees, capturing a piece of it for always. I wanted to live in those trees when I died, only to be close to the sound of it.
“I didn’t know fishing was a two-person deal, but…let’s do this.” She held her hand up and I set mine against hers, wrapping my fingers around her entire small hand. A hand that was so powerful in my life, if she requested my beating heart for a debt owed, I would open my chest and offer it to her.
I rowed us into a shaded spot, and we floated while I prepared our poles. My wife chatted, her voice barely above a whisper, about her life…how her grandfather enjoyed his garden, occasionally he would go fishing, but not along the bayous, and how her Nonna loved to cook all that he brought home. She shared with me stories of her childhood so easily, and when she grew quiet, I asked her to tell me more. I was almost starved for the companionship, the idea that my heart would confide in me about all her memories. She was so animatedduring the high times that the boat kept tipping from left to right with the fast pace of her hands.
“Whoa!” She laughed, grabbing for me instead of the sides of the boat. “My hands are like two motors, and they’re almost too much for this boat. I’m going to tip us over.”
“I will save you.”
“Even from alligators?” Her eyes took in the muddy water for a second before they came back to me.
“From all that I possibly can. I will defend you until my last breath.”
“I know.” She stared at me with so much love in her expression, it made me roll my shoulders. I had seen my brother, Brando, do this from time to time when his wife became…softer with her words or the way she looked at him.
I had not thought I would do the same, but it was an odd feeling that sat in my chest when my wife did it to me. It was different from anything I was familiar with. Perhaps I would grow accustomed to it. Perhaps not. This was her power in my life.
I cleared my throat. “Tell me more stories,Vita Mia.”
“More?” She laughed. “I’ve filled this entire bayou up with talk.”
“My heart needs this.”
It took her a second to respond, and when she did, she whispered, “Okay,” and rubbed her hands on her shorts before she began again.
After not enough time, she quieted again, perhaps finding it hard to remember more stories, but I had a feeling her mind had snagged on something unpleasant. An issue she repressed but sometimes brought into the light at times such as these.
“Your mamma and papa have lost a great deal,” I said, reading her emotions as if they belonged to me. They did. She belonged to me. All of her.
She blinked and then shrugged. “I didn’t miss it all that much. Not when I had grandparents who loved me as much as mine did.”
“True, but this does not mean your parents have not lost a treasure. Your father understands this now. Your mamma will some day. Both will always have an incomplete heaven.”
“I’ve forgiven him,” she whispered. “I had to for my own sanity. I’ve forgiven her too. What else can we do?”
We both grew quiet until she gasped and tightened her grip on her pole.
“Something just tugged at my line!” she whispered.
I grinned and moved behind her, my head over her shoulder, to help her reel in her catch. However, I did not expect her to yank as hard as she did, and for the fish to be as small as it was. She turned her head toward me, and the pole hit me in the head at the same time our eyes connected. Even behind the dark depths of her lenses, I could sense how wide her stare had become. The fish swung around on the line, smacking me in the back of the head before hitting me on the side of the face.
My wife.
She was hysterical with laughter.
