“With strength and grace,” she whispered.
My eyes flew up to hers.
“No.” She waved a hand. “I don’t feel anything serious from you like that, but people often react to bad news in the same way they deal with life. You’re a woman of strength and grace, Ari. I’ve always known how special you are. Your grandmother knew it. Eva knows it. You’re exactly what Rocco needs. Fausti life isn’t for the faint of heart, you know? You’ll be his wife, in every sense of the word—and that’s exactly what a man like Rocco, the future leader of the family, needs. And he’ll be your husband, in every sense of the word—all that a woman like you needs in this life.”
She became quiet for a second.
“Maggie Beautiful…I love her like she’s my own mom, but…she’s always been a wild child. A child herself when she had my husband. Maggie Beautiful is accustomed to ignoring problems, and usually, they would go away. Because Brando made them go away for her—bills, things like that. Luca does the same thing for her. He makes things disappear that she refuses to face. She took the same approach when she had cancerous cells. She refused to talk about it. She only looks forward to the future as if the present has no bad news to deal with.
“So, in her own way, she refuses to give it power in her life—she has strength too, just in a different way. She’s always been different. Perhaps that’s why I fell in love with her the moment my eyes met hers. I’ll never forget the day I met her...” Scarlett looked away from me, taking a moment to compose herself.
I could tell she and Maggie Beautiful had a strong bond. I reached out and squeezed her hand. It was chilled to the bone, either from the anxiety she was feeling or from the cold drink. “Eva?” I asked to change the subject. Scarlett was having a hard time pulling herself together.
Maybe she didn’t want to keep talking about the times she and Maggie Beautiful had shared, because it would seem like we were talking about the good times to remember her by.
She sighed, shaking her head. “If she had a dream about all of this…she hasn’t shared it with me.”
“Me either,” I said.
“I never know what’s worse in this situation, knowing or not knowing.”
“I would think knowing would give you power—you can act. I wish I would’ve taken the same advice years ago. Not about anything as serious as health, but my life in general. I get Maggie Beautiful because I once was her. I ignored a lot.”
“And if you can’t?” She turned to face me. “Take action?”
Our eyes held again.
“Yeah.” I sighed. “I see your point.”
“I don’t mean to pry, but I’m assuming you haven’t told Rocco about the exchange with Luca?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I want to be sure what I felt was right. Maybe Luca was just coming to talk to me about something serious. The situation in Italy, with Francesco, has me nervous. We found a few letters…” I explained to her what Rocco and I had found in the storage unit—the letters that had belonged to my great-aunt, the same letters my grandmother had hid.
She was listening so intently, she gazed off into the distance. I almost imagined hearing the old clock ticking on the mantle, but I’d cleared it out when I’d left. It was an antique from my grandfather’s side. His mamma had given it to my Nonna as a wedding gift. A family heirloom.
The old house creaked a bit before it settled into silence.
Scarlett snatched my hand and squeezed. “I think…Francesco and his line are going to be a problem,” she whispered. “The day of the showdown on the island, I knew the potential was there, but the pieces are beginning to connect.”
“How?”
She shrugged. “I don’t have all the answers. I just know what I feel. My senses are…firing, for lack of a better word, and it’s like they know something’s coming, but all the pieces haven’t joined the rest yet. It can be so frustrating!”
“Do you think…” I took a big sip of my drink. Felt the coolness rush down my throat. The citrus dance on my tongue. “Do you think the situation with Francesco will connect to Maggie Beautiful somehow?”
Scarlett took a dainty sip of her drink. “Yes,” she whispered. “Somehow, I think it’s all going to connect.”
“Me too,” I agreed. I looked off into the distance, my mind taking me places I wasn’t sure I wanted to go. “I haven’t written since the island. Even though it hasn’t been forever, and I’m using forever as an exaggeration, since my first book, I feel almost guilty when I don’t write. Even if it’s only one word. I struggled with that after my debut novel. Finding the right words. Then I went to Aria Island, and everything fell into place. Rocco. He became my inspiration.”
“You wrote your love story,” she said.
I nodded. “I did. I didn’t realize I was documenting how our relationship would unfold. Nothing will ever be as sweet to me, or worth the immortalization on the page, unless it’s a continuation of our story, maybe for our children to read. But now… Now I’m terrified of another horror story coming to me, except this one won’t be in the distance, this one will hit too close to home.”
“That wasn’t your horror story, though, Ari. That was your father’s. He was connecting pieces of a story he meant to write. You commandeered his ship, so to speak. You. You’re different. The first book might have given you ground, but your love story with Rocco gave you wings. Perhaps if you do start to write another book, it’ll give you the answers to all that’s going on right now. I don’t always get that. Neither does Eva. Like yousaid, if you know what’s coming, perhaps you can change it. That’s such a blessing. Forethought. Preparation. Action instead of just…knowing and being helpless.”
“I don’t trust myself yet.”
“You will. It just takes time. It’s like being a mom for the first time. You have instincts for a reason. And the more babies you have, the better you get. By the time Maestro came along, I could change a diaper with one hand—anywhere.”
