His eyes narrow and when he steps closer, I take two steps back. “Don’t fucking test me. Not now.”
I swallow. He’s warning me and for the first time since I’ve known him, I realize I don’t know the lengths this man will go to, the violence he’s used to. The violence he’s caused. I thought I did, but I was wrong. To think you know something but then to really understand it, to feel it, those are two very different things.
He clears his throat. “Natalie—”
I look away, fold my arms across my chest. “Just go.”
“There’s some food—”
“I’m not hungry. Just go. Go fucking fix it.”
“Trust me, Natalie.”
I walk away. I don’t want to hear anymore. I need to get Pepper settled. I find her in the kitchen eating the last of herdinner, oblivious to the shit storm in the other room. I don’t turn around when I hear the two men speaking in hushed tones in the hallway. The front door opens and closes, and I hear a car’s engine start. Pepper licks my face when I sit on the floor beside her. I don’t know if I’m angry or hurt or scared or what. Sergio takes liberties, assumes things, and thing is, I know that’s him. I know this is how it will be with him. Tonight is just a preview of what I’m signing up for.
Irritated with myself, I get up, take Pepper by the collar.
“Come on, let’s find ourselves a bedroom.” Because I’m not sleeping in his.
It’sfour in the morning when I abruptly wake up, bolting upright in the strange bed, gasping for breath.
The nightmare is gone as soon as my eyes open but it takes me a moment to remember where I am. Why I’m here.
Pepper’s snore comes from the foot of the bed. I draw the covers back and get up. I don’t want to sleep again. I don’t want to go back to that dream.
Quietly, I walk out the door and into the hallway. It’s dark, and I wonder if he’s back yet. If I’m alone in this big, strange house. But when I reach the top of the stairs, I hear a sound. Music. It’s muted, like it’s coming from far away.
Barefoot, I walk down the stairs without switching on any lights. It’s eerie this time of night. Old houses always are.
The music grows louder as I near the bottom of the stairs. It’s coming from his study. I go to it and stop, and I hear him. He’s singing along with the music. I recognize the song.Darlin’by Houndmouth.
I feel like I’m intruding on something very private so I knock once, quietly, before opening the door.
Sergio’s sitting behind his desk. His jacket’s off and his shirt’s unbuttoned half way down, the sleeves rolled up to the elbow. His hair’s ruffled, like he’s been running his hands through it, and his eyes are bloodshot. I know why. The bottle on the corner of the desk is almost empty.
“You’re back,” I say, when he just sits there and looks at me. I realize the song is on repeat because it dies down then starts up again.
Without waiting for an invitation, I step inside and close the door behind me. It smells like him in here. Like his aftershave and whiskey.
I look down at what’s on the desk. At the large parchment that spans the entire surface. He’s holding two pencils in his hand. Charcoal. His white shirt has smears of it and so do his hands and forearms. The triangle wedge of a worn eraser sits near his glass.
He doesn’t get up when I go to the desk. When I look down at the large sheet. It takes me a moment to realize it’s a family tree.
I begin to read the names, the dates. There are symbols next to some of them—a small cross. It’s the only thing that’s not charcoal, but red marker. The crosses are the only permanent things, I realize. All the rest can be erased.
Sergio watches me as I study his lineage, follow the line from great-grandfather, to grandfather, to his father, Franco Benedetti. To his mother. To Sergio.
His brothers’ names are beside his. Alongside those, I see lines drawn, boxes prepared for a second name. But next to his, where there was a line, it’s now just smudged, erased. Just his birthday beneath with a dash. An eerie emptiness on the other side of that dash. A sort of permanence.
When I look up, I find him watching me. “Did you draw this?”
He pushes his chair back, rises to his feet, gestures for me to come to his side. I do and he takes my hand, draws me closer, stands me between himself and the desk.
Sergio closes his hands over the backs of mine, takes the pointer finger of my right one and traces a line up to his father, to another name I don’t know. Presses it over the red cross—it’s shaped like a cross from the days of the crusades. Gothic almost. Like he spent time shaping each one. Outlining each with darkest black, colored each in deepest red.
“The cross is a mob killing,” he says. And, without a word, we trace ever single macabre cross on the sheet, he and I. I don’t count. I lose track. I feel him behind me, feel the weight of his silence. The meaning of it.
When we get to his name, he traces the erased line. He’s standing so close, I feel the heat of his body behind mine, the tickle of his warm whiskey-breath on the nape of my neck. The light kisses there.
