by C. D. Reiss
I felt pressure on my elbow, then at the base of my spine, and lost control of my direction and will just as I caught the scent of burned pine. I couldn’t spin around to face him until the door was shut and he was pushing me against the wall of an empty room.
“Antonio,” I said firmly, “stop it.”
“Stop what?” A lock of his hair dropped in front of his eye, and his lips parted with the tick of the last T. “You can’t leave without me.”
I pressed my hands to his chest and pushed him away, but I couldn’t move him. “I know.” I paused to see if he could tell what I meant. “About Valentina.” I watched the flick in his eyes as they moved across my face, looking for my feelings on the subject. Feelings I was desperate to hide. “I’m happy for you.”
“Are you?” He took my wrists and snapped them over my head before I could resist. He pressed his body into me and spoke so close to me that his lips brushed my cheek. “Why?”
“Don’t be stupid.” I tried to wrench away, but he held my hands fast and immobilized my hips with his. My body didn’t care about wedding vows or another woman. My body wasn’t worried about moral complexities. My body surged with lust at the feel of his dick against me.
“Men are dead because of her,” he said through his teeth.
“She’s alive, Antonio. And you have a child. This is your chance at life. It’s staring you in the face. Don’t you see? You go back to her. Tell Donna Maria that was why you couldn’t marry Irene, that you knew. She’ll forgive you, and you can go home.”
He bent his knees until our eyes were level. “And you?”
I looked him in the eye. If I obfuscated even a little, he’d think I didn’t mean it. “I cop to shooting Paulie. I tell the police, not the DA. I convince them. I can do it. You walk back into the life you lost. It’s perfect.”
He let my hands go but left his hips against me. “Perfect?”
“It’s like a puzzle clicking into place. This is your only chance. It’s a gift that she’s back. Just make your life what you want.”
I was a weakling. When he cupped my chin and brushed his finger along my cheek, I turned enough to trick myself into thinking I was resisting, and I put my gaze on the floor, because I couldn’t look at him.
“I saw her, and it was shocking. I’m only a man. I thought all the things you think I did. That I could go back. That I could have another chance. I admit it. But the truth? It’s more frightening. I kissed her cheek and felt nothing. Like kissing my sister. Or a stranger. I’m not that boy anymore. I’m a man. I’m made of everything I’ve done and everything I want, and I don’t want a life in Napoli with her. That’s the idea of who I am. I want a life with you, because you accept me. All of me. I am whole with you. Only you.”
I could have fallen into him so easily. I could have broken myself apart and fit the pieces into a shape resembling sanity and morality. When he leaned in to kiss me and I felt his breath on my lips, my body bent to fit him, whoever he was and whatever he wanted.
The door snapped open, and he turned quickly to address what might be a threat. But it was Margie, looking unusually nonjudgmental. I guessed she got sick of waiting for me to get a cab to the hospital.
“Are you coming?” She looked at Antonio as she passed us. “Or do you want to stay here until they find enough to Mirandize?”
He laughed and took my hand, following Margie’s brisk pace down the stairs. They spoke another language as they walked. Not Italian, or even English. They spoke lawyer.
We got into Margie’s silver Mercedes without her or Antonio breaking the constant stream of jargon regarding Daniel’s ability to hold him.
“I wish he’d kept you,” I said, sliding into the front seat.
“Why?” Margie asked as she closed her door.
“They want to kill him. As soon as he gets out of this car, they can shoot him. Then when he leaves the hospital. And it’s not like he can go home.”
Antonio sat in the back, his shoulder against the door. Light slid over his face when Margie reversed, then it fell back into shade, then light again. Gorgeous in the light. Magnificent in the dark. Light. Dark. Light. Magnificent. Gorgeous. His lips relaxed to speak. Those full, soft, married lips.
“Don’t worry,” he said.
“I want to trust you on this, Antonio, I really do. But you can’t stop bullets with bossiness or good looks.”
“They would have killed you too.”
“I wish you guys would talk about something normal.” Margie snapped the ticket out of the parking machine and made a right. “Like cancer.”
“It’s hard to be normal with this guy.”
“I know how you feel,” she replied. “Listen, I know the director of neurology at Sequoia. I defended him on a thing. We can get his parking spot. It’s secure. I’ll coordinate with Antonio to get you both out of the hospital. Do you have a place to stay?”
“Not yet,” Antonio said.
“I got that. You have a phone?”
“No.”
“Let me take care of you tonight. I’ll get you a burner, and you can call him. But please, don’t leave fucking town until we know what’s happening with Jonathan. Please. I know it’s risky for you.” She looked at him in the rearview.
It didn’t matter if he liked her. He wouldn’t refuse her. No one could.
“It’s fine,” he said. “We came back for him.”
“You’re all right for a reprobate thug, you know that?”
“You can be a character witness at my sentencing.”
They went on like brother and sister the whole way to the hospital, while I looked out the window and reminded myself that my relationship with him was coming to a close.
We parked deep in the underground lot, past a separate gate, in a spot right next to the elevator. Antonio held the car door open for me, but I couldn’t look at him, even when we stood in front of the elevator doors.
“Mom’s medicated,” Margie said as the doors slid open with a ding. “Sheila’s managing her anger. Deirdre’s sleeping on a chair. Dad turns up in the halls sometimes. Jon’s girlfriend is the emaciated specter on the verge of tears.”
“Three short?” I asked.
“At the moment.”
thirteen.
theresa
eturning to Los Angeles had been dangerous and stupid. Our journey back had the potential to ruin our lives. If we’d continued with our plans in Mexico, Antonio would never have reconnected with Valentina. I wouldn’t be considering admitting to shooting Paulie. We would have gotten married, bought a house, had children.
But we came back for Jonathan, a fool’s errand that wouldn’t do anyone any good. When I saw my rake of a brother in that bed—tubes sticking out of him, hair a mess, skin battered in flour—I was glad I had come.
I sat in the chair beside him. “If you’re up, I’m over here.”
“I’m up,” he said, slowly turning toward me. Machines beeped incessantly, and a hiss of a medical apparatus underscored every other sound in the room. “You look like hell.”
“You look great. I saw your girlfriend on the way in.”
“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”
“Yes.”
I thought he slipped out of consciousness, or maybe he was gathering strength to speak. But his eyes closed, then opened halfway.
“She won’t marry me. I asked, and she ran off.”
“Why?”
He held up his hand, or he attempted to. He had too many tubes sticking out of him to do it properly. I held it down and squeezed it.
“Pledge open,” I said.
“Dad’s making trades with her. He bought her house to keep it from foreclosure.”
A seemingly kind gesture in my father’s hands always required a payment. You might not see it. You might not understand the depth of it, but no favor went unsettled.
“And I’m stuck in this damned bed,” he said. “She doesn’t know what she’s getting into. I don’t know how else t
o protect her.”
“I don’t blame her for saying no,” I said. “No one wants to be asked out of desperation.”
“I’m not desperate,” he protested. “I’m pressed for time. And Dad…” He took a few deep breaths. “I’ll kill him.”
“You need to get better first,” I said, as if that might give him some hope and strength. Looking at him, the very idea of recovery was as ridiculous as the idea of him dying.
“What if I don’t get better?”
“She’d be a widow.”
He swallowed, leaving a long gap between the word “widow” and our next words. I smiled to myself. If Antonio died, he’d have a widow, and it wouldn’t be me.
“I realized something today,” I said. “I realized what I thought of marriage. I think I took it all for granted, with Daniel. I just said yes because I did. Because I could, and it seemed like the next stage of life. But it’s sacred. It’s holy. Let no man tear asunder. We have to mean it when we say it. No one should rip up a contract God wrote. I’ll go to hell for plenty I did without thinking, but I won’t go for a crime I chose while knowing better.”
He didn’t answer. His eyes were closed, then he tightened them and looked at the ceiling. “What’s today?”
I counted days from the Bortolusi wedding. “The nineteenth.”
“Merry Christmas.”
That was Jonathan, naturally deflecting from his seconds-span of unconsciousness with glib sarcasm. I’d miss him if he were gone. Even if I lived far away under a different name. The world would feel less sardonic and far too serious without him in it. “What do you want under the tree? Besides a ‘yes’?”
“I want her,” he whispered. “I asked for the wrong reasons, but I want her.”
“It’s forever, Jonathan.” I put my elbows on the bed and my hand on his shoulder. “Do it for the right reasons. Don’t do it because it’s convenient. Don’t do it because you’re scared. Marry her because you love her and your life wouldn’t add up without her. Can you do that? Can you promise me you’re not forcing it? It would break my heart to see you propose because you wanted to give yourself a reason to live.”
“What’s wrong, Tee?”
“I don’t think love should be taken for granted, and I don’t think you should keep on a path of least resistance.”
“This is hardly… the Italian guy. What’s happening? You’re acting strange.”
“Can you honestly say that if you were healthy, you’d marry her?”
“Yes. But we’d have a proper engagement.”
He was sure. Through hid glassy eyes, I saw a rock-solid surety. Antonio must have been that sure when he’d asked Valentina, but me? I wasn’t beating myself up, but the circumstances had brought his proposal on too quickly, and after seeing his wife alive and well, I couldn’t assume his feelings for me would withstand her return. Even if he’d meant it when he asked me to marry him, everything had changed...
Jonathan meant it. He did. Daniel had meant it. But Antonio couldn’t.
I fished in my pocket and came up with my soot-stained ring. I pressed it into his palm. “Try again, and use this. Give it back when you can buy her her own.”
His hand didn’t close around it at first. God, he was so messed up. Was he even conscious?
“The last time I saw you,” I said, “you were killing oranges for sport and making jokes in Italian. This is… I don’t know. A wake-up call.”
I had to spend the rest of my life doing right. If I had to answer for my actions, I wanted to be able to stand up and say that I had definitively and consciously decided to be better, do better, be a person I could be proud of.
“I never joke in Italian.”
“Sorry to make it about me,” I whispered.
He smiled a little then held up the ring so he could see it. “I’m boring right now. And all anyone talks about is me. Where did you get this? They said you went on the run? Did you start robbing jewelry stores?” He lowered his hand as if he were too weak to hold it up.
I didn’t know how much of this conversation he’d remember, if any of it. “Someone really wanted me for a while. You’ve met him.”
“Daniel won’t be happy. He still wants you.”
“How do you know?”
“I know regret when I see it,” he said.
“He’ll tell himself he cares, but we cancel each other out. We add up to nothing. Trust me when I say I’d rather break up for the right reasons than get married for the wrong ones. With him, or anyone else. I’m either first in line, or I walk.”
“You’re not the uptight priss I thought you were. You’re a priss with a purpose. I’m proud of you.”
“You thought I was an uptight priss?” I said with a smile. I’d never thought of myself that way, but maybe I was.
“I think I underestimated you. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I can’t explain why I feel okay about it, but I do.”
“Thank you.” He held the ring in his fist as if he were afraid to lose it. “Pledge closed.”
“Pledge closed.” I kissed his forehead. It was cold, and my heart ached for him. “I’ll try to come back, but you might not see me for a while.”
fourteen.
theresa
left in tears. My family was in the waiting room two doors down, and I craved them. Margie and Sheila, even Mom, whose hugs felt like being loosely wrapped in chicken wire. I wanted them. A week ago, I’d wanted to get away from them, but on that day, all I wanted was to be a pack animal. Surround myself in them. Drown out thoughts of Valentina and soak in family love.
I touched my St. Christopher medal before I got in their sights. I’d avoided facing my family on the way in because I needed strength for Jonathan.
Mom sat by the window, face slack with medication. She’s been on the worst of them, then gotten off them, then on again. Her expression was as deadened as it had been during her Thorazine years. Margie and Sheila talked with their arms crossed, and the singer stood to the side as if she didn’t belong. We’d have to fix that. I’d hold her first, then hug Mom, then Sheila, and I would apologize for running away. I wouldn’t explain the unexplainable, but I would go deep into my gut for the regret and gratitude they deserved.
Except I never got to the waiting area. One minute I was walking down an empty hall wide enough for two lanes of traffic, the linoleum shining in vertical stripes where the lights were reflected, and the next, my feet didn’t feel the pressure of my body. I was pulled out of the hall so fast I didn’t have time to scream, even if a sweaty hand hadn’t been covering my mouth. My shoes slipped on the floor, and my knees dragged. I no longer had control of my body.
A door slammed, then there were steps. I clawed at my attacker. Male. Huge. Not Antonio. As I got thrown down a flight of concrete steps, I knew, even as my vision swam and my stomach flip-flopped, that I was alone. As alone as I’d ever been. No one was coming.
The man looked like the guy Antonio didn’t shoot in Tijuana. The one behind the rock. Domenico. Bruno Uvoli’s brother. I remembered it when my lungs emptied as he grabbed me and, as if he just couldn’t be bothered to carry me down the stairs, tried to thrust me down the next flight.
At the last second, I grabbed his ankle. My weight, which already had significant torque, pulled him down with me.
Bodies in motion tend to stay in motion, and we did exactly that. Elbows, knees, hips, the corners of the stairs, and gravity all battled for space. In those two turns, the civilized parts of me peeled off as if by centrifugal force, whipping away, leaving the basest, coarsest version of myself. The raw rage and adrenaline. All action and forward thrust. I considered nothing but action.
When we got to the next landing, I twisted until my hand was free, and I reached between his legs, grabbing for the soft flesh there. I squeezed, twisted, and pulled all at the same time.
Domenico’s howl woke me from my fog. He reached for me, and I couldn’t get away without letting his balls go, so he got my hair
and jerked me around.
“You fucking mick bitch.” He went for my throat with one hand and pulled his other fist back.
I kept squeezing the flesh between his legs. His hand tightened on my throat. The edges of my vision dotted black as he cut off my circulation. I kicked at him but hit nothing, and fight turned to flight as I waited for him to smash my face.
But the blow never came.
Domenico was pulled away from me, mouth half open, eyes popping as if I was still twisting his balls.
In the whoosh of air as he was drawn away from me was the scent of campfires in a pine forest. Choking on my bruised esophagus and hurting everywhere, in a stairwell that should have been guarded but obviously wasn’t, I felt safe again. I got my legs under me.
“Theresa.” His voice, unflustered by anything but simple rage, cut through my pain and disorientation.
“I’m fine.”
I wasn’t. I was beat to hell, more shattered than I ever had been in my life. Yet I was fine the second I heard his voice.
Antonio held Domenico against the railing with his left hand while he pounded his face with his right. His knee was wedged between the man’s legs, immobilizing him into a back-arched position. His face was red.
“Chi ti ha mandato?”
I scanned the stairwell. Why was no one coming? How had this even gone on so long? The camera hung in the corner like a wasps’ nest, but it was turned all the way around.
“Chi ti ha mandato?” Antonio insisted, glancing at me quickly. “I’m going to fucking kill him if he doesn’t answer.”
Domenico made gacking noises in his throat.
“I don’t think he speaks Italian,” I said through a throat full of sand.
Antonio tightened his grip. “Too bad he can’t pray in God’s language.” He got up in Domenico’s face, jabbing his knee between his legs, and whispered, “Who sent you?”
Domenico puckered his lips as if to speak through layers of spit, and Antonio turned his head a quarter to hear.
“What? Che? I can’t hear you?”
Since Antonio hadn’t loosened his chokehold one iota, there was nothing to hear. My lover was being unnecessarily brutal. Cruelty wasn’t necessary. I should have been horrified, but I wasn’t any more dismayed by this than when Antonio had made Paulie recite the Hail Mary with a gun to his head.
