Cyprian the Fair

by C. L. Cattano

  38

  LOOKING UP AFTER reading the last lines on the page, Eden Kingsley saw Rafe had been watching her. The letter was beautiful, and Eden couldn’t hide the emotions it brought out in her. “It must have been amazing to read this,” Eden said looking down at the page. “Your mother loved you very much.”

  “She did,” Rafe agreed. “But don’t you see?” she asked, upset that Eden was missing the point of why they were sitting in a cemetery. “She didn’t die just because I was skipping school. She knew everything. She was even talking to her and painting her. The day she died, she was making sure I didn’t skip school to be with Maria. She and Brettito both died because I was sneaking around to spend time with Maria,” she said in a low grumbling tone, “because I wanted to be with her all the time.”

  Rafe snatched the drawing pad from Eden. “I couldn’t tell them. I couldn’t tell anyone. I had to keep the kiss with Maria a secret, and it led to their deaths!” she explained in frustration as she pointed to herself, her feelings of guilt and sorrow welling up inside. “I couldn’t tell anyone.” She stared at Eden intensely. “You can’t tell anyone!”

  “I won’t,” said Eden shakily, shocked at Rafe’s reaction.

  Rafe took a shuddering breath. “If Gabri ever knew, he would hate me,” she said in distress. “No one can know what I did. He helped me, and he loves me. I don’t think I could live if I lost him from my life,” she said feverishly. “He’s the only one left who was with me and really knows everything. He went through everything with me and has always been the one I could talk to about everything,” she paused, “everything except Maria. He thinks that going to America made me gay.” She chuckled miserably. “He was very upset when I told him we would never marry, but loved me enough to remain my friend. If he knew Brettito was wasting his time back then, trying to impress me by getting involved with the zingari boys, and I was the reason he was shot in the street. . .” Rafe’s eyes were filled with desperation. “I don’t know what he would do. He would hate me! He would never want to have anything to do with me!”

  “I don’t think he would hate you,” said Eden quietly. “You were all just kids trying to find your way.”

  Rafe was in disbelief at how wrong Eden was. “He would hate me!” she said forcefully. “Then, on top of that,” Rafe gave a manic laugh, “my father told me I couldn’t talk to anyone about either my mother or Brettito. We had to keep my being sick a secret and not cause damage to his career and my future.”

  Eden tentatively put her arm around Rafe. “I’m sorry you had to keep so many secrets,” she said softly. She wondered why Rafe hadn’t mentioned any anger at the fact her father had known about Maria and had never said a word to her about it all her life. He just left the painting out for her to find triggering an emotional breakdown and now causing her so many problems.

  Rafe pulled away and looked down at the sketchpad with the precise handwriting her mother left behind. After she found the notebook, she wondered a thousand times what her life would have been like if she would have found it sooner.

  “I decided, after Brettito died, I wouldn’t keep the fact I was gay a secret. I told my father. I told my teachers. Eventually, when I worked up the courage, I even told Gabri. I told everyone. I couldn’t live with myself if something else happened because I kept it a secret.” She tore the page out of the sketchpad then dug into the canvas bag and pulled out a lighter. “We have to burn this so no one will know what I did. So it never shows up unexpected again.”

  Eden and put her hand over Rafe’s. “Wait,” she demanded. “Rafe, this is a beautiful letter from your mother. You can’t burn it,” she insisted.

  “I have to,” she said shakily and pulled a small hammer and a chisel from the bag. “We’ll burn it, and we’ll put the ashes in the tomb with my father. I put the painting with him,” she revealed while looking at his tomb. She ran her hand over the plaque and the cement around it. “I think I can chip off the cement and work out a brick. I can put it back then tell them it was vandalized. They can fix it, and I’ll pay for the repairs.”

  Eden couldn’t believe Rafe was planning to break open her father’s tomb to add a page of ashes. No. She could not believe Rafe was planning to break open his tomb–period.

  “Wait, I don’t think you should do that,” said Eden trying to think of a way to stop what was happening. “Can’t you put the ashes in one of these smaller places, or in one of the urns? What am I saying. . .” she mumbled as she ran her hands through her hair nervously. “You can’t burn the letter. Don’t you want to keep it? I’d love to have something so loving from my mother and have it to show my daughter someday.”

  Rafe could not hide the expression revealing she found Eden’s words insane. “No. I don’t want to keep it. I’ll remember what she wrote. I can’t keep this,” she waved the page in front of Eden. “It’s a reminder of what I did, and it will hurt Gabri if he ever finds out. It’ll destroy my life if anyone else knows! You have to help me get rid of it, and no one can ever know that my mother knew about Maria. No one else can ever know about Maria. It’s why we’re here! You promised!” She sat on the floor of the mausoleum and pulled the canvas bag to her. She reached inside, pulled out a metal bowl, and sat it in front of her. She rolled the letter up and pulled the lighter out of the bag to start burning it.

  “Wait!” Eden called, and Rafe looked up at her. “Here,” she said, “let me see it.” She took the letter from Rafe’s hand and unrolled it. She folded it part way down and creased it. “Look, if I tear it here, you can keep the bottom part. This way you burn the part talking about Maria and about being gay, but you can keep the rest of what your mother wrote to you. What do you think?”

  Rafe considered her words for a moment as she examined where Eden folded the letter. “Okay,” she said softly, “Okay.” She nodded in agreement.

  Eden carefully tore off the lower section of the letter then looked down at Rafe. “This is mine now,” she said as Rafe watched her fold the page and put it in her back pocket. “I want this to stay in the world. This is good advice from your mother, and the part below it is what you wrote about me and how you feel about me.” Eden met Rafe’s eyes again and saw she was looking at her with a frown. “I don’t want this burned or left in a mausoleum in Italy, and I don’t want you to get rid of it someday. This is not a secret we have to keep,” Eden said assertively. “No one has to know there was more to this letter. If you really think you need to, you can burn this,” she said as she handed Rafe the top half of the letter. “But now I don’t think there will be enough ashes to justify opening your father’s tomb. Let’s just,” she stammered, “just put it in the back of one of these smaller openings. No one will even need them for over seventy years, right? I think that’ll be good enough. Don’t you?”

  Rafe thought about it and examined the ossuary vaults Eden was talking about and then back to the section of the letter. “Okay,” she agreed softly. “Sit down and block the air in case there’s a breeze.”

  She waited for Eden to sit down in front of her then began burning the small section of the letter. She let the paper burn catching the ashes in the small metal bowl. When the paper was consumed and was nothing more than ash, she took the bowl to the mausoleums empty ossuary vault where Eden suggested they put the ashes. She then slid the entire bowl back as far as she could by climbing inside. “There,” she said as she pulled herself out of the small square hole. “It’s pretty far back. It may never get noticed unless the vault gets used by the next family who pays for the mausoleum.” She brushed the dust off her clothes and picked up her canvas bag shoving the drawing pad and the tools inside. “Come on,” she said, and they walked out of the mausoleum.

  39

  WALKING THROUGH THE cemetery, Rafe Salvaggio led Eden closer to the ossuary building, finally stopping in front of a grave. “This is where Brettito used to be,” she told Eden. “But now he’s somewhere in the building over there.” She pointed to a building
that looked like a small church. “It’s the ossuary for the in-ground graves. They moved him a couple of years ago. He’s been dead for over twenty years, but sometimes, it still seems like it was yesterday to me.”

  “Why did they move him?” Eden asked, surprised they would move a body from a grave.

  Rafe shrugged. “To make room,” she explained. “My father paid for twenty years. His family thought it was enough. Now he’s in a very small box piled on top of other small boxes full of bones. I never like the thought of all those bone boxes. I would take them all to America, but they belong here.” She shifted her eyes toward Eden. “But I don’t belong here,” she said firmly. “I don’t want to come back here again.” She turned and started walking to the cemetery gate.

  Eden followed with feelings of confusion and concern. She didn’t understand why Rafe was being so insistent about not belonging in the cemetery. The memory of their therapy session and Rafe’s outburst about death needing a choice ran through her mind. Gabri said she was doing better. Eden worried Rafe was thinking about or planning her death. It scared her. She caught up to Rafe and touched her arm. “Rafe,” she said taking her arm to stop her. “Rafe, wait.”

  “What?” Rafe turned to Eden with a frown. She wanted to leave this place.

  “Why are you saying those things?”

  “What things?”

  “The things about not belonging here and being turned into a diamond,” she said. She felt a small trickle of sweat run down her back. “It scares me,” she confessed. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. I don’t know what it means when you say those things. Do you think about death? Are you thinking about hurting yourself? Please,” she said shakily, “please don’t—” She was stopped from saying more by the anxiety thrumming through her.

  Rafe scowled down at Eden. “I’m not that sick,” she retorted. She wondered if she should feel insulted because Eden thought she was so weak or pride because Eden thought she was brave enough to end herself. She could never quite figure out if suicide was a product of weakness or strength. She knew that sometimes she wished she would just not wake up, but she didn’t think it was the same as self-harm. “I only wanted you to know that, when I die, I don’t want to be here. It doesn’t mean anything. It probably won’t matter anyway because Gabri knows. We’re here, and I was telling you other things, so I just told you that too,” she said with a shrug.

  Eden wondered if Rafe was telling the truth or covering her tracks. “Okay,” she said softly. “Good. Bronte and I need you.”

  “If you say so,” said Rafe, doubtful Eden really needed her anymore for anything. “Let’s go.” She turned once again to make her way out of the cemetery with Eden following close behind.

  40

  HOLDING ON TIGHT as she rode on the back of the motorcycle, Eden Kingsley thought about how, so far, the day had not gone the way she thought it might. Spending time in a cemetery, burning secrets, and talking about death made her wonder exactly what kind of help Gabri was getting for Rafe. She thought that maybe Rafe would be better off going home to get better help.

  Eden was glad she convinced Rafe not to burn the entire letter her mother wrote. She was telling the truth about wishing her own mother loved her as Rafe’s mother had loved her. It was interesting to know Mary talked to Ettore about the possibility of Rafe being gay. Maybe it’s why he was so nice to me, she thought. Maybe he knew Rafe would find the letter.

  She thought about the possibility, remembering what happened to Rafe when she saw the painting done of Maria by her mother. Eden wondered if Ettore let Rafe find the letter to see if she would get sick and planned to do the same with the painting before he died. She could not think of a reason Rafe’s father would want to hurt her and put her through such turmoil again, but the whole thing pricked at her mind.

  Eden remembered Abby saying Rafe changed soon after she got the car from her father. Then, after seeing the painting while she was grieving for her father, Rafe had an emotional blackout. She wondered if Rafe was right, and Ettore was still punishing her even after his death. A surge of anger at Ettore rushed through Eden, and then a wave of protectiveness for Rafe followed. Eden would always hope she was wrong because if she weren’t, it would be very hard to defend Ettore the way Rafe wanted.

  Lifting her head to see if she could tell where Rafe was taking them, Eden saw they were back in the city. She hoped Rafe wasn’t taking her back to her hotel. She wanted to spend more time with her. Her heart sank as she saw they were, in fact, heading to the hotel. Rafe stopped and parked the motorcycle. Eden held on to her a little longer than she needed to, then she sighed and got off the bike.

  Taking off her helmet, Eden turned to Rafe. “Do you want to come up and see Bronte?” she asked hopefully, trying anything to keep her longer. “Julia might be there too unless she got an au pair to stay with the baby for a while.”

  “Oh, you want to go up?” asked Rafe as she stowed the helmets and unzipped her jacket. “I thought you might want to walk around.”

  Eden could not help grinning. “Yeah, I’d like to walk with you.”

  “We can get Bronte if you want,” Rafe offered with a shrug as she fixed her hair tie. Remembering how hard it was for Eden to be away from Bronte, she thought maybe Eden was worried about the baby.

  “No, I think we can spend more time alone together,” said Eden. She couldn’t help noticing how beautiful Rafe was with her hair pulled back and in her sexy leather outfit. “I’d like some more one-on-one time.” She smiled, trying not to show too much excitement.

  “Okay.” Rafe gave a weak smile back. She grabbed the key to the bike, locked the saddlebags, and then walked with Eden down the street.

  “We went to the music festival,” Eden said as she walked happily next to Rafe. “We didn’t see Gabri or Nora, but there was a lot of good music. Nora gave us tickets to a couple of the bigger shows.”

  “They play tonight,” said Rafe. “Gabri will be revealing his new music and promoting his CD. They’ll go on tour after the baby is born and Nora can travel.”

  “Maybe we can go see them tonight. Together,” Eden suggested, trying to be nonchalant.

  Rafe smiled but made no promises. It was well past noon, and the familiar restaurant they were passing didn’t look too busy.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Sure.”

  “Great, let’s go in here,” Rafe suggested then led Eden into the restaurant. “I’ll buy.”

  They walked inside, and the owner, who obviously knew Rafe, immediately accosted them. Eden noticed he called her Rafaella and was very happy to see her. He gave them a private table and yelled at the waiter who promptly brought them their dishes and cutlery. Rafe talked to the owner for a moment then he left looking very pleased.

  “Do you come here often,” she asked with a smile as the waiter brought wine and poured it for them.

  “As a matter of fact, I came here almost every day for about a month.” She nodded toward the wall.

  Eden examined the wall covered with an aging mural then smiled with confusion at Rafe. “What am I supposed to be looking at?” Rafe leaned over putting her hand on the wall. Eden arched her brow when she saw Rafe’s name painted there. “Did you paint the mural? It looks old.”

  Rafe chuckled. “That’s the point,” she said. “The owner had a problem with the wall bowing because of a structural problem. I helped him find the right people to fix it then so it wouldn’t look like a new wall, I aged the brick and painted the mural. He paid for all the supplies, and I provided the labor.”

  “What’s that devil face in the corner?” she asked.

  “Oh, it’s just a logo for the company I got the paint from. Cifarelli Restoration Pigments. I met Maestro Cifarelli’s niece, Tait, and she was kind enough to help me get a great deal. They’re very expensive and hard to get.”

  It took more than a handshake to get the expensive and exclusive paint. It took being vetted, signing usage agreements, and help from
Tait Cifarelli. The paint formula was so precise that, if not for the Cifarelli logos included within the work, the mural could be mistaken for a historical piece. But no one was ever interested in the preparation process, just the result.

  Eden nodded as she studied the mural in wonder, once again impressed with Rafe’s talent. “You never cease to amaze me,” she said with a wink.

  Rafe laughed and took a sip of her wine. “What made it fun for me were all the customers coming in to watch me paint,” said Rafe. “Once word got out his wall was fixed, and someone was painting a mural, people came to watch the progress and brought a lot of friends. The owner was so happy that I now eat free whenever I come in,” she said with a cocky smile.

  Eden laughed. “Oh! Now I know why you offered to buy.”

  “Yep.” Rafe grinned as the waiter placed their lunch on the table.

  Eden watched Rafe as she ate and was glad she seemed to be doing better. She loved seeing Rafe sitting across from her again. “Do you remember when we vacationed here and stayed in the apartment overlooking the river?”

  “Yes.” Rafe nodded and sipped her wine.

  “It was perfect, wasn’t it?” asked Eden, recalling the trip they took years ago before they moved in together. “Maybe we can stay there again some time.”

  Rafe shrugged. “My father sold it,” she said then took a bite of food.

  “It was your fathers?”

  “Yes,” said Rafe with a short laugh. “You don’t think I would come to Italy and stay in a hotel or rent someplace when he owned so much real estate here, do you?”

  “I guess I never really thought about it,” Eden admitted as she ate.

  “Yeah, you were just thinking about sex,” Rafe teased her.