Life Begins

by Taki James

  “No. SpongeBob now,” Josif screamed out.

  Josie moved to argue when Žarko held his hand out to her. “Screaming will not help. You will ask and not cry, like baby.”

  Josif pouted for a moment, but he eventually sucked in his tears to say, “Please, tata. I’m not sleepy.” Žarko then turned to look at Josie, his eyes asking for her opinion. Honestly, Josie didn’t know what was the right answer. Jason had done a great job sitting still and behaving in the theatre, and he did actually get some sleep, something not always easy to do for the energetic toddler.

  She looked at the girls, who also seemed excited about the notion of a second movie. Josie sighed. “I guess I can do the laundry tomorrow.” The only problem would be dealing with a hungry Juljiana, but the mall did have a family restroom that she could feed her daughter in before the movie.

  “Let’s go buy the tickets, tata,” Josf said, popping out of his seat to run toward the movie theatre again. Žarko just managed to grab the back of his jacket to keep him from moving too far away. He passed Josie the baby so that she could handle her business and then walked the young boy to the ticket window.

  Josie heard the girls laughing and had to shake her head. “Come on, girls. Let’s get this table cleaned up and then we’ll go to the restroom.” She knew that the girls would help her to feed and change the baby, especially if it would get them the option of going to another movie.

  Baby Juljiana was not a happy baby, not that Josie felt any better. Her poor little baby was teething and obviously, the pain seemed to drive the little girl crazy. Worse yet, her husband had suddenly been called away to work. It’s like the whole house felt suddenly different with him not here. Josif took forever to get to sleep because he wouldn’t stop pitching a fit. The girls had also been a little ornery about bedtime because they suddenly decided that they didn’t want to go to school. Josie was just too tired to deal with any of it and had been forced to put her foot down so that everyone had to get into bed and go to sleep.

  “Come on, baby girl,” she crooned to her little girl. Not even the pacifier worked and that was like an ace in the hole usually. “We’ve got to go to sleep or you’re going to be really cranky in the morning.” Naturally, her little girl just wouldn’t listen.

  Finally, Josie laid the baby on the bed and pretty much let her cry it out while she tried tapping against her chest. Maybe they had some baby oralgel in the medicine cabinet. She did remember asking Žarko to stop at the store for her.

  She ran quickly to their bathroom, but couldn’t find anything that would possibly soothe her daughter’s crankiness. She tried not to cry herself, even as she returned to the bedroom and flopped down on Žarko’s side of the bed. Her head hit something hard beneath the pillow. She reached her hand beneath and felt something she never would have thought she would in the safety of her own home.

  She shot up from the spot, picking her daughter up on the way down to the kitchen. At the very least, she supposed that the others could get some sleep. She planned to wait up for her husband, because she could never sleep, knowing that there was a gun so close to her. Baby Juljiana finally fell asleep sometime after two a.m., but Josie stayed wide awake, her mind racing.

  The front door opened sometime around three in the morning. Josie’s eyes popped open. Her husband stood in the open door way, dark eyes staring at her. “What is going on?” he asked, before noticing the baby in her arms.

  “There’s a gun under your pillow,” Josie blurted out, not giving him a chance to come forward. “Why do you have a gun?”

  He didn’t say anything for a long time. Instead, he closed the door behind him and began the process of taking off his coat and other winter gear. “How are you finding gun?” He took the baby from her arms on his way back up the stairs. Josie followed close behind him, not for a moment allowing him to get away from her.

  “Does it matter how I found it? Why is it in my bedroom?”

  Žarko continued to say nothing as he laid the baby in her bed. Then, he pulled her with him to their own room, where he removed the gun from under his pillow and reached under the bed to do something that she couldn’t see. She could only assume that he put the gun somewhere because he didn’t have it when he stood again. “Gun is allowed in our room, if it is helping me to keep my family safe. I did not mean for you to find the gun.”

  But he had it. “Is it your only gun?” He shook his head, no. “How many do you have?” And where was he keeping them?

  “Do not ask questions that you are not wanting answers to. Just trust me that house is safe and that I am making sure that it remains safe.”

  She just had to know. “Safe from what? What is it that you do?” She couldn’t help the grimace on her face at asking that question, because she wasn’t sure that she wanted to know. But, in this case, she really had to know what was going on if he was being this extra secretive about everything.

  Žarko watched her as he undressed and readied himself for bed. She wondered what he had to be thinking. It was only when he finally came to stand before her that she really began to worry. He looked so serious. The sight had her nibbling on her lips in nervousness. “Žarko. You’re really starting to scare me right now.” Am I really wanting to know what’s going on?

  “Are you sure you can handle knowing the truth? It is not easy thing.”

  She took a deep breath and tried to calm her pulsating heart. “Žarko, please tell me.” She would have to deal with the consequences of her decisions later. If she could handle things that he had to say.

  “You cannot leave me once I say this. We are being in this life together after this.”

  She nodded. “Okay.” She didn’t have plans to leave in the first place. God, she was so scared. “Just tell me.”

  “I handle things in a certain type of business. Things that are not always legal or very safe.”

  So in other words, mob. The very knowledge shot through her, causing her knees to collapse beneath her. Her husband caught her around the back, his other arm catching her behind the knees to lift her off her feet. “It is late. Girls will be awake soon and you will need sleep to function.” She listened, allowing him to lay her down and climb into bed with her. It wasn’t like she knew what to say. “Do not think that your life will change,” he whispered to her in the darkness. “You are still wife and mother to children. You are not using gun or changing the way that you work. If there is danger, then I will handle it, so that you can relax.”

  “But then, you will be in danger and now I will have to worry.” She felt the tears beginning to prickle at the edges of her eyes. He laid a kiss against her temple.

  “Rest. We will talk about it in the morning.” The morning did not make her feel any better.

  Chapter 14

  The thought of packing her children and leaving tempted her all throughout the day. No matter how hard she tried to fight it, she couldn’t help but think about the fact that her husband did mob work for a living. He didn’t tell her the role that he played in the organization, and she didn’t ask, but it now made sense when she thought about how easily he paid off her debts.

  His anger at her ex-husband also made sense, as well as the fact that he was so willing to do violence for the offence of Gary simply touching her.

  She didn’t know a thing about being a mob wife. She couldn’t bear to watch the Sopranos when it came on television and the few times she did watch with someone, she found that she wasn’t exactly thrilled about some of their actions. As much as she had come to trust her husband, she now found herself wondering about some of his late hours.

  Did he have another woman on the side? It wouldn’t be impossible considering she hadn’t ever thought to ask him certain questions previously. Now, she found herself really feeling silly for not asking. It was like, she hadn’t learned anything at all from her time with Gary.

  But, no matter how much the thought of staying with him frightened her, she decided that she needed to hold to her promis
e that she wouldn’t leave him, not that she thought that he would ever allow her to in the first place. Besides, she wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving after Žarko spent so much money helping her to get out of debt. Then, there was also the girls. She loved those two girls and didn’t want them to suffer from her leaving because she couldn’t get a handle on her fear.

  She didn’t know what to do, or even, what to think. God didn’t seem willing to answer her prayers. Or maybe he did and she just wasn’t listening to him. Whatever she did, she had to make a decision before he woke and stopped her from trying to run away.

  “What’s wrong, majka?” Ljiljiana asked her at the breakfast table.

  Josie jumped, even as she tried to put on a smile. “Nothing. I just didn’t get much sleep last night with the baby and with waiting up for your father. Now, I’m just tired and being silly.” That answer should hopefully make sense for the intelligent little girl. It was mostly true anyway. She knew that she was being silly.

  Žarko wasn’t about to become some other man just because she found out about what he did for a living. At least, she hoped that he didn’t suddenly change into another person. That would just kill her inside.

  “I hate when tata works late,” Desa said, pancakes partly stuffed in her mouth. “He’s never fun when he leaves at night.”

  “That’s because he’s tired,” Ljiljiana said in response. “That’s why we now have majka, to make sure that we get to school on time and have fun.”

  The other little girl pouted, but only briefly before the call of breakfast dragged her back to eating. Josie remained quiet, now understanding more than the girls about why their father sometimes wasn’t fun. If he did the things that she assumed he did, then obviously it would take him at least a little time to get himself feeling like a normal human being again.

  Could that have been why he didn’t mind paying for her to be the mother of his children? It kept him from forcing himself to have a cheer he didn’t feel on nights when he had to do some dirty work? She hated that she didn’t know and probably couldn’t ask him and feel right to do so. It was a spiritual struggle inside her that kept pulling her in different directions, never letting her go long enough to feel as if she could relax.

  “I probably should get you guys to school. Make sure you have all your things because I would hate for you not get full points for your work.”

  After she dropped off the girls, she returned home to find her husband awake with both kids. They sat on the sleek new black sofa that Žarko had bought for the home, watching some children’s programming that she couldn’t understand, because, of course, it was in Serbian. Her son gave her a wide smile as soon as he saw her. “Hi, mama.” She felt her husband’s eyes watching her as she entered the room. She felt strange, almost like she was a stranger in her own house.

  “Good morning, baby boy. Did you sleep well?” He nodded his head enthusiastically, as if he hadn’t given her trouble during the night. “Are you guys hungry? I made pancakes for the girls and still have some batter left over.”

  She would have thought it was Christmas morning, the way that Josif smiled at her. “Please.”

  She gave a brief laugh on the way to the kitchen. “Okay, then. Pancakes it is.” She would just have to talk to her husband later.

  “Can we talk?” Josie asked her husband as soon as she entered his office hidden at the back of the house. She had just gotten her two to lay down for their nap and felt that this would be the perfect time to finish the conversation that she needed to have with the man she called her husband.

  He beckoned her inside. “Come, sit down.” She did, taking the seat that he pulled right beside him. “You are being very scared today. I am surprised that you have not run.”

  She shifted in her chair uncomfortably, knowing that running is exactly what she wanted to do. “You told me I couldn’t leave if I knew the truth.” His raised eyebrow irritated her. Why was he looking at her like she was the one doing something strange? “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “Why are you being silly wife?”

  “How am I silly? You told me last night that if you told me what you did, then I couldn’t leave you. You made it sound all serious, like you were going to off me or something. So, of course I wouldn’t leave.”

  Why did he get to sneer at her like he was the one offended. “You will not watch stupid movies if they are making you silly. Why would I kill my wife? So I can raise four children by myself?” He made a rude sound at the back of his throat.

  “Then what did you mean?” she practically yelled.

  “We have wedding vows that say for good or bad. You cannot leave because you have agreed to stay with me and work things out. I say you cannot leave because you will not leave and break up family. Maybe you are carrying new baby.” His baby.

  Josie didn’t know why she hadn’t thought about that. They were doing nothing to protect against a pregnancy. Mostly because she knew that he really wanted another child. He would never let her leave him and risk never seeing a child that they created together, even if she had a place to go.

  He suddenly smiled. “You did not think of new baby.”

  “No,” she admitted. She hadn’t even thought about the fact that she didn’t have a job or a way to have some kind of income even if she did decide to leave. She’d trapped herself. Again, to a man that willingly paid for everything and allowed her to be the at home mother that she’d always dreamed of being. The only difference this time was that the deception wasn’t about not wanting children, but was about the work itself.

  “I am careful with my family. My girls, you, Josif. New baby. All of you I protect with my life.”

  “But, who is going to protect you? How am I to know that you will be safe?” She didn’t want to wake up one morning to find that her husband had been killed.

  He leaned forward to kiss her. “I am too far at top and too deep into the shadow to be in danger like that.” She had no idea what that even meant, but she trusted that he meant what he said. Still, she knew that she would never stop fearing what could happen. As her grandfather used to say, the man that tended to live by the sword always died by it.

  She could already see it, one day, something would happen and his darkness would then invade the lightness of the peaceful life she lived. She had no idea what it is that they would do when that day finally came. She simply decided that she would pray that they would be ready for that day. “I don’t want you bringing your work home with you,” she told him. “I don’t want to know what happens. I don’t want to care about any of this. You die and I’ll be angry at you forever. I don’t even want you getting hurt because that would just about ruin me.”

  She was glad that he didn’t do what Gary used to do to her. He didn’t dismiss her concerns off hand and treat her like she was crazy to be concerned about him. He didn’t even try to put on bravado and pretend that he had everything under control. She admired that about him most of all. “There’s a large part of me that wishes that I wasn’t falling in love with you. Just so I could leave you and not have to go through all this.”

  “You still would not leave, because you love girls.”

  “You don’t have to sound so smug about it.”

  “I am not being smug. If I were being smug, then I would mention that you would not leave because of what we do in bedroom. You still owe me for being good at princess movie.”

  Josie jumped up from her seat. “On that note, I have to go get started on dinner. You…keep doing whatever it is you are doing and we’ll both just ignore the conversation we just had.”

  Žarko didn’t bother hiding the amusement slanting his lips. “Okay. We will discuss your payment tonight.”

  She couldn’t find anything to say in argument and so took the exit presented to her. She escaped to her personal haven, not having a single idea of what she wanted to make for dinner, but knowing that she desperately needed to have some time to herself. Time that would allow her to
deal with all of the emotions running through her.

  Her life had taken such a dark turn and now she needed to deal with it. She stared into the fridge, not really looking at the food lining the shelves. Instead, she worked through the process of knowing that she had done this to herself.

  In safety, she allowed her tears to fall unchecked. She didn’t necessarily feel trapped in her situation, because she knew that Žarko would allow her to leave if she really so desired to. She knew that she just had to get over this one part. Now that her eyes were open, she could no longer pretend ignorance. She finally wiped away the tears from her eyes.

  “I really am being silly. He’s still the same person. You know that you aren’t going to leave him, Josie, so you need to just stop this.” For the sake of the house, if anything else. The kids needed peace between their parents. She herself didn’t want to live her life having tension between her and her husband.

  But, there was still that gun to contend with. She didn’t want to have it in her bedroom, or anywhere else that the kids could get to it. That was a conversation she was going to have to have with her husband. Those guns he had would have to be put up someplace safe.

  She jumped the moment she felt her husband’s arms wrapped around her. “I’m missing you, right now, but you are obviously not missing me because you are still worried.” He closed the door, giving her just the silver front to look at. “Why are you still worrying?”

  “I don’t like the idea of guns in the house. We have kids to think about. They’re curious and I can only imagine what they would do if they found a gun in the house because they were doing things they weren’t supposed to do.”

  He buried his lips against her pulse point. “You are making excuse. You are not happy with me.”

  “I just thought that you worked with Carl from our group.”

  She felt his shoulders lift in a sigh. “Not everything I do is illegal. I tell you this last night.”

  “Because of your visa.”