Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 87704 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87704 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Back in the bedroom, Alexis is slumped on a mattress, his back pressed against the terrible pink wallpaper left by the family who used to live in this house. The room is dim, casting shadows that stretch across the walls. Antonio is sitting behind Aemelia, who’s still curled into a ball.
“Luca,” Alexis says as soon as he sees me. “You brought out the good stuff.”
It is good. Wine from our own vineyard, carrying the warmth and the sweetness of the Sicilian summer in its depths. He reaches up to take a glass from my hand. I place my feet carefully between the mattresses, allowing Antonio to take two glasses. “Aemelia.”
Like his voice is the only one that can rouse her, she sits suddenly at his call, and he passes her the glass. Her dark eyes find mine as she brings the glass to her lips.
“To good wine,” I say softly, tipping my glass.
Silence stretches between us as I settle onto my mattress, the one nearest the door.
I rest my head against the cool plaster and close my eyes as I swallow the wine, allowing the rich flavor to warm me down to my stomach.
“Do you like it?” Alexis asks Aemelia.
“It’s good,” she says, licking the remnants from her top lip.
“Have you been to Sicily?”
She shakes her head. “No. I don’t even have a passport. It must be beautiful.”
“It is,” I say. “Very beautiful. The sea glitters like a never-ending spill of sapphires, and the sun shines like it’s found its favorite place and never wants to leave.”
“And, if you hadn’t already noticed, Luca missed his vocation as a poet.”
I ignore Alexis teasing. There isn’t much beauty in this life, so I will never regret seeing it or finding the best words to describe it. Then Aemelia speaks, stealing my breath. “Do you ever wonder what your lives would have been like if you weren’t born into this?”
I glance at Antonio, finding his expression flat, then Alexis, who’s considering an answer but doesn’t share his thoughts. Finally, I sigh. “I don’t know. Maybe easier. Maybe not. The world’s cruel, no matter what side you're on.”
“Can you imagine Luca with an ordinary job as a car salesman or a server in a restaurant?” Alexis says.
Aemelia shakes her head.
“What about me? Can you imagine me working in an office with a wife and three snotty brats at home?”
“Definitely not,” she says.
“And Antonio? He’d make a great priest, don’t you think? He has a fierce intensity about him, and he’s a great listener.”
Aemelia finishes her wine and rests her glass on the floor. “Antonio could have made a great priest.”
Alexis grins in the dark, and I study Antonio, trying to imagine him wearing the black robes of a catholic priest. He might have had some of the traits required, but he couldn’t have remained celibate, that's for sure.
“I’d be in prison by now,” Alexis adds.
“Or dead.”
Aemelia focuses on Antonio, maybe realizing from his tone that he’s talking not just about himself but about all of us.
“And me?”
“You should have stayed in Maryland,” I say. “You would have been safe.”
She tenses but doesn’t respond. She knows as well as I do, there’s no changing the past.
“Will you go back there?” Antonio asks. “After this is over.”
Her head swivels quickly to scan his expression, but he’s looking directly at me when he says it. He’s given her hope that her leaving us is an inevitability, a surety, so that she feels confident of her safety. We haven’t discussed it, but Antonio has made his feelings clear. If Carlo doesn’t come forward, our lust for revenge doesn’t extend to his daughter.
The relief that spills through me makes no sense. Only revenge should give me this feeling. Only the tying up of loose strings. Not the idea that this beautiful woman will be allowed to fly free from our hands and return to her boring life of drudgery and self-sacrifice.
The room falls into silence again, but this time it’s not tense. Something else has taken its place. Something like understanding. Like an easy kind of peace. In one sentence Antonio has brought Aemelia to our side.
Alexis yawns. “If you bastards snore, I swear to God…”
Aemelia lets out a quiet surprised laugh and for a moment, the weight pressing on all of us feels a little lighter.
***
Sleep has never come easy for me. My brothers seem to tumble into rest like kids rolling down a hill, effortless and unconscious, while my mind refuses to shut off. The room is dark but not so dark that I can’t make out the shape of Aemelia beneath her blankets. Her breathing is steady and even, and I marvel at her ability to sleep between us, at the level of trust she must feel to do so.
Trust we don’t deserve.
Or maybe it’s just exhaustion.