by CD Reiss
“My professors used to say that to me when I coasted on B-plus grades.”
“There is no coasting.” He turns me around to face him, and I make sure to keep the gun far from him. “Your father had your mother with him every day. As much as he could. And when he wasn’t there, me or Dami or one of a dozen other guys watched over her.”
My good mood dissipates like the last bit of water in a hot teapot. “How did it happen then?”
“That night, Dami got me tickets to a soccer game, but when I heard they were going out, I worked anyway.”
“So you let it happen?” I don’t mean to blame him. I don’t. But I want to get at any guilt he’s left lying in the corners of his heart.
“Yes and no. My point is they had protection. Everything went right. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t protecting her by keeping her close. She was killed with him.”
My mother’s purple hat, leaning in a doorway. One shoe off. Me thinking she’ll lose it the way Rosetta loses hers. God, I hate my brain. I hate that I was five.
“Something was going on that night,” I say. “But I was too young to know what.”
“It was just an anniversary dinner.”
It wasn’t. My mother was turning into a stone version of herself.
If you find yourself dead, that deal is off.
You can only swear on what’s yours.
Their marriage had been arranged. I know this in my gut. Things said that I barely remember. Intonations and assumptions. It was the way it was.
“I don’t think she loved him anymore.” I turn back to the target. “If she ever did.”
“We can’t correct the past.” He kisses the back of my neck. “We can only do better. When you are waiting, when you are talking, you hold the gun up at your shoulder.” He draws my arm up. “This makes you safe from accidents and still ready to shoot in any direction.”
“Okay. I’m ready.”
“Good. Aim.”
I lower both hands. The bottle is so far away. The bullet is so small, and I am just a girl out of her depth, and I hate how hard it all is.
“You know what I’d do? If I were queen?”
“Squeeze, queen.”
I squeeze. A bullet leaves the chamber and lodges itself in the fence.
“If I were queen, I’d abolish ‘mbasciata on my first Monday at work. You know what I’d take on on Tuesday?”
“That bottle, right there.”
I try again, aiming a little higher. I don’t know where the bullet goes, but it doesn’t hit the target.
“On Tuesday, this whole ‘best murderer wins’ rule would be out.” I shoot and miss again. “How many bullets does this thing have?”
“Fifteen.”
I shoot again. The bottle seems to move a little, but it could be wishful thinking.
“Breathe in.” He puts his hands on my rib cage, feeling it expand. “Shoot on the exhale.”
Letting the air go, I squeeze the trigger. The bottle definitely moves.
“Don’t lose your concentration thinking about Wednesday.”
“On Wednesday, all the men will do the dishes.” I shoot and miss entirely. Then again, with the same non-result. “This is the most frustrating thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
“This?” he says from behind me. “Out of everything?”
I shoot again. Miss.
“Ugh. Yes. On Thursday, I’d replace all the guns with bazookas.”
“You’re rushing.”
Well, I wasn’t, but it’s a really good idea. Crack-crack-crack. Miss. Miss. Miss. I drop my arms in annoyance.
“You have to aim it, Violetta.” From behind, he picks up my arms. “Line up the target with the center pin.”
“I’m going to learn this, then watch out on Friday.”
“Inhale. Exhale and…”
He doesn’t finish. I shoot. Miss. Breathe in. Breathe out. Shoot. Hit a lot of air. Scare a lot of birds.
“This is stupid,” I say. “If someone’s coming after me, I won’t have time to hold it this way and breathe and aim or anything.”
“Again, Forzetta.”
“Fine.” I double-grip, breathe, shoot, and the bottle spins a little as if the bullet grazed it.
“Better.”
“If that was a person, they’d be dead,” I say. “That has to be close enough.”
“Is this how you studied in school? Close enough?”
“Nursing’s easier than shooting.”
He moves to the side to look at my profile. “You haven’t even emptied your first magazine.”
“Is that all I have to do?” Facing him, I hold the gun up to the target straight with one hand and squeeze the trigger. The bullet shatters the bottle into a million pieces. “Happy now?”
Santino laughs as if he doesn’t have a problem in the world, then he holds my head the way he does, looking at me deeply and with appreciation. “Good girl.”
“Now we can get my family.” He doesn’t nod or confirm. This should have set off alarm bells, but I am trusting, and in love, and a fool. “Like you promised.”
He knows damn well what he said, but he regrets it. I can tell.
“I did not promise.”
“If my zio got the Beretta out of the basement, he’s not going to go without a fight. He’s a stubborn old man and he’s going to get hurt.”
“He won’t.”
“Please,” I plead. “Please don’t send an armed gang for him.”
“You’re insisting.”
“I am.”
He slides the gun from my hand, reaches into his holster for a fresh magazine, and slides it into the handle. He releases the slide, then he drops the magazine again.
“You do it,” he says, handing both to me.
I take the gun, then the ammunition, and snap it in exactly the way he did.
“Good girl. Put it away.”
I tuck it into the holster and snap the flap.
“Wear it all the time,” he says.
“Even when you’re right next to me?”
“Yes.” He kisses me tenderly. It’s a short, sweet peck on the lips. “I have things to take care of. Be back here in five minutes.”
“Okay.”
He’s about to walk off when he stops, turns, and holds my head still so he can devour me in a kiss so unexpectedly passionate, my heart melts from the heat of it, leaving me too boneless to match his fervor. Lost in a kiss that unfolds the minutes inside seconds, I don’t question his neediness.
18
VIOLETTA
It takes me three and a half minutes to go to the bathroom and brush my teeth. Ten seconds to go down the stairs. I’m at the head of the driveway with a minute to spare.
Santino is not there.
Not a minute later. Not ten minutes later.
He’s probably shouting orders at someone. I’ll have to take him by the elbow and drag him away. The sooner we bring my Z’s up here to safety, the sooner he can finish this war and we can work on getting pregnant again. I smirk at the thought.
But he’s not in the garage getting the car out. The Alfa’s still there, but the Mercedes is gone.
He must be waiting at the gate… Except he’s not.
He’s not in the kitchen, or the basement, or back in our room.
“Remo,” I say when I see a familiar face. “Have you seen Santino?”
“Just now?” He runs his hand through his hair. “Yeah, he left with Armando.”
“Left?”
“Like, out the gate. Down the hill. Ten, fifteen minutes ago.”
I’ve been waiting for Santino to show up and take me to do this one little errand before a war burned down the city…and he was already gone. He left. Slipped away. Gave me a gun, taught me how to use it, and left me behind.
Of all the emotions I can choose from—disappointment, anger, worry—I decide on dumbstruck.
Maybe there’s a clue to where he went in his office.
He’s not there, but
the room isn’t empty either.
Dario sits behind his desk, which bothers me, but no one’s telling him to fuck off. I’m not sure if that also bothers me or if I’m seeing the results of a well-thought-out plan.
“Where is he?” I demand.
“Not here.”
“I didn’t ask where he isn’t.”
“I answered you based on what you need to know. He’s not here, and until he is, I’m taking care of shit.”
“This is my family’s house.”
“Look,” Dario says. “I know he’s got you on a longer leash than what a guy would call standard, but all I’m telling you is he’s gonna be back before dinner.”
He thinks I’m just going to disappear. His dismissiveness is infuriating. Even at his worst, Santino didn’t treat me like this. I put my hands on the desk and lean over.
“Did he go to get my zia and zio?”
He stands, putting his hands on his side of the desk.
“Are you going to be a problem?” he asks, but it’s not really a question. It’s an accusation.
And I’m guilty as charged. I’m going to be a fucking problem, but not until I know what’s going on. Dario is a man who asks for neither forgiveness nor permission.
“Keep talking to me like I work for you, and yeah, I’m going to be a problem.” I take my hands off the desk. “Or you can tell me, yes or no. Did he go for my family?”
He comes around and stands over me—too close, but I won’t step back. I cross my arms as if that’s enough of a barrier…which it’s not. The man’s heart was chainsawed from a block of ice, and the blood in his veins is cold enough to keep the organ frozen.
“Yes. He went to pick up people for you,” Dario says. “And like I said, he’s going to be back before the gravy’s done. So maybe take your ass to the kitchen and give it a stir.”
This is the only concession I’m going to get from this guy, so I turn and leave before I have to see him sitting behind my husband’s desk another second.
Santino and Armando aren’t back in time for dinner. I join Celia and Loretta in the downstairs cucina to prepare it amidst the stink of the coal furnace. I’d hoped to have my zia with us by now.
“He’ll be back before you know it,” Celia says, chopping an onion. “He’ll come in hungry and barking orders. I can feel it.”
“I feel it too,” Loretta adds, rummaging around the industrial refrigerator. “But most of the time, I had a feeling Elio wasn’t coming back, and he did.”
“What about the time he didn’t?” I ask.
“Funny thing about that.” She shrugs, closing the fridge door with an armful of cheese. “The future isn’t written on feelings.”
Celia grumbles, and Loretta pats her cheek and kisses it before dumping the cheese on the counter. Loretta is pissing in Celia’s Cheerios, but she’s right. Intuition predicts nothing about the world—but it can tell you who you are. Feelings are the weather vanes of the heart. Do these instinctual, predictive feelings force your attention to what you hope for? Or what you fear? Which of those winds blows strongest?
He’ll be fine.
He’ll come home victorious.
I try to feel it so strongly it becomes a future fact, but I can’t. The opposite belief doesn’t move the vane either. Inside me, the air is hopelessly still.
My father is a grocer. My mother works at the store. My sister goes to school. I am a child too young to understand what it means when someone asks me how old I am. I will say quattro until I’m told to say something different.
If the wind is blowing a certain way, the early morning rumble and whistle of the trains coming into and out of Napoli Centrale wakes me. In the bed next to mine, Rosetta sleeps like a stone right through it all. So I lie in bed and listen until either Mamma comes to wake me or the sun comes up and it’s too bright to pretend.
Nonna put us to bed last night. Mamma and Papino were out. So I’m happy when my father’s coughing wakes me. He just got back from the hospital a few days ago. He says his lungs aren’t clear yet. I imagine them obscured by a veil of snot and green goop. After a loud, throaty growl from my father, I hear my parents whispering in their room.
Without the sound of the trains, I’m bored. Rosetta sleeps openmouthed, dead to the world, even when I poke her nose.
Dragging Raggedy Ann behind me, I pad barefoot across the hall, looking for company. Instead, there’s something strange on the other side of my parents’ open door. Not dangerous or scary but odd. There’s a box on the floor. It’s as tall as my toybox but not as long. It’s dark, but the wood looks bitten and old. There are metal straps belted around it and all over the edges. Is it for me? My birthday isn’t for a long time, but maybe I was so extra good I get a surprise present?
In her pajamas with her hair down, Mamma is sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the box. The yellow hat she wore to their favorite restaurant—the one where they wheel the menu around on a school blackboard—is on the dresser. Papino’s chair is opposite her. He’s leaning over with his elbows on his knees, still wearing his day clothes and the shadow of a scratchy beard.
The way they look at each other is frightening and awe-inspiring. I move behind the wall, watching them in the tiny space created by the door hinges.
“Did you ever wonder,” Mamma says, “what it would be like if this thing didn’t exist? Who you’d be?”
“I’d be myself.” Dad shrugs.
“You’d be the same big piece, eh?”
“Yes. And you’d still be mine.”
“Is that all I’d be? Do you ever wonder what I’d be? What I could be?”
He slides off his chair and kneels on the opposite side of the box from her, folding her hands into his. She pulls away her hands, but he grabs them back and kisses each.
“Do I not take care of you?”
She yanks her hands back as if he’s insulted her. My father must see this as a challenge. He takes the box by the metal handles on each side and snaps his hands away.
“Cristo santo.” He shakes his hands and looks at where they touched the handles. “Did you have this by the stove?”
“Idiot,” Mamma says, standing. “Send this monstrosity away. Send it so far away, we can’t even see it if we want to. It’s evil. Even having it here in the house, I can feel the horns.”
“My brother will kill for it no matter where it is.”
Daddy has two sisters in America. Zia Madeline and Zia Donna. They bring us Pop-Tarts and Fritos when they visit from the other side. But a brother? I never saw a brother. Maybe he’s in America too?
I’m scared now. I don’t want the box, even if it’s a special present or it means I have a secret uncle.
“If he grows the stones to kill you…” She looks away with a face turned inward on itself—blank from reading the thoughts it’s created as if they’re new.
I’m sure I’m hidden, but she stops, frozen, and I realize that though I’m definitely behind the wall, Raggedy Ann isn’t.
“Violetta.” Her voice is stern and commanding. It’s the tone she uses when she’s about to get really mad. “Get in here.”
I do as I’m told, trying to stay small and far away.
“I’m thirsty.” This is the first lie I remember telling.
“Come,” Papino says, holding out his arm for me.
I don’t move.
“When your father says something,” Mamma growls. She is so, so, so very mad.
I’m shaking in terror already, but I can’t go to my father. He’s right near the box, and the box is not a gift. The box is evil. The box has horns. I am overtired and convinced the box will get Mamma and Papino dead.
There’s no way out.
I’m between the anvil and the hammer.
I start wailing, tears falling, breath hitching with sobs as I shake my head no, no, no, no…
The early morning rumble and whistle of the trains coming into and out of Napoli Centrale is not what wakes me. It’s the silence
. No birds. No bugs. No Santino breathing at my side. Again.
This will be the second day without him. The first went by quietly. During the evening, we heard pops and cracks from the south. I went to the windows facing down into the city, but it’s partially blocked by trees and shrubs.
“He’s probably grating them into cheese,” Remo says with a shrug of confidence in the king. He puts his hand on my shoulder and squeezes before taking it away. “Don’t worry. He has this.”
“A lighter isn’t going to save him twice.”
“Tough people are tough. Like you. I didn’t think you’d end up here, but I ain’t surprised you’re good at it.”
“I wasn’t tough in school. I wasn’t anything.”
He scoffs. “Sure. You came right into the boys’ gym class and told Mr. Hamlin if he ever called your sister fat again—”
“I’d show him what a pound of flesh looked like.” I shrug. “That’s not tough. That’s choosing enemies carefully.”
“And Dina Marchesi? On the basketball court?”
I touch the back of my head where repeated contact with the pavement left a scar. “She won that fight pretty easily.”
So many of my brain cells got shattered on the pavement that the memory of the incident is made of the stars in my eyes and Dina’s twisted face bordered by sky.
“But you kept coming back. She was two years older and bigger and a lot stupider, but you kept coming at her. That’s tough.”
“I don’t even remember what we were fighting about.”
“She said your father died like a Castellano wannabe.”
“What does that even mean?”
“No clue.” He shrugs. “Figured you did. Anyway. Hold tight. Dario’s a big piece in New York. We’re safe up here.”
“Yeah.”
Santino’s probably doing the job he does best, and he needs to have faith that I’m holding down the fort while he does it.
I stay out of the way like I’m told, but I won’t be able to for much longer.
After dinner, Celia washes the dishes while Loretta and I wipe down the tables.
“He’s okay,” Loretta says, apropos of nothing.