by Sophie Lark
I’m basking in the satisfaction of the night before.
I never would have believed that Callum Griffin had the capacity to be so passionate or sensual. Frankly, it’s the best sex I’ve ever had, with the person I like the least. What a conundrum. Because it almost makes me feel friendly toward him, and I wasn’t planning on that at all.
My head is spinning. What the hell is going on? Is this Stockholm Syndrome because I’ve been enmeshed with the Griffins too long?
Luckily, I’m going home today, so I can regain a little sanity.
I wish it were for a happier reason. It’s the anniversary of my mother’s death—a day I always spend with my father and brothers.
I’m looking forward to it. I haven’t been back since I got married. I wonder if it will feel different now that I technically live somewhere else.
The Griffins’ mansion sure as shit doesn’t feel like home. There’s a couple of things I like about it—mostly the theater room and the pool. Everything else is always annoyingly tidy, like someone’s coming to shoot a magazine spread any minute. Most of the couches look like you’re not supposed to actually sit on them, barricaded with stiff pillows, and devoid of comfortable accessories like books or blankets.
Plus, their house staff is enormous. Cleaning ladies, cooks, assistants, drivers, security guards . . . it’s hard to feel comfortable when you know somebody could come creeping into the room at any moment, always retreating politely if they see the space is occupied, but still reminding you that you’re not alone and that you’re in some awkward class above them.
I try to talk to “the help”—especially Marta, since I see her most often. She has a seven-year-old daughter, and she listens to reggaeton and is the Michelangelo of makeup. She seems cool, like we could maybe be friends. Except that she’s supposed to wait on me hand and foot, like I’m a Griffin.
It’s funny, because the Gallos aren’t exactly poor, either. But there are levels to rich, just like everything else.
Anyway, I’ll be glad to get back to reality for a day.
Nessa kindly lends me her Jeep to drive home. I don’t actually have my own car. At Papa’s house, there were always enough random vehicles in the garage that I could take whatever I wanted, assuming Nero hadn’t removed the engine for his own bizarre purposes. I guess I could get one now. I’ve got plenty of money in the bank. But I hate the idea of begging the Griffins for a parking spot.
I head over to Old Town, feeling like it’s been months instead of only weeks since I was here last.
Driving up these familiar streets is like becoming myself again. I see the shops and bakeries I know so well, and I think how funny it is that Callum and I lived only a few miles apart from each other all this time, yet our worlds are so different.
All kinds of people have lived in Old Town over the years—when it was full of German farms, they called it “The Cabbage Patch.” Later, Puerto Ricans moved in, and an army of artists. And plenty of Italians, too.
My grandfather bought our house in the 50s. It’s a grand old Victorian—emphasis on the “old.” It’s four levels high, as dark and steeply gabled as a haunted house, shaded by overgrown oak trees and backed by a walled garden.
My father hollowed out an underground parking garage for all of Nero’s ongoing projects, so I drive down below street level to park, climbing the stairs up to the kitchen, where I surprise Greta by throwing my arms around her thick waist.
“Minchia!” she shrieks, spinning around with a spoon in hand, spattering me with tomato sauce. “Aida! Why didn’t you tell me you were coming home? I would have made dinner!”
“You are making dinner,” I observe.
“I would have made better dinner.”
“I love everything you make,” I say, trying to snitch the spoon from her hand so I can taste the sauce.
She uses it to smack my knuckles instead.
“No! It’s not ready yet.”
I seize her around the waist and hug her again, squeezing her tight and trying to lift her off the ground.
“Smettila!” she snaps. “Stop that before you break your back. Or break mine!”
I content myself with kissing her on the cheek instead.
“I miss you. The Griffins’ cook makes the shittiest food.”
“They don’t have a good cook, with all that money?” she says in amazement.
“It’s all health food. I hate it.”
Greta shudders like I said they were serving live rats.
“There’s nothing healthier than olive oil and red wine. You eat like an Italian and you’ll live forever. It’s not good to be too skinny.”
I stifle a laugh. I don’t think Greta has ever been within fifty pounds of skinny, and frankly I’ve never been a stick either. So we’re not exactly speaking from experience. But it looks miserable.
“Where’s Papa?” I ask her.
“He’s up in your mother’s room.”
She means the music room. My mother trained as a classical pianist before she met my father. Her grand piano still sits in the sunniest room of the topmost floor, along with all her composition books and sheet music.
I climb the two flights of stairs to find Papa. The staircases are narrow and creaking, the wooden risers barely wide enough for Dante to ascend without his shoulders brushing the walls on either side.
Papa is sitting on my mother’s piano bench, looking down at the keys. He has the piano tuned and serviced every year, even though Mama was the only one who played on the grand.
I clearly remember her sitting in exactly that spot. It amazed me how quickly her hands could fly over the keys, considering that she was petite and her hands were barely any larger than mine.
I don’t have a lot of other memories of her. I’m jealous that my brothers knew her so much longer than me. I was only six when she died.
She thought it was a flu. She holed up in her bedroom, not wanting to give it to the rest of us. By the time my father realized how ill she was, it was too late. She died of meningitis after being sick only two days.
My father felt horribly guilty. He still does.
In our world, you know that you might lose a family member in a violent way. The Gallos have lost more than our share. But you don’t expect the silent thief, some disease striking a woman so young and otherwise healthy.
Papa was devastated. He loved my mother intensely.
He saw her perform in the Riviera Theater. He sent flowers and perfume and jewelry to her for weeks before she agreed to have dinner with him. He was twelve years older than her and already infamous.
He wooed her for two more years before she agreed to marry him.
I don’t know what she thought about his job, or his family. I know she adored her children, at least. She always talked about her three handsome boys and me, her last little surprise.
Dante has her focus. Nero has her talent. Sebastian has her kindness. I don’t know what I have—her eyes, I suppose.
I can play the piano a little. Not like her, though.
I see Papa’s broad, suited shoulders hunched over the keys. He touches middle C with a finger almost too thick to stay within the bounds of the key. Papa has a massive head that sits almost directly on his shoulders. Dark, curly hair with shocking streaks of white. His eyebrows are as thick as my thumb. They’re still black, and so is his mustache. But his beard is gray.
“Come play with me, Aida,” he says without turning around.
It’s impossible to sneak up on him. And not just in our house, where the stairs creak.
I sit down next to him on the bench. He slides over to make room for me.
“Play your mother’s song,” he says.
I spread my fingers over the keys. Every time, I think I’m going to forget it. I couldn’t tell you how it starts, or even hum it properly. But the body remembers much more than the brain.
She played this song over and over. It wasn’t her most difficult, or even the most beautiful. Just the one that
stuck in her head.
Gnossienne No. 1 by Erik Satie. An odd and haunting piece.
It starts out rhythmic, mysterious. Like a question. Then it seems to answer angrily, dramatically. Then it repeats, though not quite the same.
There are no time signatures or bar divisions. You can play as you like. Mama sometimes played it faster or slower, harder or softer depending on her mood. After the second time through, it transitions into a sort of bridge—the most melancholy bit of all. Then back to the beginning once more.
“What does it mean?” I asked her when I was little. “What’s a gnossienne?”
“Nobody knows,” she said. “Satie invented it.”
I play it for Papa.
He closes his eyes, and I know he’s imagining her hands on the keys, moving much more sensitively than mine can.
I see her slim frame rocking with the motion of the music, her gray eyes closed. I can smell the fresh lilacs she kept in a vase by the window.
When I open my own eyes, the room is darker than she kept it. The oak trees have grown thicker and taller since then, crowding the window. There’s no vase anymore, no fresh flowers.
Nero is standing in the doorway—tall, slim, black hair falling over one eye, face as beautiful and cruel as an avenging angel.
“You should play it,” I say to him. “You’re better than me.”
He gives one quick shake of his head and heads back down the stairs. I’m surprised he came up here to begin with. He doesn’t like reminiscing. Or displays of emotion. Or anniversaries.
Papa is looking at the ring on my left hand. It weighs my hand down and makes it hard to play.
“Are they good to you, Aida?” he says.
I hesitate, thinking of how Callum stole my clothes last night, how he pounced on me in the car and cut my dress off. How his mouth tasted. How my body responded to him.
“You know I can take care of myself, Papa,” I say at last.
He nods. “I know.”
“Tymon Zajac came to Callum’s fundraiser last night,” I tell him.
Papa sucks in a sharp breath. If we were outside, he might have spit on the ground.
“The Butcher,” he says. “What did he want?”
“He said he wanted some Transit Authority property that’s about to be auctioned off. But I don’t think that was it, not really—I think he was testing Callum. And maybe me, too. To see how we’d react to a demand.”
“What did Callum say?”
“Told him to fuck off.”
“How did Zajac take it?”
“He left.”
My father frowns.
“Be careful, Aida. That won’t go unanswered.”
“I know. Don’t worry, though—the Griffins have security everywhere.”
He nods but doesn’t look satisfied.
I hear a clattering sound in the downstairs kitchen. This house has no insulation—noise travels all over.
Next comes the rumbling sound of Dante’s voice, and a laugh that sounds like Sebastian.
“Your brothers are home,” Papa says.
“Come on.” I rest my hand on his shoulder as I stand up from the piano bench.
“I’ll be down in a minute,” Papa says.
I head downstairs. Sure enough, all three of my brothers are crammed in the small kitchen with Greta. Dante is trying to clean up the shards of the shattered plates Sebastian knocked to the floor with one of his crutches. Seb’s knee is still encased in some high-tech brace that’s supposed to be helpful, but instead has turned him into even more of a walking disaster than usual.
At least he is walking. Sort of.
“Hey, clumsy,” I say, giving him a hug.
“Was that you playing up there?” Sebastian says, hugging me back.
“Yeah.”
“You sound just like her.”
“No, I don’t.” I shake my head.
“You definitely don’t,” Nero agrees.
“Give me the broom,” Greta demand of Dante. “You’re just spreading the mess around.”
While her back is turned, Nero steals one of her orange rolls and stuffs it in his mouth.
Sensing misbehavior, she whips around again and gives him a hard stare. Nero tries to keep his face perfectly still, despite the fact that his cheeks are puffed out like a chipmunk’s.
“Those are for lunch!” Greta shouts.
“Eh esh lunsh,” Nero says, around an entire orange roll.
“No, it isn’t! And don’t eat without your father.”
Nero swallows hard.
“He’s not gonna eat. You know how he is today.”
“Well don’t make it worse!” Greta says. “And you,” she points a finger at Sebastian. “Get out of here before you break something important.”
“Alright, alright.” Sebastian slots his crutches back under his armpits and wheels around for the living room, just barely missing Greta’s kettle, while knocking over the broom.
Nero catches the handle neatly in his right hand, snitching another orange roll with his left. He passes the broom to Greta, keeping the roll hidden behind his back.
“Here, Greta,” he says. “You know I only want to help.”
“You’d help yourself to the shirt off my back, you devil.”
“Depends. What size is it?”
She tries to whip him with a tea towel, and he bolts out of the kitchen, pushing his way past Sebastian, who almost topples over.
Dante follows at a more leisurely pace. I leave last of all, eyeing the freshly-glazed orange rolls, but not wanting to risk Greta’s wrath.
Eventually, we do lure Papa down by bringing out his old mahjong set and opening the bottle of wine Dante brought. We play a rotating tournament, in which Nero eventually emerges victorious, but not without accusations of cheating and demands to recount all the pieces in case some were “misplaced” in the course of the game.
When lunch is ready, we physically force Greta to sit down and eat with us, instead of working the whole time. Nero convinces her to drink one, and then several glasses of wine, at which point she starts to tell us stories about a famous writer she used to know, who she might have slept with “once or twice,” until he wrote a character based on her that offended her terribly.
“Was it Kurt Vonnegut?” Sebastian says.
“No.” Greta shakes her head. “And I’m not telling you his name, he was married some of the time.”
“Was it Steinbeck?” Nero says, grinning wickedly.
“No! How old do you think I am?” Greta says, outraged.
“Maya Angelou,” I say, with an expression of innocence.
“No! Stop guessing, you disrespectful little beasts.”
“That’s not disrespectful,” Dante says. “Those are all excellent authors. Now, if we said Dan Brown . . .”
Greta, who loves The DaVinci Code, has had enough of all of us.
“That’s it!” she says, rising threateningly from her seat. “I’m throwing your dessert in the trash.”
Nero makes a frantic signal to me to go rescue the semifreddo from the freezer before Greta can wreak her revenge.
All in all, the day is as cheerful as I could hope for, given the occasion. The only person who isn’t in as good of spirits as usual is Sebastian. He’s doing his best to smile and participate in games and conversation with the rest of us, but I can tell that the weeks of inactivity, and the loss of his favorite thing in the world, is wearing on him. He looks thin and tired. His face is pale, like he hasn’t been sleeping much.
I know he doesn’t want me to apologize again. But watching him try to navigate the narrow hallways and numerous staircases of the house on those damn crutches is killing me.
Even with that unhappy reminder, the afternoon ends too soon. Once we’ve all eaten and cleared the table, Dante and Nero have to get back to the Oak Street Tower project, and Sebastian has a biology class.
I could stay with Papa, but I know he’s going to finish the wine while looking th
rough old photo albums. I don’t have the heart for it. All those pictures of Papa, Mama, and my brothers traveling in Sicily, Rome, Paris, and Barcelona, while I’m not yet in existence, or at best, a baby in a stroller. It just reminds me of what I missed.
So, I give my father a kiss and offer to help Greta with the dishes, knowing she won’t let me, then I go back down to the garage to retrieve Nessa’s Jeep.
I’m back at the Griffins’ mansion by 3:00 in the afternoon.
I don’t expect to find anybody home other than the staff. When Imogen isn’t working on family business, she’s spreading her influence over dozens of charities and boards, or else strategically socializing with the wealthy and influential wives of Chicago’s top citizens. Fergus, Callum, and Riona work long hours, and Nessa has classes almost every day — either at Loyola, or at Lake City Ballet.
Yet, as I enter through the side door into the kitchen, I hear two male voices.
It’s Callum and his bodyguard, sitting on the barstools in their shirtsleeves, jackets draped over the backs of their chairs.
I don’t know what they’re talking about, but I’m immediately enraged by the sight of the brutish boxer, who I now know is named Jackson Howell Du Pont. Callum met him at school, in his Lakeside Academy days. Jack is one of the many, many descendants of the Du Pont family, who first made their fortune in gunpowder, then later by inventing nylon, Kevlar, and Teflon.
Unfortunately for Jackie boy, the Du Ponts were a little too successful at spreading their name and their seed, because there’s now about four thousand of them, and Jack’s particular branch barely had enough scratch to pay for his fancy private school education, without the usual accompanying trust fund. So poor Jack is reduced to driving Callum around, running his errands, watching his back, and occasionally breaking kneecaps on his behalf. Like he did to my brother.
Fresh from the sight of Sebastian’s dark circles and unhappy smile, I want to grab the closest piano wire and wrap it around Jack’s fucking throat. Callum has wisely kept his bodyguard on the back burner, away from casa Griffin and out of my sight. But I guess he didn’t expect me home so early.
“What the fuck is he doing here?” I snarl.
Callum and Jack have already stood up, startled by my sudden appearance.