“Basta, woman!”
I looked up, leveraging my hands on his back, and looked at the house. One of the upstairs windows didn’t have plywood over it. The shower curtain that covered it moved. I waved. The kids were watching.
“This is a great example you’re setting.”
He opened the passenger side of the car. “Obedience is also an example,” he said, dropping me to my feet.
“We can’t leave.” I pushed his chest. “They’re all alone.” His felony black eyes were unreadable, but the tightness of his mouth told a story of inner conflict.
“They’ve been alone for a year. Now get in the car.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I don’t want to scare them. Now please. Get in the fucking car.”
With a last glance to the upper floor, I sat in the car and he shut the door. In the seconds it would take him to walk around to his side, I could get out. I could run back to them and…
And what?
Cook them dinner?
Hug that little girl and listen to her hum?
He was in the car before I could come up with a productive plan, and we were off.
“What the hell is going on?” I growled. He didn’t reply. He just drove slowly past the gate and got out, leaning in before he walked away.
“Do not get out of this car, Contessa, or I swear to you…”
“What?” I snapped.
He walked away without telling me.
In the passenger rearview, I watched him close the gate and wrap the chain again. He put the padlock on an uncut link, tossing the broken segment into the brush.
He got back in the car and rested his hand on the gearshift. He’d spoken to Nevio for a long time while I’d sat by the girl I assumed was his sister. They were obviously squatting and obviously alone. She’d broken my heart in her little pink shirt with the crown. She’d started to trust me, and taken me around the house where I saw their fire pit with the charred bones of a small animal piled to the side. Cucumbers growing along the side of a fence. A naked Barbie doll she named Principessa.
I didn’t need Antonio to tell me any of what I already knew, but there was more to these two squatters than met the eye.
I also knew my husband. He’d earned my trust.
“What’s going on?” I put my hand on top of his.
“We drive,” he said, putting the car into gear. “Then we talk.”
I could live with that. I had no choice.
I thought he was going to take me back to the city, but we only went deeper into the guts of the countryside. He was driving for the sake of driving, thinking and processing in the presence of his wife. On a winding two lane road bordered by trees, he swung the car onto the shoulder and slammed to a stop. He put the car into park and held up a finger.
“I have something to say.”
“Go on.”
“That’s my grandfather’s house and I’m responsible for what’s in it.”
That was heartening.
“I’m responsible for what happens inside it, past, present, and future.”
Also heartening.
“We call the welfare agency when we get back.”
Why wasn’t that heartening?
“Are you nervous?” my sister-in-law asked. She bounced her one-year-old daughter on her knee. Gabrielle had been born with the Drazen trademark ginger hair, but it was changing to her mother’s rich brown.
“About?” I could have been nervous about a hundred things. The waiter helped me stall by taking our plates. My husband and my brother Jonathan had taken to the patio to smoke. We could see them through the French doors overlooking the harbor, and Monica watched Jonathan like a hawk. He had a transplanted heart, and neither she nor his doctors wanted him near cigarette smoke. Not such an easy proposition in southern Europe.
“He’s upwind,” I said. “Here.” I held my arms out for Gabrielle. “In case you want to dive through the window.”
She passed the baby over. “He’s so cocky about that heart.” She slid the board book Gabrielle was looking at over to me, but the baby twisted in my arms and rested her head on my shoulder. “He thinks he’s freaking invincible.”
The baby breathed wetly against my neck, and I laid my hand on her back. Her scent and the way she felt in my arms was so sweet I couldn’t imagine ever standing up.
“Maybe you’re the one who’s nervous,” I said.
“About Jonathan? I’m always nervous. But anyway…” She swirled her wine and took a sip. “I was asking about meeting his family.”
Antonio’s estranged mother and sister lived in the city, and once his father died, he negotiated a way back into Italy and planned a meeting with them. We arranged for the honeymoon we never had, crossing my brother’s family for a couple of days while Monica was on tour.
“I’m not nervous, no. I was yesterday but this afternoon…” I hesitated, rocking the sleeping baby. “We went to his father’s abandoned orchard.”
“Oh? Olives?”
“Yes.”
And children.
“Well, you guys are experts at that now.”
Antonio and I owned an olive orchard in Temecula, and she thought I was nervous about that. I wasn’t. Maybe it was that misunderstanding. Maybe it was the baby sleeping on my shoulder, or the comforting sight of my sister-in-law in a strange place. Maybe it was all the violence I’d seen and done contrasting with the gentleness of the surroundings. Maybe I’d been holding back tears for hours and they were ripe. But my face scrunched and my sinuses tingled, forcing out a sob.
“Jesus, Theresa.” She pulled my napkin from my lap and handed it to me. “What happened?”
I could barely speak through the tears, but I finally got it out.
“There were children.”
JONATHAN
“How do you like it?” Antonio asked, releasing a plume of smoke toward the sea. Antonio stood by the railing, upwind, mindful of my transplanted heart.
“It’s like Los Angeles twenty years ago,” I said. “Same weather. Smells like shit.”
“But the people are better.”
“Truth.” I tipped my wine to him and sipped. One glass was all I was supposed to drink, and I savored every drop.
I could get used to southern Italy, except the cigarettes. Every time we walked down the street, someone was smoking. And every time, like goddamn clockwork, Monica pulled me away like a mother hen.
I counted the times. Twelve times yesterday got her twelve swats with my belt last night. My guess? She did it because she liked the punishment.
I glanced through the restaurant’s patio doors. She was watching me. Five times I checked, five times she was watching me and not the baby. That would be five strokes with my hand plus seven with the belt for pulling me away from smoke during the day. She handed the baby to my sister, but she’d still get swatted if she didn’t keep her concern to herself.
I loved my wife’s concern more than I loved punishing her for it.
A waitress brought espresso and Sambuca with curls of lemon peel on the rim.
With the last drag, Antonio stamped the cigarette out and sat across from me. He spoke in Italian, but a little more slowly than normal. I was capable of speaking a few languages, but my fluency wasn’t always as good as a native.
“Your daughter is beautiful,” he said, rubbing the lemon on the edge of his cup and dropping it in the saucer. “She’s losing the red hair.”
“If we’re lucky she’ll look like her mother.” He dropped a bit of Sambuca in his cup.
“Salud to that.” He tilted the cup toward me.
“Maybe you’ll have a bunch of redheads.”
He shook his head. “She didn’t tell you?”
“I don’t know what I don’t know, brother.”
“No kids.” He tipped his espresso down, finishing in one gulp.
I was surprised. Theresa had always wanted children. I couldn’t believe she’d marry a man who didn’t.
“I’m not supposed to ask why.”
“Why not?”
“It’s rude.”
“Fucking Americans.”
“Well, we’re in Italy, so I’m asking. Why won’t you let her have kids?”
I tried not to sound angry, but maybe I did.
“Me?” He tented his fingers over his chest. “It’s not me.”