The sound of wine pouring and Sergio yelling at Val filled the air.
I leaned against the stairway, wincing. My bones ached. There used to be days I would go without sleep, where the sunlight and darkness melted into one another in consecutive hours, time slipped away.
And now, time it seemed, was doing the exact same thing.
“Bless him, Father,” I mumbled under my breath. Was that my sin then? To bear the weight of poor choices on my shoulders, while Luca toasted to Andi in heaven?
It was as if each jagged piece I tried to pick up and put back together again embedded itself into my skin. I bled, I bled, I bled some more, and then the piece would finally attach itself. The process would repeat.
Because where there was pain.
There was also healing.
I shut my eyes just as Phoenix rounded the corner. “Do you hear that?”
“I hear everything. I’m not deaf.” Not that old either, but I was tired of arguing my point every damn time one of the young ones opened their mouths to bitch.
“He’s yelling—” Phoenix’s voice lowered “—at an innocent girl.”
“That’s life.” I opened my eyes and stared him down. “That’s her lot in life, Phoenix. Sometimes we yell, not so others will listen, but because we hurt so deeply within — screaming is the only option.”
“It’s a shitty option.” Phoenix’s eyes were wild. “She can’t defend herself, not like Andi did.”
“She isn’t Andi.” My voice was calm, because even I, the eldest, the one who had seen the most death was, still, in my own way, mourning a life that Luca had deemed worthy of the Family, a life was still a life, and it meant something, even to me. “She will never be Andi.”
Phoenix pointed up at the stairs. “But does he know that?”
“Of course.” I slapped Phoenix on the shoulder. “It is why he yells.”
He swallowed, looking away as the weight of my hand pressed into him.
We were silent.
I was often silent with Phoenix.
He wasn’t a man who talked through things, but, oh, how he thought. He thought with the best of them, his brain calculating, his judgments swift.
“Do you remember?” A sad smile started at the corner of his right cheek and spread across to his left, the motion making him look more human. “All her little… tasks?”
I chuckled, and removed my hand. “I remember she was a pain in your ass as much as she was a pain in mine.”
“Frank!”
I stood, trying to escape, Phoenix gave me a helpless look as Andi breezed into the room carrying a giant box, papers fluttered out of it. “Shit!” She stomped her foot and grabbed the papers then nearly fell across the table until Phoenix rescued her and sat her in the chair. She was losing strength too fast.
When you loved someone, you wished for death to be swift, not slow with uncalculated highs or lows that the human brain couldn’t possibly keep up with or manage.
“Okay, so here’s the deal.” Andi stood, even though she should be resting, since she’d just gotten out of the hospital. “Sergio’s kind of a jackass.”
Phoenix rolled his eyes. “Yes, let’s keep making true statements all day long. That sounds like fun.”
“And…” Andi said, holding up her hand. “…he’s going to revert to his jackass ways once I’m gone.”
Phoenix opened his mouth then stared at me as he whispered, “I’d rather not talk about you… being gone.”
“Tough shit.” Andi punched him in the shoulder. “Now, open the box and let me explain.”
I eyed the wine, Andi caught me staring and, with an over-exaggerated sigh, she poured us both two healthy glasses and then whispered, “It’s going to be epic.”
“What is?” Phoenix asked. Brave man.
“His story,” Andi whispered. “His love story is going to be epic.”
I rejected the thought.
And then I saw the tears well in her eyes. To be peaceful about one’s death, to plan for your spouse’s happily ever after, knowing you would never get one.
It took guts.
It took bravery.
And I vowed right then and there, I would do everything in my power to help her.
Until I was killed.
Or God took me from this earth.
Because finally, I’d found something worthy to live for.
Funny how it had been staring at me all this time without my knowledge. Joyce would have laughed at me. Luca would have said something cheeky about knowing all along.
I was going to fight.
Not for my own love.
But for his.
Because, God, if anyone on this earth deserved it…
It was Sergio.
“You can’t say a word beyond what I tell you…” Andi pulled out a journal and began to write. “From Russia, With love.”
“You okay, Frank?” Phoenix frowned. “You look a little, pale.”
“Memories,” I said in a gruff tone. “It appears they age me.”
He let out a snort. “They age us all.”
Sergio’s voice rose again. I nodded in the direction of the stairway. “Give him a warning, enough to jar him out of his insanity, don’t kill him.”
Sergio yelled louder.