I couldn’t tell if he was serious or not, but I played the odds. “Knock before you visit.”
He leaned on the counter. The kids had run back out, and I heard Sheila yelling at them from half a house away. Valentina and Zia had gone to prepare the buffet. Jonathan and I were alone.
He put up his right hand. “Open pledge.”
I held up my hand. “Open.”
“Swear he didn’t stab you and throw you off a balcony.”
“It was more of a second-story veranda.”
“You’re making me nervous.”
I held my hand up as if taking the oath of office. “I swear, in pledge, that he didn’t stab me and throw me off anything in the architectural lexicon. He has never laid a finger on me in anger or jealousy, and if he did, I’d kill him. Outside pledge, I’m sticking to my story.”
I’d made the same pledge to just about every other sibling, in addition to swearing to my mother that it wasn’t what it looked like. I tried not to speak to Dad alone, because I didn’t have enough forgiveness in my heart for him.
I heard the crunch of dirt and rock and peered out the kitchen window. A black car came through the gate. I put my hand on my chest.
Jonathan flicked my ear. “Close pledge, sister.”
“Closed.”
I was ready. More than ready. I slapped my towel down and ran to the front door, whipping it open and nearly tripping over Antonin, who stood at the edge of the porch. I took a moment to look at him. He was a serious boy generally, but his sullen face was more thoughtful today than usual.
I stopped and leaned in to him. He was almost my height already.
“It’s okay. He won’t bite you. We talked about this. He’s just a man,” I said.
He nodded. I hugged him. He was a good kid, whip smart and acing every single class at Harvard-Westlake. He was a genius under pressure. Valentina said he was more like his father than her, but his sense of humor belonged to his mother. At least he didn’t need half a glass of wine to bring it out.
Behind me, a car door slammed. And another as he was let out of the back of the limo.
I didn’t think I could turn around, because once I did, the waiting was officially over. My life would begin and preparation would become action. I stood with our families on the porch, waiting.
“Capo,” he said.
His voice. Music. An opera in two syllables.
I turned and nearly died, my gasp was so strong.
He was… Antonio.
Everything I remembered and imagined, but in three dimensions. In a white shirt and grey jacket, his thumb hooked on the shoulder strap of his bag, his face shaven, his brown hair falling into a parenthesis on his forehead. When he smiled, the sky opened and God himself showed his favor.
“You lost weight.” My bottom lip trembled so hard I could barely get the last word out.
“The second worst part was the food.”
I didn’t say anything. I was too overwhelmed. I took in every detail. His ebony lashes. His lips, drawn across his face in a grin. I was supposed to ask him the worst part, but the breeze shifted and I was swept away in the scent of campfires and quiet pine forests.
“I missed you,” I said. God, would I ever again get a word out without crying? I didn’t know how to catalog the relief, the joy, and the feeling of utter liberation, because I’d been in prison with him.
He dropped his bag and engulfed me in his arms.
“I missed you I missed you…” I kept repeating, because I hadn’t uttered it in a year and a half and it needed saying.
I felt a hand on my shoulder, and a pair of arms around my legs. I felt the breath and tears of our families as they gathered around us, shielding us with their bodies. I rested my cheek on his shoulder. This was my heaven, with him.