“It was.” Jess heaved air in and sobbed, her head turned away. “I was mad at you.”
The dam broken, memories of that long ago day flooded Jess’s mind: When she was six, and her little brother Billy just four, back at the cottage in the Catskills mountains. Her mother had just scolded her for taking the big blocks from Billy; but they were hers, Jess had squealed. Go outside and play, her mother had said, and take Billy.
But make sure he doesn’t go on the ice.
Jess wouldn’t have folded so easily, wouldn’t have let her mother win, but she decided to teach her a lesson. So she went outside, walked down through the snow to the creek, and told Billy it was okay to go on the ice. She hadn’t meant to hurt him; she didn’t even know it was dangerous, not really. She thought he might fall in, get wet, scream and cry until their mother came out. That would teach her mother a lesson.
And her father took her and Billy across the ice all the time, to sled on the opposite bank.
She just didn’t know, at six, that it was a warm week.
That the ice was thin.
She had heard the crack. She saw Billy slip and squeal, his terrified eyes locked onto hers. As if pulled by an invisible hand, he slid under, and Jess had stood transfixed. Terrified. She’d watched her little brother’s face disappear into the black hole, ringed in white, his eyes on her.
Afterward, Jess ran back into the house, screaming, crying, saying that Billy was gone.
But she’d never admitted that she told him to go on the ice.
In revenge. She killed him. She killed her little brother. All these years, she’d kept the secret and been punishing herself for it. Her family was never the same. She never saw her mother and father embrace again. Not until now.
“I’m so sorry,” Jess cried, her body trembling for air, her eyes shut tight, her fingers gripping her mother and father. “Everything was my fault.”
The ground tilted to one side, vibrated, and then titled back. They stumbled sideways as a unit and crashed into the cave wall.
Celeste took Jess’s chin and pulled her head up. Jess opened her eyes, gathered the courage to look at her mother again, but the shock and hurt in Celeste’s eyes had been replaced with gentle warmth.
“It’s not your fault,” Ben said softly, laying a hand on his daughter’s head to stroke her hair. “You were a child. You didn’t know. It was my fault. I should never have taken the two of you across the ice to play. It was irresponsible. It was my fault.”
Another massive tremor rocked the cave. The lights flickered. A stack of crates crashed from the wall onto the floor behind them.
“No, no, it was my fault.” Celeste wiped her tears with the back of one hand. “I was trying to write my research grant paper. I was annoyed. I told you to go outside, but I didn’t watch. I should have been watching.”
Sobbing, Celeste gripped Jess’s neck, and all three of them came together again. It felt like little Billy was standing in the middle of them. Jess had never admitted it before, never told anyone the truth. The demon eating at her soul disappeared into the cracks in the cave walls.
“Dove è Giovanni?” said a small voice.
Jess looked down into Hector’s blackened face, his eyes wide. Leone stood behind him protectively. Hector reached for Jess’s hand. Leaning down, she scooped him into her arms, felt his tiny body against hers. “Oh, sweetheart.” How to tell him that Giovanni was dead? “I’m sorry, but—”
“He’s alive.” Ben pointed to an opening at the end of the cave. “In the next room.”
“Go, go,” Celeste urged, letting go of Jess. She sobbed, new tears streaming down her face. “Take Hector. Go and see him. We can talk again in a minute.”
Ben nodded and let go as well.
Glancing at both of them, Jess gripped Hector and hobbled through the fallen crates. The lights flickered again. Around the corner, another smaller cave. The struts of the disassembled barrels were laid out on the floor as an improvised bed, and there, in the middle, swaddled in blankets, was Giovanni, his head propped up on a cardboard box.
Jess ran. “Giovanni! I have Hector!”
The ground rumbled and she almost fell into him. Giovanni lifted himself up on one elbow. Kneeling on the wooden floor, she pulled back the blanket, revealing his chest covered in bandages soaked in blood.
“It looks worse than it is,” Giovanni croaked, his face still swollen and battered. “The bullet grazed my side, straight through, mostly soft—”
Jess kissed him, deep and hard.
Giovanni kissed her back, but flinched and sucked in air.
“Sorry, sorry, did I hurt you?” Jess retreated.
Giovanni managed to chuckle. “A little, but then that’s to be expected with you, no?”
Jess pointed at the crates and boxes. “When did you do all this?”