She smiles and the teacup shakes slightly in her hand. There’s a beat of silence as we watch Livvie slow the horse to a walk.
“We’re going to try for a baby.”
Pulling back from her shoulder, I look at my sister to see if she’s pranking me. Her smile grows and when she looks at me, I notice the smile reaches her eyes. “Wow.”
“Yeah, we decided it’s time. I mean, I’m a little apprehensive about it—I know it’s not ideal, having a child when your family’s in the mob, but…I know he’ll be a great dad.”
She sets down her cup on the table. I’m not sure how to respond. I want to be happy for her. Iamhappy for her. If this is what she wants, then yes! But it’s hard for me to know sometimes if Charlie is doing things for herself or for others. She’s lived a huge part of her life for other people—Livvie and me, our dad. Her husband.
“Have you and Dante talked about having kids?” she asks.
“He mentioned heirs once, but we haven’t really talked about anything seriously. Seems we don’t have that kind of relationship. I think I would like kids someday, though.”
The horse comes to a choppy halt in the center of the ring. Livvie pats his neck, leaning forward to coo something in his ear.
“It’s just…when I pictured my life, I always imagined babies. But I never imagined a husband like Dante. I imagined…love.”
Charlie stares at me intently. It’s not like she got the husband of her dreams, either. She and I are on a parallel path when it comes to the arranged marriage bullshit.
She doesn’t say anything. Maybe I touched a nerve.
We both turn back to watching Livvie as she cues the horse into a rocking canter. She pulls the reins ever so slightly, asking the horse to change his gait into a delayed, long-legged stride.“She’s something special, isn’t she?” I say softly.
“She is.” Charlie grips the balcony rail with one hand until her knuckles turn white. “What if Dad comes back with a husband for Livvie?”
My hairline tingles, a lump forming in my throat at the thought. “Nothing like that is ever going to happen to her.Ever.”
“Okay.” Charlie nods in agreement. “Not ever.”
I put my hand over hers to seal our vow. “Not ever.”
20
Frankie
For the firsttime in weeks, I’m completely alone, with no agenda and no eyes on me. It might only be for a little while, but as I run through the vineyard in the blue-gray of predawn, the cool morning air filling my lungs, I’m grateful for the time to do something for myself. I’d almost forgotten what it was like.
Running makes me feel free in a way that nothing else does. I love the powerful ability of my legs to move me across the ground, my feet hitting the packed earth between the vines while kicking up the scents of a fresh new day. It reminds me of Italy. I’d wake with the sun and stretch on the cobblestone path outside my building, then run the well-worn trail through an olive grove that led to a hay field, a dirt road, and finally ended at thepasticceriajust outside of the village. Who doesn’t love ending their run at the doorstep of a pastry shop?
Sadly, my run today won’t end with a cornetto and a latte in my hand. I don’t have the pleasure of those sweet things in my life at the moment. I have a philandering husband, instead. A controlling, philandering husband who is only begrudgingly starting to see me as a person (wow, what a hero), and a missing, possibly endangered father who traded his daughter for a few creature comforts—and is likely making a similar arrangement for his youngest daughter, too.
Thank God I have my sisters.
At the top of a rise, I stop to take pleasure in watching the sun peek over the horizon, spilling soft light onto the vines. My breaths come hard, punctuating the dark thoughts in my mind. So much for endorphins making me feel good. Reality is stronger than hormones, I guess.
Focusing on my breathing, I take off again through the rows.
I reflect more on my two beautiful sisters who are trying so hard to make the best out of the shitty family life we grew up with. Not only was our mother gone and our father emotionally checked out or drunk all the time, but school was always rough for Charlie and me, too. Not because we struggled academically but because making friends was impossible.
For some reason, us older Abbott girls had a reputation for being stuck up bitches, even though any “attitude” we had was just shyness and a lingering embarrassment about our home life. It didn’t help that Charlie was such a knockout with her long legs and golden hair, or that I was in a C-cup bra by the time I was twelve; we both had to deal with boys making relentless passes at us (whether we reciprocated or not, the termslutseemed to follow us like a shadow).
With Livvie, though, it’s different. She’s so warm and friendly and bubbly that she has more friends than she can keep track of. She’s easy to love. Nobody shuns her or graffitis her locker or writes her number in the boys’ bathroom stalls. And I couldn’t be more happy for her. I’m glad she’ll never feel isolated the way I did, the way Charlie did. Things aren’t all bad.
I have my job, too, I suppose. It’s a job I would normally love, but it being tied up with so many strings and limitations…it just feels like one more link in the chains holding me down.
My legs muscles relax as I finally find a rhythm. My pulse beats steadily against my neck. My breathing is paced. There’s a stand of cypress trees to the right, far beyond the vines, but similar enough to the landscape of Tuscany that nostalgia washes over me.
The heady, almost sweet scent of the trees. The crunch of detritus on the path under my feet. My chest swells again, with longing this time. I’ve only been away from Italy a short while, but it feels so much longer. My life there was busy, but…uncomplicated.
