“The honey.” It’s Morgan’s voice, behind us. She crouches, a few feet back. “I showed her how. A little diagnostic, because she said you were?—”
“Why didn’t you say something?” Cal’s voice is shaking, his chin juddering, the twin trails of tears cutting more paths through the dirt on his face. “Why didn’t you say something? How many times did I ask you? How many times didsheask you?” He gestures at me.
“I didn’t…” Lanz coughs, swallows. His breathing is shallow and rapid. “I didn’t want to be a problem. I didn’t want you to have to deal with it, on top of everything.”
“I want you to be my problem!” Cal says. “What do you even think this is? It’s not just hand jobs in wine cellars. It’s letting someone else’s problems be your problem.”
The shock of the language coming from Cal’s mouth only barely registers. Lanz notices too. His brows are just drawn together before he spasms in pain again.
“Lanz!” I cry.
“It’s…” He tries to push to his elbows and fails. “It was going to happen no matter what, okay? And now I know you’re okay, Gwenna, and?—”
“It didn’thaveto happen,” I cut him off. “It doesn’t. It doesn’t. Right?” I look at Cal, but he’s only staring at Lanz, still crying, clutching one of his hands between his. I look back at Morgan, at, over her shoulder, Kai and Kingston.
“Your father,” Kingston says. “He went like this.”
All of us look back to Lanz.
“Yeah, well,” Lanz gives a watery laugh. “Dell’Acqua men love too much, so…”
“So it’s a curse,” I say, glancing at Morgan, “right? If it runs in a family?”
She nods.
I wheel back on Lanz. “What is the curse?” I say, urgent and low. “Tell me.”
He presses his white lips together, shakes his head. “It’s too late. I don’t know what you could?—”
“Tell me,” I say. “You don’t get to die with secrets.” My voice is fierce, almost unrecognizable to myself. “Tell me, because if there’s any way we can undo it…”Then I will, I think.I’ve done it once. I can do it again. What’s two miracles in one afternoon?I almost want to laugh, how absurd this all is.
Lanz breathes in. Breathes out. Overhead, a sparrow trills.
“It’s my whole family,” Lanz says at last. “The men, anyway. I don’t know how long it goes back. They alwys just said, love shall claim him once, then again. Death shall come with a heart split in twain. And so…” He tilts his head back, eyes squeezed shut, like he’s waiting for something to pass.
It does.
“Yeah,” he mumurs. “Fall in love a lot, then meet the right person, and, uh, die of a broken heart?” The last few words are shaky, as if he doesn’t even like saying them.
“This isn’t funny,” Cal says sternly. “It’s not funny.”
“Trust me, I know,” Lanz says. “Except…it’s a little funny. ‘Cause I thought, you know, this whole vow was gonna keep me from finding the woman who was gonna end me, and then you just wander into French class anyway.” He laughs.
“What do you…” I can’t even finish the sentence.
His eyes open, dull, glassy, but intent on me. “I’ve loved you ever since I saw you, Gwenna. I’ve always known. I just have. And then I touched you, and Ireallyknew, and then, suddenly, the more I touched you, the worse it got, but…” He swallows again. “Worth it.”
My memory flies to the other night, in the kitchen, holding me, fiercely touching me, the way he said,I’m just glad I got to meet you. I’m so lucky.The tear coming out of his eye.
“No,” I say, and slam my palm against the flagstones. “No, we have to…” I pull back. Close my eyes. Breathe out.Think. Think.“Say it again,” I say, eyes still closed. “Say the curse again.”
“Love shall claim him once then again.” It’s Morgan, not Lanz, who’s speaking, like she’s been thinking about it this whole time. “Death shall come with a heart split in twain.”
I think. Really think.Death shall come with a heart split in twain.I turn the phrase over and over in my mind, like I’m looking for a keyhole in a lock box, trying to pry at the seams and find the one place where it will all spring loose.
“But it’s not causative.”
A deep, rumbling voice. I open my eyes. Callahan. He’s still gripping Lanz’s hand, but now he looks at me. “Right? It just says death will comewith. Notbe caused by.It’s…you can only accept as true what’s clear and distinct. What the wordsclearly say, not what theycould mean.That’s…Cartesian logic. Right? Isn’t it?”
