Page 283 of Cara & Gian: The Guzzi Duet

His sons’ greatest fears?

Failing their mom.

They didn’t know it, but they could never fail Cara. She loved them too much to see their faults. Gian saw their flaws, occasionally, because he was their father and he had a different role to play, at times, with his boys. But no matter what, he was damn proud of his sons.

Gian liked to think he had a big hand in how his sons treated, loved, and respected their mother. Fact was, his boys just loved Cara. And all he needed to do was occasionally remind them why as they’d grown up. They did the rest themselves, honestly.

“Hey, Ma.”

Cara preened up at her oldest son, happy as could be. “How was your week?”

“Busy.”

“Not too busy, though,” his wife said, shooting Gian a look.

Marcus shrugged. “It’s good, Ma. I like being busy. Keeps me out of trouble.”

Cara pursed her lips. “Mmhmm. I’m sure. Sit, your brothers are almost home from school.”

She wasn’t wrong.

Gian had only taken his seat at the other end of the table when four pairs of footsteps echoed down the main hall. Two sets were closer than the others. Loud, raucous laughter followed his four other boys. Nearly seventeen-year-old Christopher and Corrado moved through the dining room first, going straight for their mother. Seniors in high school, the two boys were often more different than they were alike. Which was strange, considering they were identical twins. One was more daring, the other reserved. One was louder, the other quiet.

Perhaps it was just how his first set of twin boys fed off one another. One helped the other to stay calm, the other pushed his brother to take risks.

Gian wasn’t entirely sure.

He let his boys figure out this life thing all on their own.

“So, wait, she tried to—” Fourteen-year old Beni—short for Benito—quieted when he realized the entire dining room was looking in his direction. He shrugged off the dirty look his twin brother—Benedetto—gave him, especially considering Cara was now interested in whatever she had heard.

“You’re an ass,” Bene grumbled. “Told you to drop it.”

“She?” Cara asked quietly. “Who is this she, Bene?”

“Ah, Ma. It’s nothing.”

Bene—said with an ‘ay’ sound at the end—and Beni—said with a hard “e” sound—were the complete opposite of their older twin brothers. Where Chris and Corrado made a great effort to be different from one another, Bene and Beni did not.

From a young age, the younger twins had stuck to one another like glue. They spoke alike, dressed similar, and rarely allowed people close enough to understand their strange bonds. Gian could bring forth a dozen memories of his youngest twins having conversations with one another in a babbling language as babies and toddlers that no one could understand. Or how one would always know the other was sick or hurt before anyone else did. It took Cara and Gian years—until the twins could speak properly and communicate—to understand why one would wake up in the middle of the night in a terror, only to figure out the next morning, the other twin was sick with some bug or other.

Cara had quietly mentioned once that she had shared a similar—albeit less intense—kind of bond with her dead twin. It scared the shit out of Gian, not because his boys shared something so strange and wonderful, but because what if. Cara had never thought her twin would be taken away, and he didn’t want to consider that might happen to one of his boys, too.

Because what if it did?

He did not think Bene or Beni were like their mother. He did not believe one could survive without the other, not like they currently were. They were too close, too dependent, and their lives were too intertwined. Cara told Gian all the time not to think about it. Live and let live, she would tell him. Love and let love.

Some thought the boys were a little odd or strange, but Gian didn’t. Then again, he had watched his boys grow from the day they were taken from their mother’s body and put into his arms. Of course, he didn’t find anything odd or strange about them.

There were some who could not tell the two apart, although their parents had never had that trouble.

Gian would never forget Cara’s tired laugh when the ultrasound technician very quietly informed them that their pregnancy was once again a multiple. Not one baby, but two, and identical.

Cara had turned to him and muttered, “You got your baseball team, Gian.”

They hadn’t even known the genders.

Cara always seemed to know.