Page 60 of Storm and Sea

“Idiot!” Leo yelled, kicking a garbage bin, sending its contents everywhere. He regretted it instantly as a wave of dizziness washed over him. He crouched among the garbage in case he passed out, but bending so suddenly sent razors through his side, his broken ribs screaming in protest.

Breathe, you moron. You’ll figure this out.

But the words remained as empty as the waste bin that lay at his feet. What was he going to do? Without the Vino Rosso, how would they make enough to live? To pay for the home? For fucks sake, they would eat through their savings in less than a month on food alone. Feeding a family of seven wasn’t cheap.

You’ll figure it out. Come on, think.

Yet his fuzzy brain couldn’t work past the panic surging in his chest. They’d starve. They’d lose the house. Then what? Then… what?

Leo coughed hard. It was chest-deep and torture on his sore lungs. Every ragged breath was a reminder of how he’d nearly drowned. He remembered how badly it’d burned, as though he’d breathed in molten rock instead of seawater. Residual terror still bubbled in his veins at the slightest suggestion of storm clouds on the breeze.

He didn’t want to die. That became abundantly clear as death stared him down, trying to intimidate him into submission. He was terrified. But before he was forced to kneel before death’s blackened robes, someone dragged him to his feet.

Hands clutched him, pulling him through the heavy water. A smooth mouth pressed to his, parting his lips and breathing air into his lungs.

He shouldn’t have remembered those details. Leo was knocked out cold the moment the Vino Rosso tipped over, her derrick striking him in the head. Yet every detail played before him as though he were an onlooker, watching himself drown in the bay. Leo didn’t know if it was his imagination filling in the gaps or what some might call an out-of-body experience, but he remembered everything.

Almost everything.

He touched his lips, trying to unlock more. But his rescuer remained a blurry mass in his mind. When he returned to his body, he had a single fleeting image: a face with scales, green as emeralds and crimson fins catching the rain.

Then he was in a soft white bed with an annoying doctor telling him not to push himself.

“I’m losing my mind,” he said with a hysterical laugh.

Leo didn’t have time for this. Didn’t have time for fantasies induced by a near-death experience. Still, he couldn’t stop thinking about the creature that saved him.

“You got lucky,” he said, picking up the trash and righting the bin. “Now, forget about it.”

Leo opened the door to his childhood home, reminding himself that he promised to fix the lower hinge, which creaked in protest.

“Ma?” he called, listening for the ever-present patter of feet from his younger siblings. The pattering increased in speed, and he was surrounded by four heads with bobbing curls.

“MA!” his sister Annetta yelled, “Leo is home!”

“Leofel Tradi!” his mother said in her no-nonsense voice, hands on her hips, apron stained with red sauce. “You are not supposed to be out of the hospital.”

Leo waved dismissively. “I’m fine, Ma,” he said, kissing her grumpy face on the cheek. “Where is Dad?”

“He said he had a meeting with some friends. But do not change the subject, child of mine. Did Doctor Romano discharge you?”

“Of course,” Leo said with one of his flashiest smiles. “Perfect bill of health.” He kissed her head again as she sighed.

“Oh my boy, what am I going to do with you?”

“Leo, is the Vino Rosso really gone? Did she sink?” Caterina asked, her clumsy hands grabbing his shirt.

Leo picked her up. “Yes, sorellina. She’s gone. I’m so sorry.”

“Gone? What do you mean gone?” Edgar asked, frozen at the base of the stairs. “We can’t get her back?”

Leo could hardly look at Edgar’s devastated face. At eleven and the next eldest son, he was expected to start helping Leo on the bay. He’d spoken of nothing else all winter, and Leo had even begun teaching him the basics on the docks. Now though…

“I’m sorry, Edgar. But we can’t get her back. There is nothing left to save.”

Edgar’s face turned red, and his fists clenched. “This isn’t fair. It was finally my turn.”

“I’m sorry Edgar, you know I⁠—”