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And then I remember where I am and why I'm there. I normally sleep naked, so I clutch the sheets around me.
There's the slightest lift of a corner of his mouth, then he's all business. "I'm giving you a job."
"Yeah? What do you want me to do?"
"I have a lot of shit that my mom wanted me to keep for her. I want you to sort through the junk and keep what's important."
"Are you talking about baby photos and report cards?"
Iacopo nods.
"But how can I possibly know what's important and what to throw away?"
"You'll know."
Could he be more cryptic? "Sure," I say, because what else can I say? If he wants to give me a bullshit job that he can not give me directions for and then yell at me when I throw out something important, great.
"I had someone bring the boxes into the sitting room. You're permitted to move around this floor of the house. The windows are wired to the alarm system. Don't try to go downstairs."
"Yes, sir." I feel like Belle right now.
"I'll come back at the end of the day to check your progress."
He leaves. I can still smell his scent in my room, though. He smells like dark musk. It makes my mouth water. I hate that he makes my mouth water. I wish that I could just hate him.
I put on some clothes and head for the sitting room where we were sitting yesterday. My jaw drops to the floor. Every spare inch is filled with a box. When he said that he had a job for me, I thought that he was giving me a bullshit task. And maybe it is, but it's a big one.
I clear space on the table that I fantasized about him fucking me on and begin to sort out the first box. It's a bunch of pictures of Iacopo and his mom, who was basically my dad's mom. Biology didn't mean a lot to my actual grandmother. Iacopo's mother was an angel, the way that my dad tells it. I don't understand how he could repay the kindness that he'd been shown for so many years with idiotic theft.
I think about the phone waiting for me in the drawer of my nightstand. I wish that I had more time with my dad to figure out what exactly had happened. And maybe I'll get that chance when he calls me. I should investigate what exactly is on that phone.
It's cute to see baby pictures of Iacopo. His hair was lighter then, a dark brown, not the near-black color that it is now. On the back of a picture of Iacopo at the beach, his mother wrote, "My little boy, age 2". He has grains of sand all over him. There's a smudge on his cheek that looks like it came from a popsicle. He's having the time of his life, building a sand castle that was obviously built enthusiastically but without any regard for the laws of physics or any concept of architecture.
I don't know why, but suddenly I'm thinking about what it would be like to hold Iacopo's baby, one that had my eyes and Iacopo's hair.
I'm insane. That's the only explanation for that idea popping up in my head.
There's something inside of me that wants a baby. I know that I'll have a family some day, but I need to finish school first.
If I even get to go back to school.
Fuck.
I keep sorting through everything. It's like I'm learning about his whole life through his photographs and his report cards. "Doesn't listen in class." He was a troublemaker back then. It's hard to reconcile this adorable little boy with slightly curly hair with the stern man who stole me from my father. I can believe that this cheerful little boy was Uncle Iacopo, but Warden Iacopo is a different man.
A few hours later, I have two piles. I'm exhausted. I need to rest, so I go to one of the chairs and curl up in it. I just want to close my eyes for a second.
I wake up when my body is being carried into my bedroom. He sits down on the bed with me in his arms.
"You fell asleep."
"I did?" I think that I slept a lot the night before, so it's a bit weird that I'm so tired. And all I did was sort through photographs and think about Iacopo today.
"Go to bed. You can get back to work in the morning."
"Aye, aye, captain." Maybe it's the tiredness. Maybe it's the careful way that he's holding me in his arms. But I know that he's the man who has cared about me for my entire life at this moment. I rest my head against his shoulder.
"I like it when you carry me." Immediately, I cringe inside. What a thing to think. What a thing to say!
