AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Papa is nearly soundless, but everywhere he walks he can’t help but make a sound, whether it’s a snarl at a servant, or a cough or wheeze from his three-pack-a-day habit. Now, however, I don’t know who it is.
A knock sounds at the door. Tavi cocks his pistol and stands by the door.
“Come in.“ I look up curiously, surprised to see Rosa enter. I didn’t expect her. Tavi puts his gun away but not before she sees it.
“You’d pull a gun on your own sister, Ottavio?” She can’t hide the wounded look in her eyes. “Shouldn’t have brought you these, then, hmm?” My mouth waters to see she’s holding a silver tray of our bakery’s famous butter cookies. They’ve won awards all throughout New England.
“Didn’t know it was you,” he mutters, clearly repentant because he wants those cookies. “Give those here.”
She smiles and hands him the tray of cookies, little pink ones dotted with sprinkles, rich butter cookies enrobed in powdered sugar, little mounds of delicate half-moons with chocolate filling. “Thought you two knew everyone’s step?”
I don’t respond. She’s been gone too long for us to recognize her sound anymore. She’s changed too much. I take four cookies and pop them in my mouth one at a time like popcorn. Fuck, they’re good. Delicately sweetened and rich as sin, our bakers bake them in small, handmade batches and sell them in the North End. They’re usually sold out within an hour of opening.
Rosa shakes her head and takes one pretty pink cookie and nibbles it like a mouse. She rarely touches sugar, but likes to indulge in our family favorites when she comes home. The dim light reflects on the fading black and blue around her eye. She’s a beautiful woman, and I hate to see her marred like this, but more than anything I hate that anyone struck her.
My hands clench into fists, and a slow simmering rage coils in my stomach. She’s seen the doctor, that much is obvious, because her eye looks better than it did yesterday. I still wish I could slice the throat of the motherfucker who did that to her. I’d beat the shit out of him first. I’d beat the shit out of anyone who dared to raise a hand to a woman, but for laying hands on my sister, a sound beating would only be the beginning before I made him die a painful death.
When Marialena was eighteen years old, she went out to a college party with a friend of hers a few years her senior. Most of her friends are older than she is, but that’s the way it is in our family. Raised to grow up fast, we didn’t have much use for peers.
Marialena called me in tears, the sound of her desperate voice haunting me to this day. My parents were in Tuscany and she was under my watch.
She’d been assaulted. She’d gone to a party anonymously, without her bodyguard. Said she wanted one night without being a known Rossi. She’d had too much to drink, and a drunk frat boy tried to take advantage of her.
His death made the news.
We’re usually more careful, but we wanted to make an impression that time. First time I broke my own damn hand delivering the worst beating I’d ever given a guy. Still hurts when the weather goes to shit where I broke a bone.
I wasn’t greedy, though. I let my brothers take turns, too.
Orlando hung his body from the Zakim Bridge overlooking Boston, castrated and bleeding out, and Marialena didn’t leave the house for the rest of the summer. When fall came I stationed three guards on her instead of her usual one.
She forgave me, eventually.
“Rosa.” She sits beside me. “How are you?”
I try to keep my features calm, along with my voice, but she gives me a sad smile when she sees me staring at her eye.
“There’s nothing you can do about it now.“ She’d sound abrasive if not for the lilt in her voice. I know my older sister too well. The Rossi women learn to keep their poker face on at all times, but they feel, and they feel hard. They may be in circumstances they wouldn’t choose, but it doesn’t detract from who they are.
When she enters a room, she walks with her head held high, regal as she’s always been. She sits beside me and rests her hand on top of mine. She gives me a sad smile. “He left me a lot of money, Romeo.”
She doesn’t need the money and we both know this.
“He left you a daughter.“
Pain flits across her features, and I don’t ask questions. We both know it probably would’ve been better for her if he had left her a son. Women are second-class citizens in my family. I don’t like it, but there’s not much I can do to change it.
