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“You do,” Karah says, but hesitates. “Then again, you want to sleep with everyone, even though I find the idea extremely distressing.”
“Fair,” I say, conceding that she has a point.
“Enough,” Casso says, stubbing out his cigar. “Stay away from the girl. We don’t need her and she’s only going to make our lives harder. I know you despise Malcolm and I’m inclined to agree, but we need his money and his connections, so the deal moves forward. No fucking it up. Understood?”
“Understood,” I say, throwing back my drink and saluting. “Now, if I’m dismissed, I have work to do.”
I head to the door and slip out, but before I can close it, Karah follows me into the hall. She gives me this look, the look I hate the most in the world, full of worry and love and heaped with pity, and I grimace under the weight of it.
“I don’t need to hear it from you too,” I say softly as we walk toward the back stairs. “I’ll come around more, all right?”
“Emilio misses you. Remember when you two were close?”
“I remember.” I stare at the floor, unable to meet her eyes. “That was ten years ago.”
We lapse into silence. She knows what that means. Ten years ago: the before times and the after times. Back when I was a whole man, and now, when I’m a broken and cracked man.
“It’s going to be the eleven-year anniversary in a few months, isn’t it?” We reach the bottom of the stairs and pause in the shadows of the kitchen. It’s empty now, closed until the morning. “It’s hard to imagine Sonia’s been dead for that long.”
“Yeah, well, she has, and I still don’t want to talk about her.”
“It might help.”
“It won’t.”
“Gavino—”
“Stop it. I don’t want to do this again, okay?”
“I know you loved her,” she says as I start walking past and that draws me up short. I pull in a deep breath to calm the tremor in my hands and turn back to face my little sister. “I know you wanted to marry her.”
“Fuck her. Okay? Fuck her.”
“Stop it. Don’t act like that.”
“How do you want me to act, huh? It was a long time ago. Sonia’s dead.”
“You’re still hurting. Don’t act like you’re over it.”
I want to say, when she died, I died with her, but I can’t bring myself to speak the words. It’s too melodramatic, but as the years slip past and I’m still unable to fill the void she left in my heart, I think it might be the truth. Whatever part of me that’s capable of having a loving, meaningful relationship is gone.
That’s why I don’t come around the house much anymore. I don’t know how to be that man anymore for the kids. I try, but it’s like I’m miming the motions, saying the words, but there’s nothing behind it.
No feelings, no part of me that cares anymore.
“Goodnight, Karah.”
She sighs but doesn’t stop me this time.
As I leave the house, I hesitate near the pool. An inflatable giraffe, sun-faded and ancient, floats in the deep end. I think about Emilio when he was little, before I ever met Sonia, back before I sold the bowling alleys and dedicated myself to my street crew. We used to swim in that pool all the time, drift in the sunlight, splash around and laugh. Those were good days, and a part of me aches for them again.
It’s the same part of me that reacted to Jeanie when she sat on my lap in Malcolm’s office.
Not the sexual part. No, it’s the part of me that’s searching for something more, and for whatever reason, it activated the second I felt Jeanie close against my body. That girl’s trouble, it’s obvious for anyone looking, and she’s hiding something important. She hates Malcolm for a reason, and she might have a serious self-destructive streak in her, a streak that might drag me down with her if I let her get too close.
And yet I can’t help myself. She’s the opposite of Sonia in so many ways. Where Sonia was tall and willowy and blonde, Jeanie’s small and curvy and dark. Jeanie’s brash and brave and outgoing. Sonia was quiet and reserved, like an ice princess.
Jeanie burns hot.
I might need hot to wake me up again.
I leave the house and go to find out if Jeanie’s what I need or if she’s a pretty distraction.
