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“Yes,” I nodded. “Pietra, Pietro, Pietre, and Pietri. You mentioned.”
“And did I mention,” added Mrs. Agnello with a bit of spice in her voice, “that the four have different fathers?”
My mouth gaped open. We’d had multiple conversations about her children, about how perhaps her kids could help her through this difficult financial situation, lend a hand given the dire financial straits of their parents. I’d always assumed, because of their similar names, that they were full siblings.
“Oh no,” said Mrs. Agnello, as if reading my thoughts. “Four fathers, each one different.”
“Is one of them at least Mr. Agnello?” I gasped, before clapping a hand over my mouth. I didn’t want to be rude and pry.
But the older woman had a sassy answer.
“None of them are Mr. Agnello’s,” replied the older woman, eyes dancing, “although one possibly could be, but I don’t think so.”
And I suddenly understood so much more about the Roma lifestyle. There was a certain laissez-faire aspect to it, as if the people threw their cards into the wind and accepted how they lay, even if it was face down, backwards and scattered to the four corners of the earth. But at the same time, the Roma I’d encountered were happy, impulsive but gloriously satisfied with their lives, living them fully, with a sense of joy and delight.
“So are you saying that I should just accept things as they are?” I asked slowly, rubbing my tummy now, feeling that small but definite bump.
“Oh child,” said Mrs. Agnello, “I can’t tell you anything because you must feel for yourself, take where your heart leads you. But I can tell you that having three fathers is nothing, I have at least four,” she said with a wink.
And I shook my head, the complexity overwhelming me.
“But where are they now?” I asked belatedly, plaintively. “If none of them are Mr. Agnello, where are the four men?”
“How do I know?” she asked, shrugging. “Perhaps Spain, France, I heard one of them traveled to Iceland two years ago. What I’m saying honey, is that things turn out differently than you think, never give up on Lady Luck. I have very little right now after all, but Mr. Agnello and I, we’re very happy.”
And I sat back, still and contemplative. Because I could see, no feel, the steady waves of joy emitting from my client at each and every meeting, every time I encountered her, despite the setbacks, the obstacles which seemed impossible to overcome. At this moment in time, her business was as good as kaput, she’d just asked me to help her apply for food stamps, and she had no idea where the four fathers of her children were. And yet Mrs. Agnello was here, smiling at me, beaming even, a radiant glow emitting from that homely face, her scarf jaunty, her air vibrant. She was the definition of someone happy to be alive, happy with what the world had given her, the opportunities it presented, even if at the current moment, things looked down.
So I smiled tremulously back at her, taking a deep breath.
“I just don’t know where I’m going with all this, what’s going to happen,” I said in a small voice. “I’m so lost.”
“Honey,” said Mrs. Agnello, “we are all lost, at all times. It’s the human condition.”
And with that my mind cracked wide open. Because I knew what I had to do then … and it had nothing to do with the three men who had once been my centers, my heart, everything I lived for.
KRISTIAN
Six months later.
Kato, Karl and I watched as the landscape puttered by, riding in the back of a tuktuk, a kind of motorcycle with an open cab attached in back. Granted the tuktuk barely had space for three massive men, tall and heavily muscled, our hard gazes taking in every detail, the rice fields, the lush greenery, the skinny white cows that seemed so prevalent in Cambodia.
Because we’d followed our best girl here, the brunette who’d driven us into a frantic hunt to the edges of the Earth. The three of us had landed back in St. Venetia a month ago, only to find her gone, disappeared.
“What the fuck?” roared Kato, looking around the empty apartment. It was clear that Tina had been gone for months. Mail was piling up by the slot in the door, the plants were long-since dead, the closet looking ghostly and sad, empty but for a few limp items. “Where is she?”
Karl looked around, confused.
“We told her we’d be back, Halliburton was shipping us off, sure, but we’d be back,” he rumbled.
“Halliburton?” I interrupted dryly, hearing the name of the embattled defense contractor. “What the fuck? Or should I not ask?” The company was a shadow hand behind the American military, notorious for doing dirty work that not even SEALs or Green Berets could do, or should do.
And Kato shot me a look that would have killed a lesser man.
“Yeah, we work, Highness,” he spat. “We didn’t grow up in the lap of luxury like you, we work for a living.”
I could have said something scathing, lobbed pure poison in the air, but held my tongue instead. After all, Kato and Karl were my brothers now, and not just half or step or any of that bullshit. We were full siblings and seeing that I’d never had brothers before, I chose to keep the peace, hold my tongue and let it go.
Besides, my skill as a politician, as a negotiator, told me there was value in keeping an even keel around these men. First, you never knew what they knew, it was better to watch, listen and learn. Second, the two dudes were fucking huge and enormous, with a deadly look in their eyes. The twins were lethal after all, professional soldiers, and who knew what shit would go down if you got them roiled up? I didn’t want to find out, given that Kato had a not-so-subtle bulge under his left armpit, and Karl was currently strumming his fingers against the cheap countertop as if itching to pull a weapon.
