AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The sex was great. Saving her life was necessary. But it was all emotional afterwards. It meant nothing. It—
But I’m lying to myself.
I dress quickly—as in slide on the tiny ass speedo, and get out of the pool house. She’ll be fine by herself. I stop, just about to close the door, and look back at her.
It is a slightly cooler evening than most.
I head back in, just as quietly as when I left, and go back to her. I grab the quilt and slide it over her, tucking her in and hiding her body.It’s something only I can see.
That’s the last one, I tell myself. The last thought I can have.
I leave the pool house and skirt around the pool. It’s a full moon and the air is clear. Not a single cloud and I can see the very recliner Sophie was on during the day. It’s tipped to the side, as if it were perfectly positioned to dump her into that water. I bypass and head inside to the entertaining room I’d been watching her from.
My things have been tidied and folded, they’re sitting on the drinks bar along with Sophie’s things. My phone is on top and I take it down. I check it habitually but know there won’t be any notifications other than the blackmailer.
And I’m right.
It’s just a text, showing the address of one of our real estates.
It doesn’t shock or surprise me,you can look us up in the phone book.
But I do stare at the phone for a long time. I stare at the background I’ve got set. It’s a picture of me, my father, and Ma. It was just before she left to go and visit relatives in Italy. We’re all there at the airport, sending her off as she goes early. Dad and I were meant to follow three weeks later and enjoy a cold Christmas with the extended uncles and aunts in Turin. Fucking freezing compared to our mild ones here. But the coldness wasn’t the problem. That Ma got whacked by some old family grudge leaving the airport is the problem.
It’s the coldness that has sprung up between me and my father since she died.
Why? Because it was something I’d done as a kid. That was the grudge being repaid. Something completely fucking stupid. Something I don’t even remember doing. That’s the worst part about this guilt. Somehow it’smyfault and I don’t even know what I did. My father, even if he doesn’t know it, blames me. He knows business is business. He knows how dangerous it was for Ma to go home, and not because of my dumb shit, but because of why our family is here in the south of the US. The Colombino’s hadn’t always been in America. Nor had the Colombinos always beenColombinos. We’d been Azzarettis. And Ma’s grandmother had been one. Then she met a guy, had a kid, got him baptized as something else, yada yada yada.
The screen goes dark and I close that whole mental treasure chest of happy memories. I don’t need to torture myself any more than I already have been this trip. I look up at the ceiling, praying for some sort of strength to figure out what my problem is.
Then it occurs to me.
The roof.
The whole time I’ve been here I've stayed on the ground and first floor, where my room is. I’d never gone higher. I’m completely fucking stupid.
I run to the main entrance hall and race up the grand stairs, then I open the shuttle door for servants, and race up the three floors to the top where my father had his private little terrace built. The door isn’t locked and soon I’m back out in the fresh air. Back out among the midnight breezes and soft scents of tomatoes growing.
It’s as I stand among my father’s little haven of tomato paradise that I realize everything he’s said is right. I mean, I’ve already realized that it’s all right, but now I understand it.
The family is everything. Because the family is involved with everything. We aren’t a family in the normal sense. Most people aren’t involved with businesses the way our family is. It’s personal. All of it. It’s a piece of us in the world that exists almost as a living and breathing thing. And if that were the case, I’d been flaunting a kid in a beauty pageant and pocketing the profits. I’d never considered how that was for the family. Only that the family benefited overall.
I stare up at the moon and know that I'm not ready to be a Don. Not yet a leader of this family. That’s the true reason why this marriage can’t happen. I won’t become who I need to be if I don’t take it seriously without it.
But then isn’t family everything? Marrying Sophie, maybe even starting a family … That is it too.
I sigh and sit down on my father’s bench. Marrying Sophie? Despite trying to push it away, I can see it. She would truly be angelic in a white dress. We’d have it down at that church in Key West, maybe at sunset so the stained glass is shining … I’d wear a white jacket and black pants. I know I look good in white. In truth it wouldn’t matter what I’d wear, she’d outshine me regardless. I’m sitting here under the moonlight smiling like some damn idiot. Even if I’m not ready to be Don, even if this marriage shouldn’t happen, I at least feel comfortable up here acknowledging that I like her …
It suddenly occurs to me how robust my father’s tomatoes are. When does he even have the time to come out here? I wonder who looks after it. For the first time, in my entitled little life, I realize it’sfamily. That’s why I’ve always known Gammie and considered her our blood. Because family isn’t blood. Family is action. What wedofor one another.
My phone starts beeping and pinging away in my hand, I turn it over and it’s lighting up like a christmas tree. Notification after notification. Messages from my father, Marco, everyone. Emails start flooding through along with some Piovere shit too. I feel like a kid and wonder what to do first!
Then all these missed calls start coming through …
From this afternoon.
It’s my father on repeat. He called like eight fucking times. All the while I’d been fucking Sophie. All while we’d been bonding again. What’s happened to him?
Finally my phone pings again with a last message, a voicemail has been left.
