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She nodded. “You probably think that’s silly.”
“Not at all.” He reached out a hand and held it over Joe, as if bestowing a blessing. “One of my cousins lost his son to SIDS. It was devastating.”
“I can’t imagine anything more horrible,” she said, holding Joe closer.
“Neither can I.”
Jillian struggled to wrap her mind around such a tragedy. “Did your cousin have other children?”
“A little girl. She was almost three at the time.” Vittorio shook his head. “Christopher lost his life six months later. It was a very hard time in the family.”
Jillian shivered at the grim direction their conversation had taken even as Vitt’s words stirred a ghost of a memory.
Years ago a young Sicilian immigrant named Christopher had died in Detroit after her father accused him of double-crossing Detroit’s crime family. Christopher claimed he was innocent, without any connections to organized crime, but it didn’t save him. “How…how did he die?”
“He was shot.”
“Where…where did it happen?”
“In the States.”
“I know, but where?”
Vitt gave her a hard look. “Does it matter?”
She shook her head, but on the inside, she knew it did matter. It mattered too much.
“Were you serious about having us renew our vows in the d’Severano chapel?” she asked, suddenly desperate to change the subject.
“Yes.” He suddenly smiled. “Provided you don’t wear black again.”
She couldn’t resist his smile. “I won’t. I promise.”
“Good.” He stood there another moment, tall, broad, imposing, considering her. “I suppose that means we better get you a proper dress.”
“No—”
“Yes. If we’re going to do this again, we better do it right, which means making sure it’s the wedding every girl dreams of.”
He left them then, excusing himself to get some work done, and after he’d gone, Jillian gave Joe a bottle and then tucked him into his travel cot.
But after putting Joe to bed, she didn’t know what to do with herself. Was she supposed to join Vittorio? Was she supposed to stay here? What did one do when you were married but didn’t feel like a wife?
She ended up staying with Joe. After dimming the lights as much as she could, she curled up on the bed to watch him sleep.
Awake, Joe stole her heart. Sleeping, Joe broke it. He looked peaceful and impossibly sweet in his little cot with his arms stretched out above his head. His soft skin was flushed pink and his long eyelashes rested in dark crescents on his round cheeks.
Hard to believe that just a year ago she was pregnant with him. Hard to believe life could change so much in one year. From birth to boy in just eleven months. Impossible. Magical.
Although the early weeks of her pregnancy weren’t magical. Those weeks were filled with panic, and denial.
In the beginning, she didn’t believe she was pregnant. She didn’t feel pregnant. She didn’t feel like anything, certainly not as though she was carrying a child, much less Vittorio’s child.
There were times she nearly convinced herself that it wasn’t so. She hadn’t changed her clothes size. She didn’t have any cravings. She didn’t feel queasy or headachy or emotional. But her period never came, and her breasts grew fuller, heavier, and her flat, taut belly took a gently rounded shape. Finally she went to the doctor and he told her everything she needed to know. She was approximately seventeen weeks, the baby had a strong heartbeat, development looked good, and unless the doctor was mistaken, it appeared to be a boy.
A boy.
Another male d’Severano.
