Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 73250 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73250 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
The mattress shifted when he took his place beside me. “Yeah?”
I was half asleep when I slurred, “I really do love you. You love me too, don’t you?”
Right then, I fell to slumber so I wasn’t really sure I heard him respond, but I could have sworn I dreamt him say, “‘Til death and beyond.”
Of course, it was all a dream.
Irrespective, I fell asleep smiling.
Chapter 20
How do you do it?
Ettore
It was early afternoon and I already wanted to strangle the disrespectful fuck that was my younger brother.
As was the norm, Sundays were reserved for family and when my pops put on a spread, he didn’t need to call us over. We smelled the invitation from down the street. Soon after we arrived, I saw mama’s navy blue, white speckled enamel pot sitting in the center of the table, and I could already taste what was inside.
When the entire family was seated, Giada opened the pots and I immediately began salivating. My mother’s rabbit ragu sat to one side of the big pot of polenta, and on the other was something I didn’t recognize. Whatever it was smelled great though.
While Vittoria loaded up plates for the boys, I watched her closely as she leant down and asked them each what they wanted. It caused an unexpected emotion to wash over me. Satisfaction. She fell into her role of stepmother fairly easily which spoke highly of her considering my kids were not always on their best behavior. I had to cut ‘em some slack though. They’d been through things other kids their age couldn’t possibly understand, and Vittoria’s own losses resonated with theirs.
I watched my wife and her gentle curves move effortlessly around the family table and part of me grew impatient wondering what the hell was taking so long. She was young, I was amorous and we weren’t using birth control, yet every month she got her courses.
My gaze fell to her stomach with a longing I thought had long passed.
The desire to see her pregnant was a needy one. I wanted her to swell with part of me. I wanted a son with my wife’s expressive eyes or a daughter with her soft heart. But more than anything, I craved another child to dote on.
Hers. Mine.
Ours.
While she provided for the kids, it was my job to provide for her. I took her plate and began to fill it. And I felt his eyes on me from across the table. When I glanced up at him coolly, Daniele simply looked down as I held my wife’s plate, shook his head slowly then lifted his hand and mimed a whipping motion.
My jaw tightened at the implication that I was pussy whipped. I would refrain from pouring a ladle of steaming hot sauce into his lap, if only because I could see my father’s health waning and another fight between siblings was not going to improve his disposition.
Daniele was still young and he had time to make mistakes. What he didn’t understand was, I had already made them and guilt ate away at me every day since the unexpected loss of my beloved Amara. In the years since she passed, I noticed things about myself. Things I didn’t do. Things I should’ve done. While Amara held down the home base, I worked outside of it. Oftentimes, I came home late. Some nights, I didn’t come home at all. Asserting myself into the role, becoming head of this house, it took time and effort and I neglected things. People.
I had no idea Amara was struggling mentally. Like most mothers, she hid it well. But now, as I lowered Vittoria’s plate as she took her seat, she smiled at me, widely, openly and full of love.
The critical thoughts that attacked me came at the most inconvenient times.
Maybe if you came home earlier…
Maybe if you spent more time with her…
Maybe if you’d shown more affection…
Maybe if you’d taken the kids every now and then so she could relax…
Maybe if you’d taken her out for a meal every now and again…
Maybe if you treated her like the woman she was and not the mother she became…
Maybe if you’d fixed her a fucking plate…
Under the table, Vittoria’s dainty hand covered my knee and squeezed it in gratitude, and I couldn’t stop myself from dipping into her and capturing her mouth in a brief kiss. Her eyes widened in surprise at the very moment my mouth touched hers. And when I pulled back, she looked around the table quickly then picked up her fork and glanced down at her plate, but I didn’t miss the way her lips softened with a barely there smile while the apples of her cheeks turned a light shade of pink.
If I’d done even some of those things, maybe – just maybe – she would have stayed.