I smiled. “All eyes on me.” Let the games fucking begin. It was getting boring playing a five-person game with only one player. When they didn’t know a game was being played, they couldn’t cheat, but that was about to change.
Rocco and I stood. He held out his hand and pulled me in, slapping me on the back. “No more talk of business,” he said. “It is time to play ball!”
“Eeeeuuuu!” His brother, Romeo, yelled, and then all of the men started for the field.
Rocco waited for me.
“I’ll meet you,” I said.
He looked at my grandfather and then nodded. Tito walked with Rocco toward the field.
I took a seat next to my grandfather. He gazed into the distance. “What are you looking at?”
“I am not looking, Amadeo, I am thinking.”
“That’s right,” I said, hiding my grin. “You were going to tell me what you thought.”
He turned to me and raised his hand, like he was going to slap me. I moved away, bracing myself for it. No matter how old I was, he was my grandfather, and he’d bust my ass if he thought I was making a joke out of something he considered serious.
After a second, with his hand still raised, he smiled at me. Then his hand came down on my head and he moved it back and forth, growling at me. “You make me furious!” Then he pulled me in roughly and kissed my head. “I will miss you the most, Amadeo, after I am gone.”
His sickness was a snake around my heart, and it made it hard to breathe when I thought about him leaving me. He had always challenged me to see things differently. He was the only one who had the balls to.
I looked down at the ground. “Non voglio parlare di questo.” I don’t want to talk about this.
“We must talk about things we find difficult,” he said in Italian. “Or we will never conquer them.”
We became quiet for a while. I couldn’t look at him, so I continued to stare at the ground, my head empty of thoughts. My grandfather looked at nothing again, but I could tell his head was full of them.
“When Tito told me what happened to you,” he continued in Italian, “that day was the first day I had spoken to God since your mother died. I hated God. I did not understand why a faithful woman, such as your grandmother, had to suffer such a loss when all she did was pray. Pray for the protection of her children.
“Why hadn’t He protected my child? Why hadn’t He sent her home to us when she needed us the most? The anger consumed me. We are what we love, Amadeo. I loved to hate. It was easier than feeling that I had somehow been forgotten by a God that I hadn’t forgotten.”
A few of my cousins walked along the path, talking, and he became quiet. Seeing this, they waved but didn’t stop. A minute or two after the group was far enough that they couldn’t overhear, my grandfather twisted his cane against the ground, continuing his train of thought.
“The first time I saw you, I saw so much of your mother in you, and I felt you were my own. Arturo called you the prince, but you were always my boy. My Amadeo. My own, and Tito could not tell me if you would live or die. Again, I found myself in a position to lose it all. When we love, we are at the mercy of life and death. Love sets us in a position to lose it all. A chance—there is a chance he will make it—can make or break our soul.
“The miraculous thing is, even if we lose it all, we somehow build it up again. That tiny part of us, the ember of whatever is left in us, becomes our all until we add to it. I stood to lose the little I had when Tito called and told me of your condition. It would have destroyed me. I couldn’t survive it.” He sighed. “I drove to the church and stepped in front of the cross, willing to bargain. I said, ‘If You will save him, I will give You myself in his place. There are worse things than death that can take a man. I don’t want the worse again. I want my grandson to live. I want him to touch love and experience the good in life. Let him experience the indescribable feeling of falling in love, of loving enough to die for the woman worth his sacrifice. Let him experience the indescribable joy of becoming a father. Let him fall in love with his life! Let him live with love in his heart and not vengeance in the deepest part of his soul.’”
I looked at him from the side of my eye. He had battled cancer on and off for years, after I had come to live with him.
“Sì. I found out soon enough that He took me at my word. You were saved, but I would face death. Even so, I hadn’t lost it all again. I still had part of my Noemi to keep here. She lives through you.” He leaned on his cane some, twisting it a bit. “After you came to us, I was told that you had saved a child. You had given your life so that she could live. My sacrifice was rewarded. It was not done in vain. And neither was yours.
“I hoped the fact that she lived would be enough to keep you content. But I saw. I saw how hate ate at your insides like acid. I went to Marzio and asked him to help you, even though I did not agree with his idea of a means to an end. It is not in my blood to be such a man, or to understand him. Sometimes I do not understand you, my own blood, but I can understand hate. I hated once myself, to the point that it ate me like acid. The difference between us is that I take to my pen while you take to your sword.
“Marzio denied me. He said that you were a grown man, and if you needed his ear, he would listen. We know that he did, and after, even though death stood with you, I could see life in you again. It gave me hope.” He set his hand on the back of my head, shaking me some.
“So I will tell you what I think now, Amadeo. I think that you fell for that little girl’s innocence because she reminded you of your mother, in better times. That is why you saved Mariposa’s life, sacrificing your own. You know what true sacrifice is, and what is worth your soul now. Do not sacrifice the second chance you’ve been given for something that will mean nothing tomorrow. Do not shield yourself from love when the man sitting next to you loves you enough to give his life for yours. Allow love to consume you, Amadeo, because we become what we consume. What will you become if you continue to consume vengeance? What will it do to the butterfly you gave your life for? Your sacrifice will be in vain. Yours and mine. It will be worth nothing if you cannot feel anything but hate. That is what I know.”
16
Capo
We had planned a dinner with our immediate family the night before the wedding. Torches made the night air smoky, light music played, and people sat at a table built for a hundred, eating and laughing.
The evening was so busy that I hadn’t had much alone time with Mariposa, but she was never far from my view. She was speaking to Keely and her family. Right after Mariposa said something to Keely’s father, Keely’s mother said something to Mariposa. Mariposa’s face fell, she nodded, said something else, and then walked away with her head down.
It rubbed me the wrong fucking way. I’d make sure to find out what it was about and deal with it.
A minute later, Mariposa took a seat next to me. She kept fidgeting with the napkin on the table.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” I said.
“Nothing.”
Standing, I gave her my hand and told her we were going to take a walk in the groves alone. Keely flew past us, her neck red, and I turned to look at her family before I turned back to Mariposa and urged her to move.