“I do,” I said again, pushing my hips up to meet his erection.
He grinned and the look went straight between my legs. His hands slid between my thighs and I sucked in a breath, slowly pushing it out. His fingers slid, slid, slid, until he started to massage my behind. “See, you do,” he whispered. “You understand me without the use of words.”
Whatever he had in mind was the best distraction, and inevitably, I would understand without the use of words. I’d be consumed by nothing but feelings.
19
Mariposa
Before I knew it, we’d been married (again) for two weeks. When we had first arrived, I couldn’t keep my eyes on Capo long enough to keep track of him. After we were married (again), his eyes were always on me, mine on him, and we were inseparable.
It seemed like he was purposely trying to make an effort to spend time with me. Maybe it was because our honeymoon, to some unknown destination that Capo had picked, had been postponed. It didn’t seem like he had it in him to feel sorry for anything, but it seemed like he was trying to make up for it. After all, it had been a part of our deal.
We had forever to honeymoon. There was no telling how long his grandfather had left, and I wanted us to stay and hang out with him.
Since we had some time on our hands, and Capo found out that I didn’t know how to ride a bike, or how to swim, he took the time to teach me how to do both.
The beaches in Sicily were something out of an aquatic fairy tale. The colors of the water were vivid, from sea-glass green to sapphire-lagoon blue. The sun was hot and the sand white. And the smells—lemon, fresh water, coconut, even seafood—made me drunk on summer.
It took me about a week to really feel secure in the water, but I didn’t worry too much because Capo stood close to me at all times, even after I felt secure in what he had taught me. Evening swims were my favorite, when the sun sunk down into the water and the prettiest colors lit up the sky, right before the stars fell from heaven.
Heaven. I decided it had to be real after being consumed by something so perfect as the ocean.
Capo taught me how to ride a bike in front of our hidden villa on the days we didn’t go to the beach. I did a lot of shimmying from side to side at first. I fell three times and then once on purpose. After that, I caught on, and some evenings we took rides through the groves not long before sunset.
The air was perfumed with fresh lemon zest and overly ripe blood oranges. The scents came out in the evening, like they had been holding on to the heat, and after the blazing sun went down, they released their perfumes. Sometimes we continued to ride even after the sun had set so I could get lost in the fallen stars.
Paradiso. I decided it had to be real after being consumed by something so perfect as a simple bike ride through hundreds of fruit trees.
How kind and good the world seemed when the devil stumbled and fell over your heels instead of being on them.
Some days, Capo came with me to the hammock I liked to sleep in at the hottest time of the day. The oversized hat I wore shielded my eyes from the sun while my body soaked up the heat. He’d read to me his grandfather’s poems. He’d read to me his grandfather’s poems. The old man never would. He’d said that if I wanted to read them, I was welcome to it, but he’d rather make up stories, or read to me from someone else’s book.
When it was bearable for his grandfather to enjoy his garden, Capo walked him out and then took a seat next to him on a wooden bench. While the two men sat close, I listened as Nonno directed me—move this there, it needs more sun. Move that one there, it needs less. Prune that a bit. Let that one go for a while. It needs time to grow wilder.
During one of our visits, he had told me that plants were a lot like people. They were all so different, but at the same time—they all need the basics to grow, and without roots, none of them can survive. Right after he had said the words, he had searched for Capo and found him watching us from afar.
“He enjoys your beauty,” he had said to me. “He does not feel that he deserves such a gift.”
I had fixed the floppy hat on my head and continued to water. Enjoying my beauty was stretching it, I thought, but Capo had been watching us. Even though we had spent time apart before the wedding, I never felt like he was too far away. Part of it, I knew, was the fact that his grandfather was dying.
I saw the way he looked at Nonno when he thought Nonno wasn’t looking. It was like Capo was trying to absorb the memory of him, but he didn’t want to face the last moments he’d ever have. Whenever someone made a comment about how tired Nonno was becoming, or how his coloring had turned paler, or he wasn’t eating as much, Capo turned away and refused to listen.
Maybe the family saw something I didn’t. Comparing the man I first met to the man sitting on the bench, his face turned up to the soft sun, I thought he looked better. He looked…content. When I’d first met him, I felt no peace, but I didn’t know it then.
After we’d arrived, and especially after our wedding, something in Nonno had changed, something that made me feel the life in him again, even though all of his doctors said that he was fading.
Turning from the plant I’d been pruning, I narrowed my eyes at the sight in front of me.
Both men said nothing as they sat beside each other, watching me tend to the garden. They were being quiet with each other. Whatever Capo held back bothered Nonno. I think Nonno knew that Capo wanted to tell him things, things he’d never be able to tell him again, but his refusal of the situation stopped him.
I wanted to tell Capo that even though I was a girl from the streets and didn’t have much experience with living life, I knew that he didn’t have to use his words to speak to his grandfather, just like he’d told me to look past words and understand something deeper in him.
Since Nonno had worked with words all of his life, he seemed to understand what words could only hint at. There were deeper meanings to be found, if we only opened our hearts, not our eyes or ears, to them.
Nonno wanted Capo to be happy.
Capo wanted to tell his grandfather all that his mouth (or was it his heart?) refused to say, but he couldn’t; that would mean final. So Capo found joy in nothing. Even when we were intimate, he buried the pain of this. Sometimes, of what felt like so much more.
I knew Capo Macchiavello was not a good man, but he was mine. As long as I lived, I’d be the woman standing next to him. I’d do whatever it took to take care of him like he took care of me.
An idea hit me then.
Grinning, I lifted the hose, testing out the water pressure. The world had turned pink from the setting sun, and as a soft shower sprayed out, it reminded me of glitter being tossed in the air. A second later, it settled on the ground like dew, and I did it again.
The action got Nonno’s attention, but Capo was watching some of the men who worked the groves as they came and went.
Pressing the handle, I sprayed again, and this time the spray was more like a bullet shooting out of a gun. “Precision,” I whispered to myself. “Is a girl’s best friend.”
Then I lifted the hose, squeezed the trigger, and hit Capo directly on the forehead. It took a moment for him to realize what I’d done. He blinked as water ran down the slope of his nose, and then his eyes connected with mine. Before he could move, I shot him again, some of the spray hitting Nonno.