The smile she wants to taste darkens, and I murmur to the girls on my lap, “Nap time.”
Ten years later
Andrea
I slip my hand into Xavier’s and he squeezes. Hard enough to make me realize he’s feeling more than he’s showing.
Not that it comes as a surprise, considering what’s happening.
Xavier and his father never really reconnected after he left Italy for the States. Not because he didn’t try. We all did. We bought a place about twenty minutes away from the town he grew up in after Priest hit movie theaters, and we made sure to spend time here every year.
It’s easy to have freedom when you homeschool your kids, which we do. They’re standing with us beside their grandpapa’s graveside, tears rolling down their faces for a man who let them in, but never really reconnected with his son.
I’m not sure why, to be honest. We’re closer to Xavier’s mother, and that’s evident in how Grayson’s arm is curved around Lilith’s waist and his head is tilted onto her shoulder.
He’s a somber little man for a thirteen-year-old, unlike his more playful sisters. I see a cast of his father in him, especially where his kindness is concerned, and his protectiveness?
Oy vey.
He’s almost crazy protective.
But I don’t mind that.
His sisters flit around like dandelions flying in the breeze. They’re the light to his dark, just like I am for his father. I almost think he’ll be like Xavier in that he’ll be a one-woman man. Once he finds her? That’s it for him. And for her.
I can even see him doing something vocational—like becoming a doctor. He’s got the touch, but I’ve seen him with the animals on our farm and figure he’s more suited to being a vet. It’s a shame Marco died in an accident on the roads here. I’d have preferred for Gray to work with animals than become a doctor, but it’s these kinds of traumas that sit in young minds and grow roots.
I saw my boy’s face when we were in the local clinic, the impotent rage in him as he balled his small fists while we waited on doctors to heal his grandpapa.
They failed.
He’s been angry ever since.
I turn my face into Xavier’s arm, squeezing his hand as I do so.
He’s looking stoic, because I know he wants to be anywhere other than here. The service is Catholic, and he’s made it a point to avoid all things religious since we first got together. I mean, he could have sneaked to church without my knowing, but I don’t actually think he would.
We lead tight lives, we’re always together, and while we have our freedoms and our own personal hobbies, I think he’d tell me if he visited a chapel. Just like he told me he was monitoring one of the farmhands a year ago because he had a bad feeling about him—he wasn’t wrong. Derick Roberts is in jail now for sexual assault. Or that he was waiting on our cue of ‘Only God can help me now,’ when we met Lina Gordon at a homeschooling group where the kids got together to socialize—she’d only just lost both her children to Child Services. I didn’t know the details of how or why she had, but wouldn’t be surprised if Xavier was involved on that score too. Away from the church, finding sinners isn’t as easy—something I’m grateful for—but life being the bitch it is, they still drift our way from time to time.
It’s been years since a kill’s been sanctioned. Corelli was the last one, but I don’t think God’s done with us, just that he’s finding other ways of getting us to act.
Xavier, in particular.
The strongest man I know, the purest heart I’ve ever seen…
My man.
Today is going to be rough. There’s no avoiding a church when it’s time for a funeral, and he’s been avoiding them a long time to evade the flashbacks. I wish I could cure him, but I can’t. He still has them, still has night terrors, and they surge up out of nowhere, making him fragile and brittle all at the same time. He uses the lash less, but last night?
I heard him.
And it kills me.
But he’s the strongest man I know because he never turns from me during these times.
If he wakes up from a nightmare, he tucks me harder into his side, then talks through it like I was his shrink before falling back to sleep.
The nightmares have returned in a flood since Marco’s death, and every now and then I see him dig his fingers into his belly wound where I stabbed him. I always feel guilty when he does that because it still aches. That’s why he does it though, the pain.
It’s never around the kids. The lashing goes down in one of the barns. And while it’s messed up, while I want to change things, stop him, I can’t.
He has his ways of coping, and I have mine.
As the service slides to a close, I turn to face the cemetery where countless loved ones have been buried over time.
I like it here.
Not the cemetery, although it’s peaceful. I like France. It does something for me.
The States is home, and my parents, now that my dad retired, live close to us on the farm in northern Oregon, but I just...
I don’t know.
My intention was to stay here until Lilith could get used to dealing without Marco, but I have good vibes about this place.
We came for long summer nights and the freedom of the French countryside. We wanted the kids to learn French naturally, wanted them to grow closer to their other family, and we’ve made this our almost-home.
But not a permanent living place.
Today? I wonder if it would do us good to be here a little longer than planned.
When I shake hands with the priest, he smiles sadly at me then looks taken aback when Xavier entirely evades his touch.
If it wasn’t a funeral, I’d have laughed, but as it is, I smile back at him and grab Xavier’s hand and squeeze so it doesn’t look weird.
Of course it does.
But Xavier’s a little anti organized religion.
Organized anything.
It’s why my dad says we’re free-loving hippies, which always makes me snort. There’s nothing free about Xavier. He’s still locked up tight, only now, me and the kids are locked in with him. I don’t mean that in a bad way. I just mean in his headspace. We’re sacred territory to Xavier, and you’ll never hear me complaining about that.
“It was a beautiful service, Father,” I murmur in French that should be better considering I’m married to a Frenchman, own property here in the Cote D’Azur, and have kids who speak it like natives. Sue me, I’m lazy—they all translate for me!
“Thank you, Madame Martinez,” he replies politely, still looking a little puzzled as to why Xavier won’t touch his hand like he’s contagious or something. “Marco was a very good man. It’s a true shame he passed so young.”
I wouldn’t say Marco was young. At eighty-two, I thought he was the opposite of young, in fact, but it was a damn shame that old age hadn’t taken him and some dick driving his sportscar too fast around a bend and crashing into him had ripped his life from him.
Though we hadn’t been truly vengeful in a long time, had gotten lost in raising our family, I’d admit to my hackles raising at the prospect of the stupid prick behind the wheel of the sportscar walking away with barely a scratch while Marco lost his life.