Chapter 7 #2
“Oh,” I breathed, understanding. His life before me.
“I don’t care what you do with the big place.
Honestly…I don’t even need to see it. I already know.
Can imagine how…grand it is.” How horrible it was for him.
“I’d love to have this one. It’s perfect, Rocco.
Quaint in such a picturesque way. The bigger the place, the more room between us.
I’d rather not have it. Too much space is an enemy of love.
” Not to mention, I couldn’t stand not to have his body holding me close, especially at night.
I couldn’t sleep without him now. I was my husband’s Stage Fifteen Clinger.
“No king-sized bed, then, ah?”
I shook my head. “A terrible, terrible idea.”
A slow smile spread across my husband’s face as he finally let my hand go. He stepped out of the SUV, coming to my side to open my door. Instead of helping me out, he scooped me out of the seat and carried me toward the door to our slice of heaven on earth, Pisolino following.
I’d never doubted my place in my husband’s life, but the shock of it, how we had been intended for each other, perfectly designed for one another, never ceased to amaze me.
No matter where we traveled together, in his life, in mine, we always fit.
It came second nature for me to fall into his space, the perfect little cottage in the woods in Natchitoches, Louisiana, where, after a late harvest of the sweetest and juiciest wild blackberries, I canned and danced in the kitchen barefoot.
Pisolino made a figure-eight shape through my legs and around my ankles. He was purring something fierce.
The sun was low, throwing long shadows along the walls and on the floor. They moved in the kitchen with me and Pisolino, almost whimsical in tempo. Maybe because I was dancing. A long strand of hair came loose from its ties, and I brushed it behind my shoulder, feeling the day on my skin.
The leftover rays of a sun that seemed to belong to late summer, the smell of coconut and spice floating in the air around me.
The taste of salt and something unique that belonged to my husband lingered on my lips.
My hands were stained from the color of the fruit and sticky from its natural sugars.
A slight breeze entered the cottage, and I lifted my hair, allowing it to touch the nape of my neck.
The olive-green silk dress I wore shimmered with the tender gust, and I sighed at the feel of it.
It had been a long day of gathering the fruit from their thorny canes, baskets and baskets of overflowing bounties, fighting off birds and insects trying to get to what we had already picked.
A slight smile came to my face when I remembered Rocco and a particularly war-hungry red bird going at it.
Rocco was defending my honor, since it was my basket the bird had its sights on, and the red bird…
the red bird had an advantage. It had wings and was quick to use them every time Rocco went to shoo the thief away.
I had laughed, and his eyes came to mine, so seriously, it made me laugh even harder. “I’m not sure if you’re allowed to run that one off, my love,” I’d said.
Rocco’s eyes snapped to mine before they instantly softened at the name I’d called him.
Brando had wiped sweat from his brow, looking at his wife, who looked between the two of us with tears in her eyes.
When the truth in our love moved her, she never seemed to hold back her feelings about the happiness we were both experiencing.
Maybe because she knew what Rocco had been through, how I had shunned love for so long because the men offering it could never live up to my standards.
She knew how much we meant to each other.
She knew how much we needed each other. She knew how much we loved each other.
Our love reflected hers, even if our timing and relationship was different from hers and her husband’s.
At this time, the bird decided to dive down, but instead of going for a berry, it went for my husband’s hair. She got a strand, carrying it off, before she went for another berry. He didn’t even blink.
“Tell me, Piccolo ladro,” he said after a minute. He lifted his arm, wiping his head, which was covered by droplets of sweat.
I grinned at him. “I knew you’d want to hear this. That’s a female red cardinal.”
His eyes swung to the bird, who was perched on a nearby tree, watching him. He narrowed his eyes on her, and she took off when Scarlett and I both exploded with laughter. Brando was watching her, too, that same suspicious look on his face.
“Her feathers,” I said. “They’re dull in comparison to the male’s bright red plumes. That’s how you can tell she’s a lady.”
“Fiddler crabs,” Brando seemed to say apropos of nothing pertaining to what we were discussing.
Scarlett gave a small smile, holding on to her husband’s arm even tighter. “He’s thinking of the crabs we see in Fiji. The male fiddler has one pincer to flex for the female he’d like to…have baby crabs with.”
“Oh,” I laughed. “I get it. Males are usually the most attractive in all species.”
“I do not agree with this,” my husband said.
“No?” I squinted my eyes at him. The sun had been bright, brutal even, along with the soaking humidity, but I couldn’t stand not to stare into his eyes when the color became a part of the Mediterranean I wanted to submerge myself in. “Why not?”
He looked so deep into my eyes, I almost wanted to squirm, but I was learning how to keep his stare, even if he could move me without touching me.
“My love,” he said, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Perhaps in their world, she is the most beautiful sight he has ever seen. This is all that counts, ah? That lovers see this in each other. This leaves no room for other beats between his heart and hers. Also, for all that flash he carries with him, he is not only handsome to his beloved, but to a dangerous world that would concentrate on him, not his heart.”
His heartfelt words left me speechless. This man, this gorgeous-beyond-what-the-law-should-allow man, was telling me that the reason most males, himself included, were more attractive than the females in the eyes of the world was to keep the females safer.
Perhaps if the world only put weight on beauty, this would leave their mates free.
In all of that, Rocco was speaking for himself. He would want the world to watch him instead of me, since he would be the target.
All I could do was nod, tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, and run my foot back and forth on the ground.
The line I’d created was crossed over in a second, my husband pulling me in so close, I could barely breathe.
That was when Brando started talking about the fiddler crabs again, and Rocco took a bite of another berry before he fed me the rest of it.
My hand went instinctually to my mouth, knowing my lips were stained along with my heart from the memory that was made that day. I knew days like that were going to mark my heart for years to come. Mark it up so beautifully that, one day, my heart was going to be decorated with the art of our life.
As I sighed, a wistful, blissful sound, another breeze swept into the cottage, stirring up the scents that were heady in the air: fresh berry juice, sugar, lemon, bread dough, even the basil and rosemary I’d harvested from outside the cottage.
Aunt Lola, Uncle Tito’s wife, had planted them there years ago.
I walked to the wooden kitchen table and set down the vintage bowl I’d bought at a garage sale the previous day.
I pulled my hair up, allowing the sensation of the cool hand of the zephyr to caress my neck.
Even though the slip dress was thin, it was still sticking to my skin.
The beat of a familiar song, “Ain’t No Woman (Like the One I’ve Got),” started to play in the background of the kitchen. A whistle cut through it before my husband’s strong hands gripped my hips and he moved me around our small kitchen.
I smiled up at him, and when a beam of light hit my eyes, his breath seemed to catch, before he turned me out and then smoothly brought me back in.
“You never question my taste in music,” I said. “That it’s too old for me.”
He roared with laughter. “This music belongs to my father. I enjoy it as well.”
Sometimes the age chasm between us seemed to swallow me whole when he spoke of the music I enjoyed being closer to his father’s age, which in turn seemed to bring our age difference into the bright light.
But…even though Rocco was older than me, his kids were still a bit younger than me, and…
it never seemed to matter. In all the ways that counted, we matched.
Nonna always said I was an old soul existing in a new body.
“You are more mature than your years, my wife,” he said. “I have known women older than me who cannot match your maturity. Your understanding of life.”
“Eva tells me this is because I’m…touched.” I tapped my temple.
“Perhaps,” he said, spinning me out when “Hungry Eyes” replaced the Four Tops hit.
“Oooh,” I said. “I know all the steps to this dance. I’m pretty sure all women do.” I released a breath when my husband moved me to the beat just like the couple in the movie did. “Damn.” Even though I was keeping up, my knees firm, my heart had turned to jelly in my chest.
He roared with laughter, and doing some fancy move with me again, he kissed the pulse in my neck before he turned me toward the table and pointed at all the things I had been making—beyond the blackberries.
“The party.” I shrugged. “I refuse to show up empty-handed. My Nonna taught me well.”
“Sì. She is responsible for my heart being the most vital part of me.”