Chapter 31 #2
Our husbands picked us up and set us on our feet, one hand on us to keep us close. There were so many shops, and so many fantastic things to buy, even though I couldn’t wait to visit a true Christmas market one day. All the homemade things Scarlett had described sounded so fantastic to me.
Nonno had been a garage-sale shopper in his day. He’d wake me up early to go with him. Not that homemade was the same as used, but…all the same, these “things” were things people had once loved or valued, just like a homemade item.
We stopped for a quick snack, but my hopes had always been on the nuts. Scarlett laughed at how many I was eating, and she even snapped a picture of me. Rocco told her he wanted a copy, and she promised to send it to him.
“I think she likes sugar,” I said, touching my stomach.
Rocco froze in his tracks.
“What?” I asked.
“You said she.”
I hesitated. “I don’t know why, but I did. I said she. I’m getting girl energy...”
Scarlett refused to look at us. Brando took her hand, and the two of them disappeared into the crowd.
I kept staring at Rocco because he was frozen.
Even his stare on me. Then, as if someone had poured warm water on him, he began to thaw, a grin coming to his face.
It was the happiest I’d seen him since the grape harvest, when we’d first arrived in Piemonte, and the clouds made me believe I was living in a dream—in a heavenly dream.
Rocco pulled me to him so hard I lost my breath and the paper cup the almonds were in spilled over.
I whined a little at the loss and mumbled, “Aw, man.” He exploded with laughter, probably at the lost look on my face when I realized I had no more, then gave me big Italian smooches all over my face.
After he’d bought me two more cups of nuts, we explored the street, a light feeling touching my heart and my feet. This felt like…us. Even better, because the next Christmas, we’d have a baby with us. A tiny, living, breathing extension of our love.
That was something no one could steal.
We explored the street for another hour or so, before I was starting to get hungry again, and Scarlett and Brando had met up with us. We shared some of the things we bought, but we both started laughing when we realized we were hiding things we’d bought for each other.
More family met up with us, including Amadeo and Ludovico, and we all dined at a restaurant off the street.
As we ate, the men were going on about skiing, the women about one day visiting a certified Christmas market, and then Juliette told me about a restaurant we should all meet at one day that had spectacular waffles.
I was so full after we left, I decided to enjoy hot chocolate to try to help digest some of the food. Rocco exploded with laughter again as I said this, then kissed my temple, bringing me in close.
Scarlett told us to look her way. She wanted to take a picture of us.
I fixed my fake black fur hat and then Rocco’s coat.
She snapped the picture, and then her eyes widened a bit.
I turned to look in the same direction. Rocco had already noticed whoever it was.
His hand came to my neck, and he squeezed a bit.
“Massimo,” I breathed out.
He stood not far from us, his eyes frozen on his father.
I wasn’t sure who to keep my eyes on. A battle raged between them, and I wasn’t sure how to stop it.
I just knew that Massimo looked lost—so lost. And whatever he had witnessed between his father and me, true happiness, I wasn’t sure if he liked it or not.
The blame was not that his father was happy, but he blamed his father for his unhappiness.
At that moment, a woman screamed in the crowd, and all mayhem broke out a second later.
A horse that was carrying passengers in the carriage must’ve gotten spooked and was taking off down the street at a full-on run.
Men were flinging women out of the way, some of them flinging women out of their way so they themselves could get out of the way, and before I knew it, I was being pulled back.
My husband had a hand on me, from the front, and it felt like I was being ripped in two.
Massimo had me from behind.
The next thing I knew, the horse and carriage, which seemed to be missing a wheel, was tearing past, and a new war had begun.
Massimo refused to let me go, and so did my husband.
Then, in an almost explosive moment, they both released me and came face to face. Their stances were two men about to kill each other, but they were looking each other in the eye first, to see what the other was made of.
If it would’ve been anyone else, I knew Rocco would have then killed the man. But it almost seemed like he wanted his son to see what was going on inside of his…mind…heart…that he usually hid behind his eyes.
Brando stood on the side of them.
Scarlett helped me up, and I leaned on her for a moment before I stepped in front of Brando. Before he could move me, I said the one word Maggie Beautiful had before the battle truly began.
“Stop!
Both men immediately looked at me.
“Please,” I whispered, smoke purling out of my mouth. “Please stop. What you two are doing is making me…very unhappy. I see you, my husband—” I looked him in the eye, and then I turned my face toward Massimo “—I see you too, my husband’s son. How could I not when you’re a part of him?”
He made a strangled noise in his throat at the same time Rocco did.
I breathed easier for some reason, maybe because I knew my tender words were making them uncomfortable and, at the same time, working to get through to them.
I knew then that was why Nonna used to say, “Never underestimate a kind word and what it can do—who it can change. Tone and meaning are everything, Amora.”
Massimo seemed to stand straighter, and he looked Rocco in the eyes this time.
He had the stance of a solider about to speak to his commanding officer, but he didn’t ask for permission to speak, which I realized had rubbed Rocco the wrong way.
The only reason he wasn’t going for his son’s throat was out of respect for me and what I’d asked of them both.
“I have information on a recent situation that has caused your wife heartache,” Massimo said. “In return for it, I will ask a favor of her.”
Rocco fixed his coat. “A favor I will approve or not.”
Massimo became stiller than the wind to an unnerving degree—his father through and through—before he nodded.
I squeezed Rocco’s hand. “Dinner,” I whispered. “We’ll eat dinner together, as a family, and then we can talk.”
Rocco set the time and date.
Massimo agreed with another nod.
Then he disappeared as a silent wind would after it’s rocked the world.