Chapter 24
Chapter 24
Present day
Taormina, Italy
After overhearing Tamryn’s phone call, I don’t run into Conor for the rest of the day, which is for the best. I have yet to decide whether to stick to my guns, apologize for my lies about the German, or pretend that I was too drunk to remember what happened last night. The first option requires courage, the second, maturity, and the third, wisdom.
I lack all three.
At night, the men head downtown for a bar crawl. “Could you make sure that Rue gets a minute alone to eat?” Eli asks me. “If it’s not a sit-down meal—”
“She forgets. And she doesn’t like eating with lots of people around.” My sweet, obsessed brother. “Will do.”
“I asked Lucrezia to fix her a plate, so if you just—”
“Eli, go . I’ve got her.”
Except, maybe I don’t. When I head for the pool, a platter of grilled seasonal veggies in one hand and a charcuterie board in the other, I’m already too late.
Sunset in Sicily is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. Vibrant fuchsias and blues brush across the sky, soften into stripes of coral and indigo that curl around Mount Etna. The ocean underneath is the same shade as a lavender field, and fragrances of rosemary and citrus waft up to the terraced gardens. Around the villa, down the cobblestone paths, the shadows of the walls lengthen, dusting the lawn. The garden is already bright with strings of light bulbs and the occasional lantern. Thanks to the marine breeze, what’s left of the sweltering heat is simmering down.
Rue and Tisha are poolside, sharing a sun lounger meant for one, eyes glued to the sky. Their focus reminds me of Tiny’s little face when he works on his mental-alacrity dog toys. “We started early,” Tisha says when I deposit both trays on the table next to her bed. There’s something odd in her voice, toneless, almost like…
I glance around and find it immediately. Clumsily hidden in her fanny pack is a plastic bag full of gummies.
I grin. “How?”
“Do not asketh about the provenance of ye olde herb of merriment,” she tells me, “for ye are not prepared for ye shadowed truth.”
“Lucrezia’s grandsons?”
“How the fuck could you possibly know that?”
“Splinter skill. I’m really good at spotting who’s likely to have something interesting to sell.”
“In that case.” Tisha reaches under the bed and slowly, gropingly, finds the plastic bag. “Have some. With ye olde chef’s compliments.”
The good thing about having extensively experimented with recreational drugs over my misspent youth, is that I was able to catalogue my reactions to psychogenic substances with the dedication of an amanuensis monk in a fifteenth-century scriptorium. I’ve had my lows (such as the first time I tried DMT and gave myself bangs with a nail clipper) and my highs (when shrooms unlocked the concept of quantum entanglement for me; in fact, doing schoolwork while on shrooms was such a pleasant pastime of mine, I began growing them under my bathroom’s sink at fifteen; when Eli caught me, I let him believe that it was not for personal use but “ to barter them for designer clothes .” Bless my fashion-challenged brother, who remains convinced to this day that Old Navy is a luxury brand).
That’s how I know that weed doesn’t do much for me. “Thanks,” I tell Tisha, with no intention of partaking. Instead I watch her and Rue stare up at the first few twinkling stars, making up names for them (“Pip of the Twilight,” “Great Pricketh,” “Big Dipper of Yore”). One by one, the others make their way downstairs to join us.
“I missed you, darling. I yearned for you. And that is why”—Nyota tosses a ball of fabric at me—“I got you this present.”
I grimace as I unfold it. “Oh, no.”
“Oh, yeah, baby. How lovely, that you’re wearing a bikini. You can put it right on top.”
I groan, but comply. Even as Avery gasps. “What is that three-legged nightmare?”
Rue blinks. “Oh, shit. I must be much higher than I thought.”
“Worry ye not, babe.” Tisha pets her hair lovingly. “I will protect you from ye olde tripod of terror.”
An hour later, Minami and I are the only two people in the group not speaking like we’re Chaucer scholars.
“Look at these kids, taking full advantage of their cannabinoid receptors. Should we be recording this for posterity?” she asks me. “Or would we be incriminating ourselves?”
“I don’t know. Is weed legal in Italy? Nyota, do you know?”
She is, at the moment, very focused on braiding Tamryn’s and Avery’s hair. Together. “The real question,” Nyota says, “is: Why are you two such sticks-in-the-mud? You both rejected the poisoned arancello, too.”
I shrug. “I was never even offered the arancello. And I figured that it should fall to someone , the burden of herding you guys back to the villa if you get lost in the lemon grove.”
Minami nods. “I, on the other hand, am pregnant.”
The silence that follows is molasses-thick. Even the waves stop swishing against the shore.
Until Rue turns to Tisha and whispers, comically loud, “Did we know that?”
The reply is equally stage-worthy. “I don’t think so.”
“Minami,” Nyota asks, “did you make a pregnancy announcement while all of us are high?”
Minami grins. “Maya’s not high. In fact, Maya’s crying.”
“Am I? I’m not. I’m just so—” My palms find my cheeks and come away wet. “Oh my god, I’m so happy for you.” I lean forward to hug her as forcefully as I did the first time, at twelve. “I hope it’s a girl, just like Kaede. Or a boy, just like Kaede. Basically, I really think Kaede should graduate to little queen, and have a mini me to boss around.”
Everyone starts talking all at once—pregnancy stories, arguing over names, hoping for octuplets. But Minami lowers her voice and tells me, “She’ll be born in five and a half months. And Sul and I agree that you should be her godmother.”
I blink. “I…what?”
She laughs. “Sul’s sister is Kaede’s godmother, and…we love her, but she never bonded with Kaede. You are her favorite person in the whole world. After me, of course, but I am the owner of the boob. You’re amazing with kids. All that volunteering you do at the rink, teaching…you really enjoy spending time with them. So we’d love for you to be the one.”
A soft, cozy glow warms my chest. “Minami…It would be such an honor.” I’m choked up, and now she’s tearing up, too, and we’re hugging, and I hope I’m not leaving snot in her hair, but who knows?
“I find this incredibly wholesome and heartwarming, even though I hate children,” Nyota muses with detached, intellectual curiosity. “What’s up with that?”
Avery laughs. “You know, I thought the same. I was so sure I didn’t want any. And now here I am, thirty-eight, thinking about what summer camps I should send my imaginary kids to.”
“If you have them soon,” Minami tells her, “we can take them to the park together, and you can defend me from the moms who make fun of my galaxy leggings.”
“That’s not defensible,” Nyota mutters, but Avery nods eagerly.
“As soon as I find a guy who’s not a serial killer or a Tesla fanboy, I’m coming to kick their butts.”
“You used to date Hark, right?” Tisha asks, lifting her head. After a handful of tries, she manages to lean it against her closed fist. “Which one is he, serial killer or Tesla fanboy?”
“Neither. But he is emotionally unavailable. At least he has been open about the fact that there’s someone else and he can’t reciprocate my feelings. It’s refreshing, after my ex fucked around on me.”
Tisha rolls her eyes. “I hate emotionally unavailable people.”
“You made Diego propose three times before accepting,” Rue points out.
“That’s different . Men need to be kept on their toes—”
“Hang on,” Tamryn interrupts. “ Three times?”
The conversation moves to the three different rings poor Diego bought, and no one but me notices it, the slight stiffening in Minami’s spine. Her quiet steps as she leaves down the stone path, just a few minutes later.
I assess the rest of the group. Despite their glazed eyes and uncontrollable fits of giggles, I believe they can be trusted not to walk off the cliff and impale themselves on a prickly pear. “Minami, wait,” I say, running after her.
She replies without turning. “Um, I’m just going up to see if the babysitter Lucrezia recommended is doing okay with Kaede, I’ll be right…” She cuts off. Because I’m standing in front of her, and it’s obvious, even in the shadows, that her cheeks are tearstained.
It’s not the first time I’ve seen Minami cry. She did so at my dad’s funeral, and at least a dozen times more in the following years. This is different, though, and I doubt it has anything to do with the announcement she just made. The pinched tension in her face is closer to anger than sadness.
“I just…” Her fists tighten. She shakes her head, as if talking herself out of something.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. No. I’m…” She screws her eyes shut, then finds the closest bench, elbows on her knees. Takes several long breaths before saying, “I just need a minute.”
I take a seat next to her, patting her shoulder with my hand. I think I know what set her off, but…“Is this…Is it what Avery said?”
A nod. “I—I adore her. I’m so happy she’s at Harkness. Before she came on board it was a fucking sausage-fest in those rooms, and I…” She straightens up. Her throat works. “I’m tired of being dragged into this. It’s been over a decade. Everyone assumes—even Eli is so sure that one day I just fell out of love and irreparably broke Hark’s heart. But that’s not…” She wipes at her cheek. “This is probably Hark’s fault. I wish I knew what the hell he tells people, when they ask why we broke up.”
“That he asked you to marry him. You refused, and then it was over.”
“Is that what…?” She scoffs. “Of course.”
“He doesn’t blame you , Minami.” The last thing I want is to create trouble between her and Conor. But maybe it’s too late. There are several parallel lines on her usually smooth brow.
“Cool. I mean, it’s true. But does he say why I rejected him? Did he explain that he was absolutely unknowable ? That I had to pry every word out of him? That he was so damn secretive and shady about his upbringing, for a long time I suspected he’d spent time in juvie for setting an orphanage on fire, or some equally abominable thing? Did he tell you that my biggest issue in our relationship was the total lack of communication about his wishes and needs? Please, tell me he at least bothered to give context when he said that we broke up because I rejected his proposal.”
I blink at Minami, before calmly replying, “He didn’t say any of that.” She rolls her eyes, but her demeanor changes when I add, “But he did mention that he thought it was his fault. That he was broken to begin with.”
Her expression softens, head falling back to look at the sky, chest heaving deeply, once. “I could really use a shot, right now.”
“I’m sure Axel has something in his room.”
She laughs. Breathes for a few moments, following the rhythm of the cicadas. “Really, I am sympathetic to Hark’s rich-white-boy trauma. His family, they messed him up good. Hark’s mom…for some reason I truly cannot fathom, this lady actually loved her cruel, cheating, abusive piece of shit of a husband. And Hark’s younger brothers—they should be preventatively locked up before they start a scammy memecoin or run someone over in a meth-fueled bender. And his father, of course, was a sadistic, manipulative shithead who treated his family like cattle. Hark’s lifelong mission statement is Don’t Be Like Dad , and he’s a control freak about that. But maybe because his mom was this fragile, ever-suffering woman, that’s how he sees his partners. Someone to nurture and take care of, but…”
“Someone to protect, as opposed to someone to share a life with?”
“Yes! For years, he was holding back on…pretty much every single level. If something happened in his life, I was the last to know. The only emotion he felt comfortable displaying was anger, and he just poured it into his work. And for a while I told myself that it was fine, but then I realized that all this love he professed to feel for me was just…convenient. He wanted to be with someone who wouldn’t rob him of his control, like his dad had robbed his mom. He wanted to live with someone he could live without.” She closes her eyes. “Still, I told myself, I can fix that. I can fix him . But I couldn’t. He had to fix himself. And when I told him that it wasn’t working for me, that I couldn’t continue that way…”
“He asked you to marry him,” I conclude. Because of course that would be Hark’s response. What a fucking joke.
“He grew up in mountains of privilege, but his childhood was so affectively bankrupt, he never had examples of functioning relationships in front of him. He’s unable to get in touch with his feelings and to meaningfully engage with his desires.” She rubs her face, exhausted. “It’s not true, what he told Avery. That he can’t be with her because he’s still in love with me. Because—he simply isn’t . Either he was lying to her, or he’s lying to himself.”
There is a third option, of course: that he was referring to someone else altogether. But Minami has no way of knowing. In fact, no one does.
No one but me.
“I’m sorry for venting, Maya. I—please, don’t repeat any of this. The kicker is, most of this stuff about his family, I only know from Tamryn. He never even told me himself. He’d hate it, if he found out.”
I nod, reassuring. Pull her in for a hug, and don’t bother telling her the truth: That everything Minami had to fight and scrape and beg to learn, every little detail about Conor’s family, I knew already. He told me when we first met in Scotland. He told me over countless late-night phone calls over the past three years. He told me when I asked, and he told me when I didn’t.
Because one day, Conor Harkness decided that he wanted someone to know him. And he chose me .