Chapter 6 #8
Antonio starts laughing too even though he clearly has no clue what's happening, just because the energy in the room is completely cooked.
"Daddy," he says, giggling now, "open door."
I try to breathe. I can't. "Gio," Rava says, breathless, "you have to go."
"No."
"You have to."
"No. I'm not facing him. Not like this."
The pounding gets worse. "brOTHER," Lorenzo howls from outside. "PLEASE. I AM IN A CRISIS." I get up slowly and head for the door, still grinning like an asshole.
"Can you hear me?" I ask through it.
"OPEN THE DOOR."
I lean against the frame. "I still have two photos left to open. Should I open them, or did you come here to show me the real thing? I'm ready for both."
"Gio, I'm going to start crying. Open the door."
I laugh and unlock it. The second I open the door, Lorenzo goes straight for my phone. I yank my hand back.
"Can I see too?" Antonio asks happily.
"NO," Lorenzo says immediately. "It's a surprise."
I start laughing again. He comes at me, so I take off running straight to the bedroom and hide behind Rava. "Give me your phone. NOW," Lorenzo says.
Then he throws Rava into the worst headlock I've ever seen in my life. "This one's gonna pay for it," he says.
I'm dying. "Put the phone down and I'll release Rava."
"Gio, don't do it," Rava says, and I fucking lose it.
I cross my arms. "Damn. That dick is literally double the size of mine."
"LET ME SEE," Rava yells.
Lorenzo turns to me so fast. "Really??"
"No," I say coldly.
"JUST DELETE THE PHOTOS brO," Lorenzo yells, offended. He comes at me again, trying to grab the phone out of my hand.
"I'm just saying," I tell him, backing away, "the angle is a little catfish. I'm pretty sure your abs do NOT look like that."
He stops. Actually stops.
Then lets go of Rava. "Wait. For real?"
And just like that, he turns straight to the mirror with his shirt up, checking himself from every angle. I'm folded. Rava's dying too. Lorenzo squints at his reflection.
"Nah. I think they still look good. My weight is a little up."
"Your dick is up too—"
"I swear to God, I'll block you."
"Block the view with the dick—"
"That's it," he says, pointing at me. "I'm going to cry on Antonio's shoulder."
Antonio looks thrilled. "Why is… Uncle Lorenzo mad?" he asks.
"Because he sent something to the wrong person," Rava says. Antonio nods like that makes perfect sense. "Oops."
Lorenzo groans and drags both hands down his face. "Come here, baby. You're the only person in this house who respects me. I can't believe this is happening to me."
"It's actually happening to me," I say. "You're not the one who had to see it by surprise."
Antonio wanders off, already bored now that the screaming part is over. The second he disappears, I turn back to Lorenzo and lift my phone like I'm about to make a formal announcement.
"I'm gonna frame it," I say. "With a caption under it: Nothing comes between us. Not even our own blood."
Lorenzo stares at me. "You know what? Fuck you. Do it. Sell it too. But I want percentages."
"You're not getting percentages."
"It's my dick."
"Yeah, but the photo belongs to me now."
"NO, listen to me. It was an accident. I meant to send it to Daisy—"
Rava gasps so dramatically I almost black out again. Lorenzo whips toward him. "SHUT UP. Like you two don't send nudes. You are absolutely those people."
He steps closer and drops his voice like he's exposing state secrets. "I'm fully convinced that if I searched your phones, I'd find entire porn productions in there."
I tilt my head. "Depends. From what runtime does it officially become a porn production?"
Rava answers immediately, dead serious. "It becomes porn the second you hit record and catch the ass clap." I actually have to grab the bedframe.
Lorenzo stares at him. Then at me. Then back at him. "Oh my God," he says. "You're both disgusting."
"We should upload them," I tell Rava, fully joking. "Your ass would make millions." Rava looks offended on a spiritual level. "No? What if my students saw it? Or your mom?"
"It doesn't show your face," I mumble.
"Oh my God," Lorenzo says again. "You're actual sluts. Real ones. I don't know why I opened this conversation. I genuinely set myself on fire for no reason."
Rava folds his arms. "You sent your dick into the wrong chat. You opened this conversation."
"By accident. The photo came to you because your chat was directly underneath Daisy's. That is all. A tragedy of thumb placement."
"A tragedy for you," I say. "A blessing for comedy."
He points at my phone again. "Delete the conversation."
"No."
"Gio."
"No."
He drags a hand down his face. "If you do not delete that chat in the next ten minutes, I'm going to assume you secretly want me, and I will take my pants off right here."
I blink at him. Then smile.
Rava straightens up instantly. "Wait."
Lorenzo looks at him. "What?"
Rava points. "Hold on. Keep threatening him. I want to see where this goes."
"Shut up," Lorenzo says.
I clutch my phone to my chest. "You wouldn't dare."
His eyes narrow. "Try me."
"Do you prefer warm or cold lighting?"
"Warm," Lorenzo says immediately. "Cold light makes me look dead." Then his eyes widen. "WAIT. No. Shut up."
I laugh. "Okay, okay. Relax. Shut up. I'll delete them. Mostly because I was minding my business and you came in here and spiritually assaulted me."
"Thank you," he says, fixing his hair like he's just survived a national scandal.
I unlock my phone again and glance at him. "Still, if I were you, I would've held the phone a little lower. Less jumpscare."
He looks offended. "The jumpscare is the point, you useless bitch. Plus, that's how Daisy likes it." He says it with that smug little grin, and I point at the door immediately. "Get out."
He laughs.
"No, seriously. Leave. You're embarrassing all of us."
"Delete them first so I can see it, and then I'll leave." I open the chat and delete them right in front of him.
There. Gone. Gone from the chat. Gone from my future museum exhibition.
Lorenzo watches carefully, then narrows his eyes at me. "Why did you delete them? You don't like me?"
I hit him straight in the arm. "Get out."
He laughs and backs away, still rubbing his arm dramatically like I broke a bone. Then he heads toward the entrance, but on the way he glances into Antonio's room and pauses.
Antonio is sitting there by himself, looking suspiciously peaceful for a child that came from us. Lorenzo turns back to us.
"Go play with your spawn. I feel bad for him just sitting there like that."
"We were playing with him all morning," Rava says.
"Yeah," I add. "We don't have to be glued to him all day. He'll turn soft."
Rava slowly turns and looks at me like he's considering murder.
"What? You know a lot of fun kids who spend all day every day attached to their parents? Because I don't."
"...Fair," Rava says.
Lorenzo points between us. "Wow, growth. Beautiful."
"Leave," I tell him again.
He salutes me and starts backing out toward the door. "Love you both. Glad we resolved the dick emergency with maturity."
32) Happy Birthday, Grandpa
Gio
I watch Rava getting Antonio ready to go to the cemetery, and it makes the whole thing hurt… twice as bad. Maybe more. Because other kids get to say normal things.
My grandpa is taking me to play soccer this weekend.
My grandpa buys me the best gifts.
My grandpa takes me to the swings.
And we have to take our son to go say hi to a gravestone. To leave another flower. Another one, because I always leave one first. Always.
I've never left one there long enough for it to rot in the vase and start looking ugly. I can't do it. I won't.
Every time I put a flower in that vase for my dad, I bring the same one home with me. I keep it where I can see it. And when it starts to die, when the petals curl in and the color goes wrong and it finally looks dead, I know it's time to go back and change the one at his grave too.
Like if I keep replacing the flowers fast enough, nothing there will ever look abandoned. I wipe my eyes before either of them notices, and walk over.
Antonio is standing there in his tiny shoes while Rava fixes his shirt, patiently. Antonio is talking about something random, something only half understandable, and Rava is nodding like it's the most important thing he's ever heard.
And all I can think is that my dad should have seen this.
He should have seen our kid. He should have heard that voice.
He should have laughed the first time Antonio said something stupid with no real meaning.
He should have been here for the scraped knees and the tantrums and the sticky hands and the toys all over the floor.
He should have been here for the loud little laugh that sounds too big for his body. He should have been here for all of it. Instead, I'm standing in my own house trying not to cry because I have to take my three-year-old son to visit a man he knows only as a name on stone.
We've never taken Antonio there before. I didn't want to. I knew he wouldn't understand. And now that he does understand, it's worse. Way worse. Because now he asks questions. And I hate every adult who has ever said kids make grief easier.
They don't.
They make it hurt even more. Because now I have to stand there and realize my son is still small enough to think death might just be sleep, and my father is still dead enough to never correct him.
He's gone in such a final way that even when his grandson asks about him, there is still no answer that doesn't feel cruel. Rava looks up at me then. He notices everything.
His eyes soften a little, but he doesn't say anything.
Thank God.
If he says anything nice right now, I'll probably fall apart in the hallway like a fucking idiot. Antonio sees me and smiles. "Daddy," he says, like today is just today.