Chapter 34
GIANNA
The house is empty. The war has started.
I can feel it. All the life this house and grounds have been teeming with since I got here is just gone.
Gone.
Thinking that word sends me spiraling so deep into anxious worry that even the hot sun on my face as I stand on the balcony of our bedroom feels cold.
What if Matteo doesn’t come back?
What if this whole war of his fails? Or never ends and just goes on and on?
What if his endless talking about that curse of his that he believes will kill him as soon as he gets his own back isn’t just talk?
I give my cheek a slap to steady myself and stop the spiraling. I barely feel the pain. And the heat of the blow is cold too.
But this is the lot of a mafia wife. There’s always some battle, some feud, something to take care of. Something dangerous and deadly. It was the lot of a mafia daughter too.
I can’t fall apart the first time my intended goes to battle. I have to be strong. Have to be his rock. He’ll need me when he comes back. Just as I need him. Just as our children will need him.
I rub my belly, imagining I can already feel the life kicking inside me. The life we made.
I sent him to battle thinking he has a child on the way and I’m not even sure.
Suddenly that unknowing fills my brain, sounding like the biggest mistake I’ve made.
And I know this panic gripping me now, this need to know if I am really pregnant or just imagining it all, is just my mind’s way to keep me from worrying about Matteo, giving me something else to fixate on.
But I rush from the bedroom anyway, taking the servants stairs down to the kitchen, actually breathing a deep sigh of relief when I find Maria there.
She’s standing at the window, looking out over the garden, and clutching the crucifix around her neck in her hand, her lips moving soundlessly. The sun is illuminating her face, making her look like some statue in a church as she prays.
She’s worried too. Worried enough to pray.
The thought stops me dead just inside the doorway to the vast kitchen, which smells of the garlic and tomato sauce that is slowly cooking in several large pots on the stoves.
She turns to me, a serene smile on her lips. “They’ll be hungry when they come back.”
She points at the pots of tomato sauce she’s making. It’s enough to feed a whole army. But I don’t think it’s this army she’s talking about. I think she’s talking about the last one. The one that never came back. Matteo’s family. She lost them too.
I have to get both of us out of this house. Or else we could go mad worrying.
“I have an errand to run,” I say and touch my belly. “At the pharmacy.”
She raises one eyebrow as she sees the hand on my belly.
“What kind of errand?” she asks. “We’re not supposed to leave the house.”
I smile and walk to her side. “Everyone is somewhere else. Busy. And I’m afraid I told Matteo something this morning… something I’m not sure is true. And I want to be sure when he comes back tonight.”
She looks from my belly to my face and back again.
“You’re pregnant?” she asks, the emotion making her voice very soft, barely audible.
“I think so, but I want to be sure. Let’s ride down to the pharmacy. I know you have a car.”
I’ve seen her come and go. Usually returning with huge bags of food, which the men would then help her carry into the kitchen.
She looks at me, excitement warring with something much more stern in her eyes.
“We must not leave the house,” she says finally, and I can tell every one of those words was hard for her to say. “Matteo was very clear that we are not to go anywhere.”
As if to punctuate the point a man in a black suit, holding a machine gun strolls past the kitchen window, briefly nodding at us before resuming his vigilant gaze over the garden.
“Oh,” I say defeatedly, all my dark thoughts of all the ways this day could go wrong already rushing back into my mind.
She wraps her arms around me and hugs me tightly. “I know, sweetie. It’s so hard just sitting here waiting for them to come home.”
“You’ve done it before,” I mutter. “And they didn’t.”
She nods and squeezes me tighter. I hug her back, letting the warmth of us holding each other be all there is. But it just turns colder and colder.
She suddenly releases me, smiling widely as she unclasps her crucifix from around her neck. “I know what we can do… to see if you’re pregnant. It’s not a real test, but it’s the next best thing. The necklace test. You must’ve heard of it.”
She’s holding the crucifix by its gold chain, still smiling widely.
“You mean that ancient superstition where the way the necklace moves is supposed to tell you what gender the baby is?” I ask skeptically.
“Exactly. If you are pregnant, it will tell us the gender,” she says, breathless with excitement now. “If it spins in a circle, you’re having a girl and if it swings back and forth, you’re having a boy. And if it just hangs and doesn’t move, then you’re not pregnant. It’s perfect.”
I remember my grandmother telling me about this test a long time ago, and even back then I thought it couldn’t possibly be accurate. But why not? If curses are real, why can’t this be real? Excitement to know is starting to displace the dark thoughts in my mind again.
“OK, why not? Let’s try it,” I say. “How does it work?”
She wraps her arm around my shoulders and guides me to one of the chairs. “Sit and lean back. Then I will suspend the crucifix over your belly, and we’ll know.”
I do as she says, wondering if I should maybe lift my shirt so the reading will be more accurate, but decide against it, thinking that would be too silly.
She suspends the crucifix over my belly. Her hand is shaking slightly, but the necklace just hangs limply, not moving at all.
Was I completely wrong? Am I not pregnant at all? We both wait breathlessly, staring at the crucifix.
Nothing happens.
I finally exhale, already starting to convince myself that this is just a stupid old wives’ tale when the crucifix starts swinging back and forth across my belly.
“Are you doing this?” I ask, looking at her hand. It’s still shaking slightly, but she’s not moving any part of it that I can see.
She shakes her head, her eyes fixed on the crucifix that’s swinging over my belly harder and harder.
“A son,” she whispers. “You’re having a son.”
Tears are collecting in her eyes. And I suddenly don’t care if this is real or just superstition. I’m having a son. Matteo’s son. I already knew I was having his child. This is just the confirmation.
A boy. We’re having a little boy.
Tears are rolling down Maria’s face. Tears of joy. I stand up and hug her close, tell her how happy I am, how I can’t wait to tell Matteo tonight. And she tells me this is the best news she’d heard in years, assures me he will be overjoyed.
Then we just stand here, hugging each other, not a trace of the dark thoughts left in my brain as I already picture playing with my son, watching him grow, Matteo teaching him to surf, the three of us falling asleep together on that huge bed upstairs. I can already hear the child’s laughter.
But it’s interrupted savagely by gun fire. Machine gun fire.
Maria releases me, joy evaporating off her face as she stares past me at the window. I turn to see what’s there.
The man who had passed the windows of the kitchen less than ten minutes ago is limping towards us, the front of his shirt red with his blood. He collapses before he reaches the open French doors.
More gunfire is sounding from all around. But it’s short, ends quickly, and dies down fast.
“We have to run,” I tell Maria, grab her hand, and move to pull her after me to the garage, which is just beyond this kitchen. If we can make it there, we can escape in one of the cars. That’s all I’m focusing on.
“What’s the rush, pretty lady?” a man’s voice says from the direction of the garden. I know the voice. It’s the same man who sat at my table at that first restaurant Matteo took me to. The same man I stopped him from killing right then and there.
Dante Moretti.
The man Matteo left to kill today.
“It’s good to see you again,” Dante says as he enters the kitchen. “We must get to know each other better.”
“That is the absolute last thing that will happen,” I say and start running towards the garage, pulling Maria after me.
But I don’t get far. Two goons block my path, grab us, and rip us apart.
“I’m sorry, I was unclear,” Dante says in a menacing yet still very sleazy tone. “You don’t have a say in the matter. You’re mine now.”
Does this mean Matteo failed?
Does it mean he is dead?
I would know it if he was. I would feel him leave this world. Feel his sunshine disappearing.
Or would I?
Is my curse to blame? Did it cause this? Did it cause his death because I told him I loved him and wanted to bear his children? Because I wanted to be his wife even if I rejected his ring?
Or is his curse acting now to rip us apart, take from him that which he cares for the most? Me. Our unborn son.
In my thoughts, I can still hear the sweet, carefree, laughter of our child. But it’s fading, growing quieter and quieter until it vanishes completely.
Because he will never laugh now.
Our curses collided and brought nothing but death all around. Death and sadness and failure. Just as life was meant to start anew.