34. Nico
34
Nico
I once did everything I could to get Ava out of her bed, out of that room that she chained herself to. Stupid mistake. Now, I’d do anything to keep her in it. I want to spend the next five months wrapped around her in bed, never letting her leave. I know I can’t. It’d be just as bad as letting her roam wild.
But she’s taking it easy, as she promised, and the family rallies around her health.
While the girls relax in the pool, I meet with Salvatore on the patio to discuss Ava’s situation, and the words blood pressure are barely out of my mouth before Salvatore approves my demanding shopping list: a personal chef with a nutritionist background. A nurse that can monitor Ava’s health in the day-to-day. The best OB/GYN money can get, fully vetted.
It’s a lot to ask for. It’s not the budget that’s the problem for men like us, I could handle that with no problem, but it’s the logistics of it all. Approving new people to enter the house and doing exhaustive background checks isn’t easy and it all comes with a risk, but Salvatore allows it without so much as a blink. Then, he tells me to wait.
He brings me a box, heavy with books, and sets it on the ground next to our feet.
“The hell is that?” I ask, poking through it like a bargain bin. Everything from medical books to parenting guides are packed inside.
“Everything I read to try to get ready for it all. I don’t know if you want it, but it’s there if you do. Tessa vetted them, made sure none of them were bullshit before she’d let me read them. That they all had some merit, some…truth, I guess.”
“Did it help?”
He shrugs.
“Who knows? A lot of it feels like common sense, and somehow it all still feels…overwhelming. But maybe even if it only helped a little, even if it means I might do one thing right that I otherwise would have done wrong…that’s worth it. I don’t think we’re built for it like they are. I don’t think it comes naturally. You remember Dad.”
I hesitate.
“We might’ve had the same father, but we had very different dads.”
Sal looks surprised that I would say as much, but I know it’s true. I always did. My father was no saint, but he might as well have treated me like a prince for all the hell he gave Sal. That Sal even survived our father and his fucked-up hatred, that was a feat, and he was just a kid then. I never cared, and I never stopped it.
An awkwardness settles. Neither of us knows how to be genuine with each other, brought together by only this one same experience.
“I’m gonna quit the fights,” I tell him. “Is that going to cause a problem for you?”
“No,” he says, without flinching.
I know it will, and it almost pisses me off how accommodating he’s being with me. I’ve caused him hell. Nothing but it, and he just keeps…I glance down into the pool, where our girls are laughing themselves sick over something, Tessa chasing her lost bikini top across the water. I remind myself it’s not for me. It’s for her.
Even with Ava laughing in the sun, my thoughts run a mile a minute:
Did she put on enough sunscreen? Is the water too cold, the sun too hot? When was the last time we had the pool maintenanced, does anyone even know?
“Do you ever…” I hate the words, because they sound fucking pathetic, “do you ever get over the anxiety?”
The man didn’t read a dozen what-to-expect books because he was calm .
“No,” he admits, “it just gets worth it. Once you have them in your arms, and you can hold them, it’s...I don’t know. Not easier, but better, I guess.” His voice lowers so even I can barely hear him. “Truth is, when you showed back up on our doorstep, I was half-tempted to throw the whole business in your lap and tell you to deal with it.”
“Never gave me that impression,” I say.
“That’s because I knew it was a stupid idea, come about for a stupid reason. You know, I have nightmares about the Feds kicking down the door of this place three, four nights a week? And it’s not the guns and the computers they drag out of the house. It’s not even me. That kind of anxiety? I don’t think that ever stops. Sometimes I look at all this and still wonder if some cookie-cutter suburban hell wouldn’t be better in its own way, living off 80k a year in the middle of fucking nowhere.”
“Alright, now you’re just getting grim.”
Salvatore barks out a laugh. I don’t think we’ve ever made each other laugh before, not in the way brothers should. It feels weird at first, but maybe we’ll grow into it. Besides, I understand what he means.
Out across the city, some miles away, a handful of men are being killed, or hunted, or trying to go into hiding. The tension in the family buzzes like a beehive I’ve shaken up. No matter how many men I take out, no matter how many threads I snip, it will never be safe for me. Not really. That damage is done, and I imagine I will always have that fear in me, too, that one day my consequences might come and catch the wrong person in their crosshairs.
All I can do is protect her.
“Do whatever you have to, Nico,” Salvatore says, as he goes to leave. “You have my blessing.”
The actual meaning of those words doesn’t sink in until later.
I take Ava to every doctor’s appointment and watch as professionals frown and hum over her condition, always trying to spin bad news into something palatable. Her blood pressure has come down since the ER visit, but it’s not in a safe range yet, and still needs frequent monitoring. And the ironic thing about her condition is that bad news makes it worse, and it feeds itself, anxiety into anxiety, like a cell dividing itself endlessly.
But the worst appointment is a routine one, where Ava her doctor sketch out the fine details of her delivery plan, and there on the paperwork, in black and white ink, like a binding contract, is the question: if the doctors are forced to make a choice between her or the baby, who should they prioritize? Who should they save?
Through all this, everything has been Ava’s call. Whatever she wants, whatever she thinks is best. Doctors, midwives, doulas—whatever the fuck that is—and natural or medicated or water birth or hypnosis, which sounds like a sham but what the actual fuck do I know, she could do it any way she wants. Except this question. She hesitates for half a second, and it’s half a second too long.
I reach over and take the pen out of her hand, circling the answer. The only answer.
She doesn’t fight me on it, and the doctor says it almost never comes down to a decision like that, but for the rest of the day, my head is hot static, and I’m completely useless. I think I’m hiding it just fine…until she asks me if I want her to drive us home.
For the rest of the day, she’s not out of my sight until she falls asleep, always exhausted now from the big task of just growing another person inside her.
Night birds croon as I walk out to the backyard, under the cover of night. I pass the pristine fountain, the water rushing clear and clean, with no memory of what happened there. I stop at the circle of white flowers. The blooms droop, fading with the season. On the plaque, Vinny’s initials are engraved into flat stone. His body rests somewhere else, but this plot is a reminder, maybe an apology. Vinny was the first of our family to ever be killed by a rival on our own property.
I bury my hand in my pockets and sigh.
“I’m gonna take care of her, alright?” I ask, feeling stupid for talking to a cold breeze. I’m no better than one of those crazies with doomsday signs standing on the street corners. I steel my shoulders and force myself not to walk away. “I’m going to marry her, Vinny. And I’m gonna give her as many babies as she wants. I just need the chance…and if you…if you have any connections, you know, any ties to some big boss upstairs, then uh, maybe just tell him, you know? Tell him what she’s like. How good she’s going to be as a mother. How much she’s fought for this. Just, uh. Put in a good word for her, alright? Tell him it’s not for me.” I add, ignoring the tightness in my throat, talking to something I barely fucking believe in. “Actually, you should probably just leave my name out of it completely.”
The self-awareness creeps in at the corners.
Fucking hell, I’m losing it.
I start to march off, but another thought brings me right back.
“And Vinny,” I add, turning back around, “I hope you find some ghost wife, and have ghost kids, or whatever the fuck you guys do. But when this is all over for all of us, and we all get where you’ve gone—I’m sorry, but this girl’s mine.”