Chapter 11 Sergio
SERGIO
Iwalk in the door of my house, drop the keys on the side table, take off my coat and let it fall to the floor.
I should have stayed with her. What I want more than anything right now is to lie down beside her and watch her sleep.
Listen to her breathe. Hold this tangible, living thing.
Hold it so fucking tight it won’t vanish like everything does.
From the living room, I pick up a bottle of whiskey and a crystal tumbler. The lights are still off and I don’t switch them on but make my way into my study instead. This house is so quiet. So still. The curtains in the study are always drawn. This is the darkest room of the house.
I move behind my desk and switch on the lamp.
From underneath the desk, I take out the large, rolled up sheet of what looks to be ancient parchment.
It’s not. Just made to look that way. I unroll it, smoothing down the edges, looking at the black and white boxes, the gray, worn areas where I’ve erased and redrawn and erased and redrawn too many times.
Where I’ve worn a small hole in one of those boxes.
This is why I came home. There’s work to be done.
Without paying attention, I pour a glass of whiskey and set the bottle on one corner of the sheet, sipping as I move around to the next.
I slide another edge beneath the table lamp.
The paperweight flattens another corner as I take my seat.
One more sip and my tumbler rests on the final edge and the parchment is laid out before me.
I don’t have to look away to open the drawer and take out my pencils. Charcoal, for sketching. The callous on my middle finger is still dark from all the times I’ve held these.
The Benedetti family tree is all here before me from generations past. I wonder if anyone will continue to do this when I’m gone. When I’m one of the boxes that needs to be erased. Redrawn. The dates entered, finally.
I can’t find the eraser right away and turn to rummage through the drawer. It had slid to the back. Taking it and my ruler, I erase the already smudged line around a cousin’s box. I want it perfect.
No one’s seen this little project of mine, not even Salvatore. It’s morbid, I know. But it takes up so much of my mind, more and more as each day passes.
When I’m finished redrawing the box, I retrace the dates. This cousin was seventeen when he was killed. A car crash, not mob violence. Just too much alcohol and stupidity. We have those too. Life. Normal. Death.
When that’s done, I drag my gaze to my father’s box. Then my mother’s. I touch hers with the tip of my finger. It won’t be long before I add a date here.
I suck in a deep breath, rub the scruff of my jaw. If I don’t shave soon, it’ll be a fucking beard. I look away, look down at my brothers’ boxes. My own. Funny, I’ve drawn theirs with connected empty boxes beside for their eventual wives. Their families.
I told Natalie time was a luxury, but so is family. Children. A fucking wife.
I swallow all that shit down, swallow the choking lump in my throat, bury it deep in my gut.
I steel myself, look at my own name there.
I’ll be the boss of this family one day.
It’ll be when I’ve added a date to my father’s box.
It’s not that I don’t want it. I do. And it’s not that I feel guilt over what I do.
I don’t. I’m very comfortable with who I am.
It’s just—it’s always bittersweet, everything.
Someone always has to fucking die.
I line up the ruler, almost draw the link, almost add a box, but I stop. I can’t do that because if I do, I’ll be condemning her.
Instead, I take out a blank sheet of the same type of paper. This one’s letter sized. I have it specially made—vanity, I suppose. I like nice things.
I set the sheet on top of the family map—our graveyard—and pick up the tumbler, swallow the rest of my whiskey. I pour another glass and get to work.
From memory, I start with her eyes. Almond shaped and so dark, they’re almost black. Eyes are the hardest. Inside them is the soul. And I want to see her soul. I want it more than anything else right now.
It takes time, but I’ve got all night. My hands turn gray with charcoal as I smudge and erase and redraw again and again and again. I want to draw her like she was tonight. When she came. Soft and open and surrendered. Surrendered to me.
She didn’t realize she was crying until I wiped away a tear. It’s the strangest feeling, I have no word for it and I don’t want to forget that, not ever. Memory is so fucking fragile.
When I finish with the eyes, I sit back and look at my work.
I breathe from high in my chest, I’ve been holding my breath and didn’t realize it.
My hand reaches to find my glass but it’s empty, so I drag my gaze away, stand to reach for the bottle, refill, splashing a few drops onto the family tree.
I wipe them away with my sleeve and drink the burning liquid in one swallow.
I wish it numbed me like it used to, but it takes a lot these days.
I push the sketch aside and look back at my box on the family tree, look at the line I started to draw to add a box, to link it to mine, and for one moment, I let myself imagine. I let myself dream the impossible.
And then I sit and I make myself remember.
Make myself count.
Make myself say aloud the name of every person here where a date had to be written in. Something that wouldn’t be erased again. A box. A life. Another, different, sort of box. I count each one.
I do this every time I take this sheet out.
Every time I feel sorry for myself because I have no right to.
I’m not a good person. Salvatore, he has a conscience.
I know his struggle. Dominic, not so much.
He’s a mean son of a bitch. But so am I.
The only difference between my little brother and me is that I’m going to get everything I want and he’s going to get nothing. That’s my saving grace.
Although I’m not sure the word grace should be uttered by someone like me.
I sit. I run my thumb softly over the edge of Natalie’s eye. Smudge it. I smear charcoal across the sheet of paper, like I smeared the teardrop across her cheek earlier.
I reach in my pocket for my cell phone and maybe I am a little drunk when my brother’s groggy voice comes on the line and I look at the time. It’s almost four in the morning.
“Sergio?” Salvatore asks, then with more urgency, “Is everything okay?” He must just realize the time.
“Yeah. Yeah, it’s fine.”
Pause. “You sure?”
I grunt. I can’t drag my eyes from hers as I reach for the bottle and drink straight from it.
“Sergio. What the fuck? It’s four in the morning.”
“Listen.” I don’t recognize my own voice, it’s so low. So quiet. So broken.
He hears it too, I know from the emptiness in the line. “I’m listening,” he finally says.
“There’s a girl,” I start.
“A girl?”
“If anything happens to me, you’ll have to make sure she’s okay.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
“Just listen.”
“Are you fucking drunk?”
“No. Yeah. Maybe a little. Doesn’t matter.” I smear charcoal on my fingertip. Smear it to Natalie’s temple, create a shadow.
“Where are you?” he asks.
“Home.”
“Alone?”
“Yeah. Alone.”
“You need me to come over?”
“No, I’m fine. I just need you to shut the fuck up and listen now.”
“Okay. Tell me about the girl.”
I close my eyes, give my head a shake. What am I going to tell him? What can I say that will make any sense?
“Just make sure she’s okay.” Fuck. I’m definitely drunk.
“I’m coming over. You can make me fucking breakfast because it’s not even the ass crack of dawn.”
I chuckle. “No, it’s fine. Salvatore, it’s fine. I’m okay.” I take a deep, sobering breath.
“Then tell me about the girl. What’s her name?”
“Natalie. Natalie Gregorian.”
He repeats the name, then chuckles. “Dad’s going to give you shit she’s not Italian.”
“Yeah, well, fuck that.”
“How long have you known her?”
“A couple of days.”
He laughs. “She got you good, huh?”
“I like her, that’s all. Just if anything happens—”
“Nothing’s going to fucking happen to you so shut the fuck up. Don’t be a goddamned ass.”
I smile.
“Natalie Gregorian,” he says seriously, and I know that’s his way of telling me yes, he’ll make sure she’s okay if anything happens to me. “Why don’t you get some sleep now, brother.”
“Yeah.” I get to my feet. “Listen, sorry I woke you. I know you need your beauty rest.”
“Fuck you.”
“Hey, the stuff with mom—”
“She’s getting another opinion. Dad’s calling in some specialist from Germany.”
“Of course, he is.” He’s desperate. “It’s shitty.”
“Yeah it’s fucking shitty. Listen, you can’t think about it. You need to go have some fun. Take Natalie away for a weekend or something. Somewhere hot and sunny. You can’t always be in this shit, you know? Not you, Sergio. You need a fucking break.”
I know what he means, why he’s saying this. I’ve got the family graveyard laid out in front of me. Drawn over years. This darkness, it’s a part of me. And it’s not that it belongs to me. No. I belong to it. Always have.
“I’ll think about it.”
“All right. Get some sleep.”
“Good night.” I hang up, set the phone down. I slide the large sheet out from under my new sketch and roll it up, put it away. I give Natalie’s sketch one long look before switching off the lights and going upstairs to try and sleep, hoping for just a few hours of oblivion.
God, what I’d give.