28. — epilogue. #2
He handed the box over, and Frankie went to work pulling the bangle from black silk to fit on the opposite wrist of the white gold and blue sapphire one that she rarely took off.
“Perfect,” she said, shooting a smile his way.
He already had that third gift waiting. A key chain. It held two keys.
“This one is for the new house,” he said, pointing at a silver key in question.
“And the other?”
A copper-colored key hung with a tag attached. A number stamped on it.
“Storage holding number fifty-three,” Salvatore explained to his daughter. “Everything inside, is yours.”
Confusion lit up her pretty face. “Storage for what?”
Now came the hard part for him, anyway. “Your mother’s things. Her paintings. Her wardrobe. Jewelry. Bags. More, too. Just...Anything I didn’t...”
“It’s okay,” his daughter whispered.
“It seemed like the right time to give it to you,” he said quietly, staring down at the keys in his hands. “Who else should I give it to, anyway?”
“It’s the perfect time.”
He peered up in just enough time to catch Frankie before she slammed into him for a hug that took his breath away from how hard she squeezed.
“I still haven’t decided if I’m ready for what today means,” he admitted against the top of her head.
“You’re ready. It’s just scary.”
Two things could be true...
···
Behind the large, closed doors keeping the aisle and guests from view, Frankie tittered next to her father. Just ahead of them, Vanna knelt to fix the crinoline that peeked out from beneath the sweeping skirt of Carmen’s blue gown.
For once, the girl looked closer to her actual age.
“I’m okay, Mama,” Carmen muttered.
“Well—”
“I got this.”
Salvatore chuckled at the way Vanna rolled her eyes. “All right, fine.”
In the next second, she disappeared down the hallway to enter the gallery hall where the ceremony, and later, reception would take place. He’d already walked Carina in, slowly, so that she didn’t hurt herself in those fucking shoes. He was so done arguing about it.
The wedding party included Nico, Frankie, and Carmen.
They had a surprise planned for the guests regarding witnesses, the officiate would ask for the guests to check under their chair, two had blue cards which invited them to join the couple and sign as witnesses to the marriage.
But otherwise, Frankie and Nico didn’t ask for specific people to stand in for them in that regard.
They really did want it to be about them.
Salvatore just agreed. As he should.
He and Frankie stepped off to the side as the music started so the guests couldn’t see her when the doors started to open.
He took that moment to turn and appreciate his daughter in her gown while Carmen, and her little basket of blue rose petals matching Frankie’s bouquet, took center stage.
He curled one of two pieces of hair framing Frankie’s face around his finger and then used his thumb to sweep across her cheek.
“You look beautiful,” he told her.
“Not too much?” she asked of the dress.
Carina really did have an eye for that sort of thing.
“God, no. You look perfect, Sunshine. Really.”
Her smile softened as he took her in again, needing that moment.
Frankie’s gown, a convertible dress with a removable bolero and detachable six-foot train, gleamed a bright, satin white under the overhead lights.
The way the bodice hugged her upper waist, and the skirt pleats folded and flowed outward around her middle helped to obscure the pregnancy that would soon be announced.
The sheer sleeves attached to the criss-crossed bolero added a grown-up elegance to a dress he hadn’t expected his daughter to choose when Carina put forth her options, but he understood why she did, too.
She was a woman. All grown up.
Her bare leg peeked out from the slit in the gown to show off the open-toed heels that added an extra two inches to her height. He bet those wouldn’t last longer than the ceremony took, and maybe the pictures.
All too soon, the song changed. Frankie’s hand found his elbow and Salvatore wiped at his cheek.
“Don’t cry, or I will,” Frankie whispered.
He swallowed back the lump in his throat. They headed for the opening doors.
“Don’t cry, Daddy,” she repeated, her grip stronger.
Inevitable, he knew. Just like her and Nico. It couldn’t be helped; bound to fucking happen.
He, in fact, did cry the whole way down the aisle and so did the man who waited on the other side. Fair was fair, after all.
God knew...
Nico owed him.
···
Four weeks later...
“Sal, would you slow down? I can’t walk that fast yet!”
“Someone needs to stop with the heels until her scar doesn’t hurt, Carina,” he returned.
“I swear to God—”
Salvatore turned fast on his heel, catching a laughing Carina with a swoop of his arm to toss her over his shoulder. Her palms smacked at his back while he continued the fast stroll down the hospital corridor, but she didn’t seem like she minded.
“You prick,” she muttered.
Only half-heartedly.
“You’re the one that wanted a snack, and look, we missed it.”
“We didn’t miss it. We were in the waiting room anyway, Sal.”
“Yeah, well—”
“Best be doing this tonight, too,” he heard her say sweetly at the same time her backside wiggled a bit in his hold. Damn. “I did get the okay yesterday, so...”
“Not the time, wife.”
“Oh, it’s always that time for us, baby.”
He didn’t argue. He knew where that would lead and she wasn’t wrong.
“Tonight,” he promised as he sat her back to her feet directly in front of a closed elevator. Leaning past her, he pressed the button and then met her glimmering green eyes straight on. “I mean, if you’re not going to put the breaks on again.”
Her teeth cut into her lip. “I was nervous.”
“Why?”
Carina’s face scrunched up warily. “I just...you haven’t even seen me naked since before I had them. Okay?”
Salvatore put his hands on his thighs, totally ignoring the hospital elevator opening so he could be at eye-level with his wife when he said the only thing he intended for her to ever know when it came to her body and how he felt.
“You think I haven’t noticed you cleaning out that closet of all those dresses you used to wear that look like a second skin on you? ”
Her breath hitched. “Well—”
“And how you started putting in orders for an entirely new wardrobe? Thicker fabrics, more structure, a little looser here and there? Shawls, and scarves, and—”
“Stop it, Sal.”
“Are you denying it?”
“No, but I also want to present myself differently. It’s a different era for you and me, so, that counts for something. It’s not all insecurity.”
He was glad for that. Because she had nothing to worry about.
“You wear whatever the fuck you want because it doesn’t matter to me.
Just like the only thing I care about when you’re naked is that you are naked, Carina.
Naked for me. You’re mine, and all of this,” he said, gesturing at her, “is far from what got us here. The way you look barely even played a part.”
“It helped sometimes,” she replied, smirking.
“Sometimes, we needed the help, babe.”
Carina only laughed, but that worry in her expression had entirely drifted away.
He hoped the last thing on her mind was how her body looked when he climbed into bed with her later.
If not, Salvatore didn’t mind revisiting the conversation in a different way.
In one she would certainly understand. Sex was their best language.
Standing straight, he nodded toward the elevator. She spun on those fucking heels, and he swatted her ass on the way. “Let’s go meet our grandbaby.”
···
Salvatore let Carina head into the private hospital room of the maternity wing before he did as something else needed his attention just outside the door. Leaning against the number placard on the wall, Nico couldn’t meet his father-in-law’s eyes when he came to stand in front of him.
“What’s wrong?”
“I told her I forgot the camera,” Nico replied, voice trembling.
Big Mike and his wife had gifted the two a set of cameras, each with a different purpose, for their wedding.
A polaroid with ten rolls of instant film.
Each to be used on their anniversary, apparently, for the first decade of marriage.
The capo got the idea from his wedding, and a gift from his brother.
Another camera, a professional Canon EOS R6 Mark II, meant for important moments that could be captured privately in high quality.
A perfect choice for Frankie, who had an eye for that sort of thing.
The last, a digital cam, was just for fun.
Or so the card said. Salvatore chose not to ask.
“Everything’s okay, though?” Salvatore asked carefully.
Nico lifted his shoulder and then dropped it just as fast. “Damiano’s great. Highest Apgar score today, according to the nurses. Frankie looks like she just took a fucking jog, and barely broke a sweat while doing it, so she’s good, too.”
“And you’re out here having a panic attack, why?”
Nico’s stare finally lifted to meet Salvatore’s as a tear escaped. He didn’t wipe it away. “I don’t think I know what to do.”
He had news for Nico.
“It’s too late for that now,” Sal said.
Nico scoffed, but it didn’t feel too serious.
“That feeling?” Salvatore asked. “It never gets better. You’re never ready, you never know what the fuck you’re doing, and when you finally make it to what feels like the end of raising that kid, you’re not gonna have the first clue how you even got there.
But you will, Nico. We all get there. Okay? ”
Nico nodded. “Yeah, I guess.”
“You ready to go back in? I’d like to meet him.”
“He’s so fucking perfect.”
His hands met his face, and he cried hard. Salvatore knew that feeling, too.
The inability to comprehend how one could create something so amazing, so beautiful. And how the whole world just fell into one’s hands at the same time. All that responsibility and devotion to a single, small human who looked just like you...or like the one you loved.