Chapter Twenty-Three
Marcello
In the end, I don’t directly bother addressing the Lucchese port situation.
I do, however, attend the quarterly sit-down with the other families.
It’s important to look like I care and to be accessible to people who want to talk to me.
The meeting lasts forty minutes and ends with handshakes and smiles.
In the last month, I refused to indulge the gossip.
I refused to feed the grumbling any oxygen.
Eventually, everybody got bored of bitching about me and they shut up.
Just like I predicted.
“That went way better than I thought it would,” Carlo says as he drives me home from the meeting.
“I told you months ago the whispers would die out.” I watch the harbor through the window. The water is pewter and flat under a December sky. Cranes on the commercial docks move containers in a slow mechanical ballet.
He sighs. “You were right.”
“Of course I was.”
Carlo’s cheek curves in a smile. “You know what I like about you, boss? Your humility.”
“Yeah, I know. Everyone likes that about me.”
He chuckles, but then says, “I was glad Salvatore wasn’t there.”
I grunt but say nothing. I try not to think about Salvatore. He’s retreated to his estate. He rarely goes to the club anymore and doesn’t attend many functions. Some people are confused about the change in him, and I’m sure it’s awkward for him. He can’t very well explain what happened.
On the few occasions where he is at the same party or meeting I’m at, he makes himself scarce.
Smart man. What happened with him is not a black-and-white issue for me.
A part of me wishes he was dead so I wouldn’t have to think about him anymore.
But another part of me feels sorry for him.
The lie my father told made things worse, not better.
But Salvatore was still responsible for his actions and that’s what makes it complicated.
What occupies the majority of my thoughts is Elio and the pregnancy.
He’s now twenty-four weeks and life is filled with doctor’s appointments and shopping for baby stuff.
The nursery isn’t done yet. We can’t decide if we want to know the sex of the baby or not.
I don’t think we want to know, even though it would be more practical.
But practicality has never been something I concerned myself with.
Elio is in the kitchen when I get home. He’s wearing one of my dress shirts, the sleeves rolled to his elbows, the tail hanging past his thighs, his sweatpants pushed low under the bump. He’s leaning against the counter eating crackers from the box and reading something on his phone.
I stop in the doorway and watch him. He has earbuds in so he didn’t hear me come in.
There’s something about seeing him in my clothes that gets to me.
Something possessive, tender, and deeply primal.
I like seeing him wrapped in my clothing.
I like the idea he likes wearing my clothes.
Elio has tapped into a more sentimental side I didn’t know I had.
I don’t dislike it. It’s weird but nice to feel emotions I’ve never felt before.
He looks up and smiles, tugging one of his earbuds out. “You’re finally home.”
“Yes, I am.” I cross the room and kiss him, tasting salt from the crackers. My hand finds his rounded belly and I sigh contentedly. “How are you feeling today?”
“Fat. Uncomfortable. Your child won’t stop kicking my bladder.” He sets the crackers down. “How was the meeting?”
“Short and uneventful. Just as I predicted.”
“That’s good, right?”
“Of course.” I kiss him again. “Looking forward to the scan later today?”
“Yep.” He glances down at his belly. “I know the baby is fine. Healthy. I can sense it.”
I laugh. “Is that right?”
“Yep.”
I smack his ass. “Well, you better go change. You can’t wear my shirt and sweats to a doctor’s appointment.”
“Okay, okay.” He shoves another cracker in his mouth and then closes the box. Then with a salute, he heads upstairs.
We arrive early to Dr. Vasquez’s office.
The waiting room is empty today, which I don’t mind.
Sometimes there are omegas there with their other kids.
For some reason the kids always seem to have runny noses and coughs.
I don’t need Elio catching a cold while pregnant, so I always give the kids dirty looks to keep them at bay.
It doesn’t always work though. Half the time they just giggle because they think I’m playing.
The nurse calls us back. The exam room hasn’t changed since the eight-week visit. The watercolor of the coast on the wall, the paper-covered table, the ultrasound machine in the corner. Elio changes into the gown and lies back, and I pull the chair close and take his hand. His fingers are cold.
Dr. Vasquez comes in with a file under her arm. “Good morning. How are we doing at twenty-four weeks?”
“Good,” Elio says. “Tired. The baby has decided that three a.m. is party time.”
“That’s common. Your daytime movement rocks them to sleep, so they wake up when you stop moving.” She opens the file. “Any pain, bleeding, unusual swelling?”
“No. Just the usual stuff. Heartburn, back aches, needing to pee every forty-five minutes.”
“Wow, you make it a whole forty-five minutes? You’re one of the lucky ones.” She smiles. “That’s all normal, by the way.” She looks at me. “And how is Dad?”
“I’m Elio’s rock,” I say, smirking.
“He’s being sarcastic, but he really is my rock. He rubs my back almost every night.”
I meet his gaze. “Awww. Thanks for making me look good in front of the doctor.”
He just laughs.
“Glad to know you can lean on your alpha, Elio. That’s important.
” She sighs. “Okay, as you well know, the echocardiogram is today. We’ll take a look at the baby’s cardiac structures.
Given Fabio’s history of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, we want to look at the ventricular walls, the septum, and the outflow tracts.
At twenty-four weeks, the heart is developed enough to get a clear picture.
” She meets my eyes. “Most cases of HOCM don’t present this early, but the echo will tell us if there are any structural concerns we need to monitor. Sound good?”
Elio and I nod.
She squeezes the gel onto his abdomen. The screen lights up.
The last time I saw this screen, the baby was a bright smudge inside a dark oval, a heartbeat and not much else.
What I see now is different. I can see a profile.
A forehead, the slope of a nose, the curve of a mouth.
Fingers curled near the chin. The baby shifts as the wand moves, and for a moment I see both hands, five fingers on each, and my chest squeezes at the sight of it.
“My gosh it looks like a real baby now,” Elio murmurs, squeezing my hand.
“Yeah,” I agree gruffly.
“I know. It’s pretty miraculous,” Dr. Vasquez murmurs. She adjusts the angle and the image shifts. “Okay, let me get a clear view of the four chambers of the heart.”
Elio’s hand tightens on mine. His eyes are locked on the screen but I also watch Dr. Vasquez’s face instead. Her expression will tell me before the machine does if something is wrong. I don’t know enough about fetal cardiology to read what I’m seeing, so I read her instead.
She’s quiet for what feels like a long time. She moves the wand slowly, clicking measurements on the screen.
“Septum looks normal,” she says, almost to herself. Another click. “Wall thickness is within range. No asymmetry. Outflow tracts are clear.”
Elio exhales beside me.
She turns to us and smiles. “This is good news, guys. The heart looks beautiful. No signs of hypertrophic changes, no structural abnormalities. Everything is developing as it should.”
“You’re sure?” I ask, the words just kind of slipping out before I can stop them.
“I’m sure. I’ll want one more follow-up in the third trimester, but based on what I’m seeing today, this baby has a healthy heart.”
Elio makes a sound beside me. When I look at him his eyes are teary but he’s grinning. “That’s super promising.”
“It is.” I nod.
“After everything with Fabio, I was really scared.” He looks guilty. “I didn’t want to say how scared I was because I didn’t want to make you scared.”
I bring his hand to my mouth. “We were feeling the same thing.”
“You’d have to be robots not to be nervous.” Dr. Vasquez smiles. “Okay, now, since I have a good view, would you like to know the sex?”
Elio and I both blurt, “No, thank you.”
She laughs. “All right. I’m going to adjust the angle, so look away for a moment.”
We both look up at the ceiling.
Once the camera is safely not showing the sex of the baby, the doctor lets us look at the fetus some more.
When that’s done, she prints two images and hands them to Elio.
In one, the baby’s profile is clear: the nose, the forehead, the suggestion of cheekbones.
In the other, a small hand is extended, fingers spread, reaching.
That night I stand at the window of our bedroom while Elio sleeps. The grounds are quiet, the garden stripped bare, frost glittering on the stone paths under the security lights. December in Sorrento Bay is cold and sharp.
For some reason my father and Adriano are on my mind tonight. My father wasn’t a warm man, but I’d always known he loved me. He was a hard but good father. I wonder what sort of father Adriano would have been. Would he have been a better father than I’ll be? Warmer? More open?