Page 97 of Where Quiet Hearts Scream
I settle cross-legged beside her then reach out to rub her back. “We’re not,” I whisper.
She lifts her head and glares at me and Trilby. “Youcongratulatedthem,” she sneers.
I shake my head. There’s a time and a place to explain the virtue of good manners, and this is neither.
Her cheeks are pink from crying, and her eyes are swollen. “He’s replacing her,” she says, her voice breaking. “He’s replacingMama. And no one even cares.”
I reach for her hand, and to my relief she doesn’t pull away.
“We do care Bambi. We’re just... older. We’ve had more time to be angry. Papa isn’t trying to erase Mama or the memory of her. He’s simply… moving on.”
“But she’s going to be living withme, underour roof,” she whines. “And she has ason. What does that make him? Ourbrother?”
Tess snorts. “Technically, yes. Emotionally? Probably not.”
“I don’t like him,” Bambi says quickly. “He’s weird. Cold. He didn’t even say hello to me.”
“He’s probably feeling uncomfortable too,” Trilby says. “Can you imagine suddenly inheriting four outspoken, demanding sisters?”
Bambi grunts in reply.
I brush a leaf from Bambi’s hair. “Things are going to change—we have to accept that. But you’ll be going to college soon. You’ll have new friends, new drama.You’ll text us when you need something, and Papa will still pick up your calls before any of ours.” I smile. “Noteverythingwill change.”
She stares down at her hands. “I just don’t want to be forgotten.”
“That will never happen,” I assure her.
I take in her emerging figure, her enormous eyes, small button nose and bee-stung lips. Our youngest sister is the prettiest of all. She’ll be far from forgotten—she’ll be fought over. But up here, at the innocent age of seventeen, in the treehouse she still calls home, that won’t mean a thing.
“Anyone for hot chocolate?” Tess asks, taking us all back to the days when we’d hide out until the sun went down, warming ourselves beneath blankets.
“I’d love one,” I reply.
Then I wrap my arms around my little sister and pull her close, silently promising to call her often, listen always, and love her as hard as I can.
Andreas
The late-fall sunlight is dipping behind leafless branches by the time I turn the car into the drive. I glance over at my wife asleep in the passenger seat, her fingers loosely curled in her lap. My hearts squeezes even tighter for her. Just as she’s getting somewhere with her recovery, just as she’s coming to terms with the grief of losing her mother, her father goes and marries again.
Not that it wasn’t time. Tony Castellano dedicated eight years to raising four daughters almost single-handedly. Now that three of them are old enough to vote and the fourth is nipping at their heels, he deserves to find his own happiness. But my wife is the only one I truly care about, and I hate to see her have to navigate this setback.
I, for one, am gladto be back in Boston. New York is always a little too much. Too loud, too public. And now that we’ve finally conquered the gangs, put a bullet into the last piece of the puzzle, and gained government approval to build my fortress, I need to be here, in the city that is finally mine.
I pull up to the side of the house and cut the engine. I look up at the building I call home and feel a thrill beneath my skin. I’ve had plenty of houses and apartments before this one, but none have ever felt like home.
I gave Viola a few days off. She fought me, not wanting to leave Serafina, and insisting that looking out for my wife wasn’t ‘work’ for her—that she’d do it for free. But I insisted. She puts her heart and soul into everything she does for me and I can see the burnout creeping into the lines on her face. So, the house is still and silent. No lights on. No movement. Just the slow pulse of dusk rising over Massachusetts.
Then something shifts in the shadows and a silhouette appears on the front steps. I blink, sure that I’m hallucinating. This is what happened in Washington. I kept thinking I was seeing my father around every corner, but it was always a mirage. Someone with the same jet black, wiry hair. Someone with the familiar lopsided, calculating grin. Someone with the same skinny frame and penchant for a cheap, ill-fitting suit. But then the figure stands, slowly, like a man unfolding himself after years underground.
Sera stirs beside me and lifts her head.
“Are we?—”
She stops mid-sentence when she sees him too.
I open the car door and step out, my feet moving before my brain can intervene. The closer I get to the figure, the more impossible it becomes.
“Leonardo.” He sways on old bones and rests a hand on the stone wall outside the house.
