Page 21 of Sharp Force
“Please make yourself comfortable,” she says brightly while tearing up, and I pretend not to notice.
CHAPTER 8
Marino sits down in a blue wingback chair while I settle on the matching sofa. Mick and Rick perch on the fireplace hearth like matching andirons, the artificial logs flaming behind glass. Four stockings hung from the mantel have names on them in gold sequins.
Mick. Rick. Mom. Dad.
I notice the ornaments on the tree. Tiny rocking horses, motorcycles, rockets, flying saucers, the Avengers, Spider-Man, everything in twos. Glass balls are of all shapes and sizes, the branches woven with golden ropes of angel hair and draped with tinsel that I can tell has been recycled. Reba catches me looking.
“Rowdy loves to decorate for Christmas, everything going up the minute Thanksgiving’s over,” she explains as if I asked a question, her voice catching. “He’d start decorating after Halloween, but I won’t let him.”
“My wife does the same thing,” Marino feels compelled to say. “She’d have the stuff up all year round if she had her way about it.”
“The two of you are married?” Reba looks at me, her eyes confused.
“No. It’s bad enough he has to work around me every day,” I reply, and she simply nods.
“Rowdy was the shopper and always did most of it early. That’s one thing he’s loved. This time of year is his favorite.” She slips in and out of the past and present tense. “There’s nothing he liked better than putting up the tree and buying presents.” Her eyes tear up again. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be back in a jiff.”
She abruptly walks off, passing through the formal dining room’s antique reproduction furniture, a gilt angel hanging from the crystal chandelier. Reba disappears into the kitchen while her twins continue staring at Marino. Now and then they glance at me with uncertainty and apprehension.
“So, what’s going on?” Marino asks them. “Looks like someone was outside a little while ago having a snowball fight?”
“Right before you got here,” Rick says.
“Who won?” Marino asks.
The boys shrug, not taking their eyes off him.
Then Mick says, “I did.”
“No you didn’t.”
“Did too.” Mick makes a rude face at his brother, the two of them carbon copies.
“The snow’s not all that good for snowballs,” Rick says to Marino as if I’m not present. “Because of the sleet mixed in. It’s too deep for sledding unless we went on the roads maybe. But Mom won’t let us.”
“That wouldn’t be safe,” I comment. “Especially after dark.”
I stop short of mentioning the dangers. I’m thinking about what happened to their father six years ago when a driver hit him and kept on going.
“How’d you get so big?” Rick gawks at Marino.
“You must lift a lot of weights!” Mick rejoinders.
“In the gym every day, whatever it takes to be strong,” Marino boasts. “Same thing you two should be doing.”
“How?” they ask.
“First you got to have the right equipment and supervision. You don’t want to hurt yourself,” he tells them. “Maybe I’ll give you some pointers sometime.”
“Okay!”
“But you’d have to work hard. Otherwise forget it.”
“We will!”
“A deal then,” Marino says.
