Page 45 of The Mad Don
Her eyes are on Lucia with a different attention than they had given the room, and her hands come up.
“Ma’am! My brother. My brother, please. I can’t find him.”
Yana walks closer to her.
“I know.”
Yana’s voice is very steady.
“I know. I’m going to help you. Look at me. Look here.”
She is in front of Lucia. She has not touched her yet. She raises both hands slowly and shows my sister the palms.
“I’m going to put my hands on your head. Is that all right? Then we can find your brother, but he can’t see you crying like this. It’ll scare him.
Lucia is shaking, but she nods. She would nod at anything in this moment, but Yana asked anyway.
Yana steps in. She brings both hands up to my sister’s head and presses there with her thumbs, just at the soft hollow above the cheekbone. She rubs in small, slow circles. Her face is calm. Her voice has gone lower.
“You want your brother.”
“Yes —”
“You want to know where he is?”
“Yes —”
“Breathe with me. In through your nose. Out through your mouth. Like that. There you are. Again. There you are.”
I have not moved from the floor.
Yana’s hands stay at Lucia’s temples. She steps slightly to the side, the smallest pivot, just enough to clear my sister’s line of sight to the place I am sitting on the floor.
“There he is,” she says quietly. “Look. There. He is right there.”
Lucia’s eyes move, and they find me on the floor.
For a long second, nothing changes. Then her face changes. The wild thing in her eyes sinks back down. The breath she has been pulling in short, fast jerks.
“Giovanni?”
She is herself again.
“Giovanni. Why are you on the floor?”
She steps out of Yana’s hands. She hops the small distance toward me with her limp suddenly more pronounced because the adrenaline has gone, and what is left is just the bad leg and the long tiredness. She lowers herself slowly to her knees beside me.
She looks at my face.
“Giovanni. You’re red. Are you?” Her thumb comes up to my cheekbone. I feel her brush it across my skin. It comes away wet. “Are you crying?”
I had not realized.
I brush the heel of my hand across my eyes, and there is a smear. I do not bother to look away. I reach for her, I pull her in against my chest, I hold her, and I do not say anything for a long moment.
“There, there,” she says. She is patting my back as if I am the one who needs comforting. “Why are you on the floor,fratellino?You should not be on the floor.”
I press my mouth into her hair.
