Page 226 of Mario
By the time we reach his car, I am smiling.
I hate that, too.
Not really.
Chapter Twenty Two
Mario
By evening, my house is full.
Not full in the way it used to be when the boys were younger, and every room seemed to have noise pouring out of it, but full enough that the walls no longer feel quite so empty.
My brothers arrive first.
Lorenzo comes in with his sons, Edoardo and Alessio, behind him, both taller than I remember them being every time I see them, though they have been grown now for years.
Edoardo carries himself like his father in some ways. Watchful. Measured. The kind of man who listens before he speaks andremembers everything said in the room. Alessio is different. Quicker to smile, quicker to lean into a joke, but not foolish. There is a sharpness behind his eyes that he hides better than most.
Ricardo arrives next with Dante.
Dante is quiet tonight.
Not unusual.
Ricardo’s son has always had an intensity to him, a darkness in his stare that makes people reconsider careless words. He does not fidget. Does not fill silence. He watches quietly and only speaks when necessary.
Diego is last, as usual, walking into my house as if lateness is a right granted to him at birth, as the youngest.
“You started without me?” he asks, handing his coat off.
“No,” I say. “Unfortunately.”
Matteo laughs from near the bar.
Tomasso lifts his glass toward Diego. “We considered it.”
“You wound me,” Diego says, pressing a hand to his chest. “My own blood.”
“You recover quickly,” Lorenzo says dryly.
“Because I am strong.”
“Because you are shameless,” Ricardo corrects.
Diego smiles. “True.”
It is good, this sound.
The voices.
The insults.
The easy movement of family through my home.
For a while, I let it remain only that.
Family.
