Page 20 of Secrets of the Brother
As I did so, several crumpled pieces of sketch paper floated to the floor.
I bent down to gather them up.
One was of the fountain from the center of the piazza.
Another was a close-up sketch of a withered old hand holding a rook, from the men I observed playing chess.
And the third was Enzo.
I had captured the first moment he wrapped his arm around my waist.
A moment burned into my memory.
The fierce yet protective look on his face. I traced the small exhaustion lines I had drawn around his eyes. He had looked so tired yesterday, but not from lack of sleep. No, it was deeper, more disturbing than that. It was that weary, bone-deep kind of exhaustion. The kind that came from too much disappointment and not enough hope, a resigned, stoic kind of exhaustion.
I didn't know what possessed me to draw him.
I had tossed and turned for hours before I finally turned the bedroom light on and grabbed my sketch pad and charcoals. Some people vented to friends, others scribbled in a journal… I drew. Trying to exorcise Enzo from my mind by putting his image to paper.
I didn't even want to think what would have happened if his father hadn’t knocked on that study door.
Would I have allowed Enzo to take me?
Right there on his desk?
At my own sister’s funeral?
I gripped the bedpost, leaned my forehead against it and closed my eyes as a wave of disappointment hit me so hard, it made me nauseous.
All those long days and terrible nights when I tried to forget him.
Hours spent listening to heart-wrenching songs while I drank cheap wine, sat on my balcony alone, and stared out at the busy New York skyline feeling sorry for myself.
All those stupid break-up rituals like burning sage, tearing up his pictures, and writing really bad poetry. Highlighting and placing tabs in books on female empowerment, which filled a bookshelf I had back in my apartment in America. Then there were the countless hours I'd spent burying myself in schoolwork and even taking on a few graphic design clients, so I could trick myself into believing I had moved on and had some semblance of a life without him.
And all for what?
So I could finally have one brief moment where I got a little of my own back?
I knew what I was doing when I marched into that church.
I had played it out in my head on the long flight over.
I didn’t care that it might cause a scandal. I didn’t care what people would say or think. I wanted everyone in that village to know that I was over Enzo. I didn’t want anyone to pity me or to think I was still pining after him.
But I especially wantedhimto know.
I wanted him to know he hadn’t broken me.
That it was over between us.
That the chains which had bound my heart to his had been severed long before he had been accused of murdering my sister.
Murdering my sister.
Enzo had killed Renata.
Maybe.
