SEVEN DAYS LATER
IVY
“Twenty more dead as of this morning. City council members and doctors are warning that many more will die due to the flood of miscellaneous drugs being distributed in heroin. Dr. Rioja, head trauma surgeon of Boston Medical, says that over the last week they’ve seen more deaths due to heroin overdose than in the last eighteen months—”
Switching the station and lowering the volume, Ethan leaned back into his seat, speeding up as the light changed.
“Do you want to get anything to eat on our way?”
“On our way where?”
“Somewhere,” he replied, and I wanted to jump him, but he just put his free hand on top of my thigh.
“You—ugh.” I sighed, crossing my arms and leaning back. I could tell he was amused…no, not just that. He was also content. Content with the state of the city, with the way we’d been living.
For the last week we’d pretty much stayed inside the safe house, falling into our own routine in that short time. Ethan would wake up at some ungodly hour in the morning, kissing my forehead and telling me to go back to sleep before leaving the house to go for a run. Something he did for no other reason than he knew it was dangerous. Because he knew they’d be watching him. And because I felt paranoid when he was gone I’d watch the cameras until I started to see him come back around the corner before getting the shower started. We’d have breakfast together, eat, make love, talk or watch a movie, end up back in bed, where he’d either fuck me like his own personal whore or gently make love to me like I was his wife. Whichever really depended on his mood. Luckily I hadn’t cried again! Oh my gosh, that was embarrassing. Luckily he hadn’t brought it up.
After finding out how we were connected, he’d opened up a little bit more, but not as much as I’d like. Ethan lived in his head. I’d wanted to get in there at first, but it was a maze even he was lost inside of, so I could only pull him out, forcing him to read to me, watch old movies, or draw me, a secret talent of his. He was an artist, obsessed with classical works of literature, art, and people. I’d ask questions only to keep him from falling back into the abyss of his mind. I was sure he knew, but he went along with it. The one thing he did not talk about was his childhood or his parents. All he’d say was that his parents loved each other, loved him and his siblings, and never wanted them to be weak. That was it.
Each day I tried to pry more and each day he changed the subject. Today I was determined to get him to speak up about it. However, of course we were now going somewhere…the both of us.
Glancing over at him as he drove in the rain, his hand was like a heater on my thigh, stroking back and forth gently.
“Yes?” he asked, not needing to look at me to know I was staring.
“You still haven’t told me where we’re going.” He just said ‘out’ when I asked him before. “Or will you not know until we get there?”
“We’re here,” he said, pulling up in front of a barbershop, the name “Carofiglio” elegantly written on the windows.
“I thought you cut your own hair?” I’d seen him perfectly cut and style his hair yesterday with nothing but scissors and barber razors.
Of course he didn’t answer me, instead stepping out of the car and coming around to my side to open the door for me. Stepping out, I eyed him carefully.
“You’re very interested in my childhood, and I prefer not to talk about it,” he said, shutting the door behind me and taking my hand. “This is a compromise.”
I didn’t understand how until we stepped inside on to the checkered floor, the wooden walls covered with dozens if not hundreds of photos, some faded to black and white.
“Ethan!” An old man, who had more wrinkles than the bunched up shirt, pure gray hair, which was parted and styled with waves in it, and a small gut, put his scissors down to come up to Ethan, who bent down to the man who was a few inches shorter than me, to kiss his right cheek, then his left. When they backed up the man grabbed his shoulders. “Mio caro! Che piacere vederti. Mi sei mancato molto! Come sta?”
Ethan actually smiled at the old man. “Non posso lamentarmi con una bella moglie così.”
The old man’s brown eyes finally shifted over to me. “Una vera bellezza!” he said before pulling me into a hug and kissing the sides of my cheeks so quickly I didn’t even have time to process he’d done it till I was standing apart from him.
“Ivy,” Ethan called, finally back in a language I could understand. “This is Giovanni Carofiglio, my former boss. Giovanni, Ivy Callahan, my wife.”
“It is a pleasure, my dear.” Giovanni smiled at us, crossing his arms to look at us together. “For shame your wedding was so private.”
“Oh, yes, for shame you missed free wine and food.” Ethan snickered at him then nodded to his stomach. “Though, I see you are preparing for two—”
Giovanni sucked his teeth and raised his hand. “Do not forget your mother gave me permission to smack you if needed.”
“How could I forget?” Ethan rolled his eyes. “You find a way to mention it each time we meet.”
“Former boss?” I cut, looking between them before they continued merrily down memory lane.
“Oh, yes.” He nodded to the seventh and only barber chair not occupied. It sat in the corner, like a well-polished leather throne. The name Ethan C. was engraved on the upper corner of the glass next to pictures. Mesmerized by it, I walked toward it. Sure enough the photos were of him when he was a teenager, still tall, his hair a little shorter than now but ever the epitome of cool. There were pictures of him cutting hair of small children and of older men, and even women too. The most shocking was Wyatt, both of them laughing. Ethan looked ready to bust his gut, while Wyatt used a piece of hair to make a mustache over his upper lip.
“When was this?” I whispered, looking at each picture on the corner of the mirror.
“Ethan started working in my shop when I lived in Chicago. He was twelve,” Giovanni said, now standing beside me, looking at the pictures with pure pride. “He wasn’t anything but a sweeper when he first got started.”
“And in no time I had more regulars than you,” Ethan said, walking around to the other side of the chair and taking off his leather jacket, picking up a gray button-down uniform shirt. His name was also stitched onto it.
“The bitter part of me wants to blame it on your last name.” Giovanni huffed angrily. “Of course people would want to get their hair cut by a Callahan…”
“But my skills spoke for themselves,” Ethan said, pulling out a box filled with barber tools that shined beautifully.
“Humility goes a long way, boy,” Giovanni replied.
“Humility is not in the Callahan dictionary,” I said, laughing. This was amazing. Who would have ever thought Mr. Richie-Rich, silver spoon-fed Ethan had a part-time job growing up?
“Aww, true.” Giovanni nodded, looking at me. “It would help too if they were bad at some things. Did your husband not tell you he’s my greatest student?”
“Auhmmm!”
We both turned, and it was only then that I realized how packed the barbershop was. A few men and even young boys sat waiting on the benches by the wooden wall. They were all eyeing Ethan as he set up. However, the one who’d fake coughed loudly was a man about my height with brown hair that was faded on the sides but thicker and smoothed back on top. He looked up at us from the sideburns he was shaping up.
“And here I thought I was your greatest student, pa,” he said.
“He meant the greatest student he didn’t teach, Marco,” Ethan said, cleaning off his blades. “Didn’t you, Giovanni?”
Giovanni groaned. “I forgot you were a smartass. I might have guided your hands, but you still learned from watching me, didn’t you? Hmh…speaking like you just woke up a barber one morning.” He caused both Marco and Ethan to snicker.
“Good to you have back, Ethan, now help us get rich too.” Marco laughed, nodding to the line of people waiting.
“How rich we talkin’?” Ethan turned his chair.
“Very,” both Marco and Giovanni said at the same time.
“Greedy bastards,” Ethan muttered, though I could tell he was enjoying it.
“So be it,” Giovanni said, walking back to his chair and his very, very patient client apparently. “Gabby, bring out a stool for Mrs. Callahan! And say hello to your godfather!”
He shouted, and a young girl, no older than eight or nine, with curly blond hair, stuck her head out from behind the door of the shop. Her hazel eyes stared at me and then she turned to Ethan. A huge grin spread across her face as she burst out of the doors fully and hugged him.
“Uncle Ethan!”
“She’s still a hugger, I see,” Ethan said to Marco.
Marco frowned. “Only to you, it seems. No loyalty, that one.”
“I haven’t seen Uncle Ethan in forever!” She squeezed tighter, and Ethan raised his arms, staring down at her.
“Is that why your Christmas list gets so bloody long every year?” he asked her.
She flashed her teeth at him, one of them missing on the bottom. “Yep!”
“So now that you’ve seen and hugged me near death, you won’t need anything this year.”
Her hands dropped along with her smile and all the men within the barbershop laughed as she looked heartbroken.
“Uncle, you’re mean.” She pouted.
“So I’ve been told.” He put his hand on her and turned her until she was facing me. “Luckily my wife is much nicer. Send her your lists from now on and she’ll handle it.”
“REALLY?” She brushed Ethan’s hands off and walked over to me. “Hold on, Aunty, let me get you a chair.” She rushed behind the curtains.
“You’re right. No loyalty at all.” Ethan shook his head, staring at where she had disappeared behind the doors.
“Here, Aunty.” Gabby put the black padded stool just off to the side of Ethan as he called up a boy who looked about twelve. He took off his baseball hat when he sat on the chair.
“Thanks, Gabby,” I said to her, sitting down.
“You’re welcome—”
“Oh no, you don’t.” Marco pointed at her. “No gift-getting, or wish-making until I see that C- morph into an A.”
Gabby pulled out a piece of paper, lifted it up, and showed how if you turned a ‘C’ onto its side and put the ‘-’ inside it made an A.
I laughed so hard my sides hurt.
“Did you just forge your grades in front of me?” Marco asked her.
“No.” She hid the paper behind her back. “You didn’t say that a C- needed to be an A for me to make wishes.”
“She’s right,” Ethan replied, placing a white strip around the boy’s neck.
Marco sighed. “Just go.”
“We’ll talk later,” Gabby mouthed to me, and I nodded to her.
“Go!”
“I’m going!” She groaned, making a show of having to go back.
“So you all are family,” I replied when she was gone. That made more sense. I doubted Ethan would be so comfortable with people if they weren’t family.
“Very distant relatives of my mother,” Ethan said, not looking up at me as he concentrated.
“Very distant or not,” Marco said to me, “we’re still the only relatives Bloody Melody ever acknowledged.”
“Bloody Melody?” It sounded like a bad horror movie.
Ethan snickered. “My mother’s nickname. Apparently the Irish gave it to her after she married my father. And it stuck on the count of the fact that my mother was, well…not slow to use her fists.”
“Ha!” Giovanni scoffed. “Or gun. How many times did she shoot your father? Twice, correct?”
“Your mother shot your dad?” My jaw opened as I looked at him.
Ethan made a face. “I was hoping no one would ever tell her that. She is already temperamental as it is, and my mother left her the gun.”
“Hey!” I frowned, turning back to the guys. “She sounds like a hell raiser.”
“She was. May she rest in peace,” Giovanni said seriously as did almost everyone else in the shop, everyone but the kids, far too young to know her. And I remembered the letter she’d left me, where she said, You are now the head woman of this family. Act like it and make them talk about you as they talked about me.
I realized why Ethan had asked me if I could do it. The more I found out about his mother the bigger her heels became.
“So your mom was Bloody Melody. Did your dad have a nickname too?” I didn’t ask that. Instead, Gabby stuck her head back out.
We all just looked at her for a moment before looking back at Marco, who took a deep breath.
“His name was the Mad-Hatter,” Marco spoke through his teeth. “And I used to think it was because the man thought of the most insane ways to harm people, but now I’m thinking it must have been the stress of parenting.”
“Can’t be,” Gabby said back smugly. “If it were, you’d have a nickname too, right, Dad?”
Ethan paused from cutting the boy’s hair to laugh, actually out loud, in public.
“Get back in there and do your science homework!” Marco pointed his clippers at her.
“Science is boring!”
“GASP!” I put my hand over my heart, and she turned to me. “Science is amazing. What are you talking about? You can create almost anything through science. When I was nine, I won the science fair by creating an incalescent voltaic receptacle to hasten the growth cycles of potatoes.”
“A what?” her father asked before she could. And not just him. Everyone else was confused too. Even Ethan looked at me for a quick second.
“It was like an umm…” I tried to think. “It was a greenhouse that made potatoes or any other vegetable grow faster.”
“Oh…” They all said like a light bulb clicked in their minds.
“See? Look at that. At your age people were already creating incalescent voltaic receptacles,” Marco said to her, making her pout.
“I can’t gift to people who hate science,” I told her, crossing my arms.
I heard her gasp. “Uncle Ethan…”
“What the wife says goes,” he said, snipping the back of the boy’s hair with two different scissors.
She hung her head and turned around, marching back to her homework, but before she got there she turned to him.
“Do you have a nickname, Uncle?” she asked.
The whole room seemed to have frozen, everyone a little stiff, everyone a little wary, glancing at each other. Ethan, on the other hand, simply spun the boy in his chair, wiping him down before taking the cape and neck tape off.
“I do,” he said to her when the boy got up, checking his hair. “It’s Mani di forbice.”
“Cause you cut hair?” she asked him even though I didn’t understand.
“Sure.” He nodded at her.
She thought about it for a little bit. “It’s kinda long but cool, I guess. Dad, I’m going upstairs to call Mom!”
She waved at me as she ran back into the back.
“Mani di forbice?” I asked him as an older man sat in the chair, pointing to his chin for a shave.
“Scissor hands,” Giovanni answered when he didn’t.
“Oh.” I understood if he worked here why that would fit. But I also understood from the way they reacted, and from the way Ethan wasn’t communicating anymore, that it was much deeper than that. He told me we’d go out so I could find out more about his past, so I wasn’t going to back down.
“Why, though?”
Giovanni was the only one speaking now and it wasn’t as cheerful as it had been earlier. “Rumor has it that when he was young he went to confession with his family for the first time. The priest told him to confess his sins to the Lord, and Ethan said he was sinless and would only confess when he was no longer sinless. They got into a long argument until the priest could no longer remain with him and left. Ethan, sensing something was wrong with the irate priest, followed him into his chambers, where he found the priest was breaking his vows of silence. He was trying to use Ethan as a way to get information on his father and mother in order to save himself from prosecution. He was a child molester. Upon discovering this, Ethan stabbed the priest with two blades, one a gift from his father, and the other he was holding for his brother. When they found him, he stood over the priest, holding both blades, covered in blood, and confessed to God his sins then.”
“As far as I see it, any man touching children deserves to die, and it isn’t a sin,” Marco muttered under his breath, shaping up the edges of a man’s forehead.
My eyes shifted to Ethan, but it was as if he wasn’t here anymore. He just carefully glided the razor up the man’s neck, who either had balls of steel or didn’t believe the “rumor.”
“What happened after that?”
Marco shrugged. “The church was closed for a few hours, but news broke he was a pedophile. Everyone was furious with the detectives who tried to use another child as bait. Other people were so terrified of him they blessed themselves when he walked by. His mother made him work for her afterward. People got used to him being around, but no one ever let go of the name Ethan Mani di forbice Callahan.”
I looked at Ethan, who still pretended not to hear or care that they were talking about him.
Feed his dark side, enjoy being there with him. Don’t change him. I made him and he is perfect. There is nothing to change. Melody’s words came to me.
“Bloody Melody and The Mad-Hatter,” I said aloud, spinning slightly in the chair. I made it obvious I was thinking. “That follows together so nicely. How the hell am I going to find a name that flows with Mani di forbice?”
That was the only time Ethan paused, standing up straighter, his green eyes piercing into mine so intently I had to look away from him at Giovanni.
“Great names are given. You can’t choose them yourself,” Giovanni said to me.
It was then I looked back at him.
The man who’d loved me since we were children.
The man who’d pulled me out of the pit of hell and sat me on the right seat of him.
The man I was falling more and more in love with as each day passed.
“Give me a name.” If it was something people would still call me even after I died, I wanted it to be from him, no one else.
“Belladonna,” he said, still staring at me.
“Ivy the Belladonna Callahan,” I whispered to myself and then smiled, nodding happily.
The Belladonna and the Mani di forbice.
The beautiful poison and the duel blades.
ETHAN
“She’s real special that one, isn’t she?” he asked me as I swept around his chair. Pausing, I glanced as she and Gabby went over her homework. She sat in my chair spinning slowly, flipping through old photo albums, while Gabby wrote down whatever it was she said. She looked far too happy just seeing pictures, but then again Ivy was a person who loved the little things.
“She is,” I finally replied, but changed the topic to more serious matters. “Do you all have everything you need?”
He grabbed his Birch Leaf tea and sat in his chair, relaxing. “No. But what I need isn’t something you give. The rest of the family is good. I’ve heard Dona has made an impression with people in Chicago.”
“She is my mother’s daughter.” I knew she would, which is why I left her to it.
He nodded sipping, but cringed at the taste, his face bunching up even more. “I just remembered I hate tea.”
“But you hate the pain more,” I reminded him, sweeping under his feet.
“I do.” He sighed heavily before taking another bitter sip, cringing once more. “Porca miseria…” he cursed under his breath before reaching into his jacket and pulling out a flask. He checked over his shoulder before he poured it in and shoved it back into his hidden pocket.
“I’m sure your doctor would be pleased,” I said sarcastically, bending down to sweep up the hair.
“Screw him and cancer,” he muttered to himself, drinking.
Emptying the dust bin into the trash can by his table, I placed the broom by the wall and leaned against his work station, thinking of how to phrase what I needed to say to him.
“Just come out with it.” He waved at me, proving just how well he knew me at this point. “I’m guessing this has got something to do with the chaos happening in the city?”
I nodded. “I’m going to need something from you.”
“What can an old dying man give you?” He snickered, drinking.
“Your life.”
He coughed into his cup, shocked, and due to this condition once he started he couldn’t stop, causing the tea to spill a little.
“Grandpa?” Gabby looked at him, but he waved her off. Taking the cup from him, I handed him a napkin.
Taking it, he wiped the corners of his mouth and looked up at me. “Seeing as how I’ve always been loyal to you and your mother, I’m guessing when you say my life—”
“I need you to die,” I said clearly. “I want many things, Giovanni, and the path to get it starts in blood.”
“And so why not mine.” He rested his elbow on the armrest. “At least you’re polite enough to ask first…or do you have a backup?”
“I trust in your loyalty.”
“You trust no one.” He chuckled and nodded to where Ivy was sitting but not looking at her. “Does she know your plan?”
I didn’t answer because it was none of his business.
“Exactly. We should have called you il burattinaio.”
“We don’t pick our names.” Besides, the only way to be a puppet master, as he put it, was to make sure no one realized you were pulling the strings to begin with.
“Have you set the day you’re going to kill me then?” he asked, glancing up at his shop.
“It won’t be me.” I pushed off the counter, placing my hand on his shoulder. “But I’ll give you time, of course. The information will be set the usual way.”
I tried to lift my hand from his shoulder, but he put his over mine. “I’ve always wanted to ask you something, Ethan.”
“Go on.”
“The burden on your shoulders, how do you carry it so well? In all the years I’ve known you, I’ve seen you sacrifice whatever is necessary for the bigger picture. Each time unflinching and unwavering in determination. What is it that makes you such a warrior?”
“I was born a warrior. My name keeps me one,” I answered him but didn’t wait to hear his response, already walking toward Ivy and my chair. I took off my uniform and hung it up for the last time, then took my coat.
“You looked happy working at his shop.” Ivy smiled, rising up, holding on to the photo album and finally looking at me, and when she did her smile faded as if she could read my mind. Turning from me, she gave Gabby a one-armed hug. “Good night, Gabby. I hope I helped.”
“Yep, your wayyyy is better than my teachers.” She hugged back, releasing her and moving to me. “Bye, Uncle! Come more.”
I patted her head. “Why don’t you come to Chicago?”
“Uncle, I’m a kid. I can’t go by myself,” she said as if I were stupid.
“Fine. We’ll wait for your list to come in your place,” I said to her, taking Ivy’s hand and walking toward the door.
“Bye, Giovanni, thank you for the stories.” Ivy smiled at him, and he nodded, waving us off.
Neither Ivy nor I spoke until we got into the car.
I glanced at the window with his name upon it. Giovanni walked to the sign on the front window and flipped it to Closed.
“They are…normal,” she whispered. I understood what she was implying.
“By some cousin to a cousin we were related,” I whispered, starting the engine. “I didn’t understand why my mother wanted me to work for them. She only mentioned them once before I started to work. And she mentioned them as if they were so distant they were the afterthought of an afterthought.”
“Did you ever understand then why she made you work there?”
“Because my mother…saw the big picture,” I said, pulling onto the street. “Make Italians see her son was still one of them. Make them get close enough to see how dark my heart could get. Make them respect me. Make them fear me. Let me see how much they were jealous. But also to remind me, that if I were meant to be a barber, I would have been one. I was born into my family not theirs. My name is a constant reminder of that. If I felt like my life or path was so burdensome, to ponder why everyone else wants it so badly.”
It took me much too long to realize that.
Glancing down and placing her hand on my thigh, I looked at her as she said, “Gabby. I like her.”
“Like no one but me.” It would be easier.
That was the cruel fact of life.
The weak will die.
The strong will live.
I made sure we, the Callahans, were always strong, at any cost.