Calisto
“Well?” Affonso demanded, unaffected as ever. “What of it, Father?”
Calisto bristled, hearing his uncle’s rudeness toward the priest. It wasn’t like Affonso to be so short with a man of God, but he hadn’t exactly wanted to do this at all. Not this day, the small, private service, or the burial that would follow for his dead son.
This entire thing had been done by Calisto’s hand and only for Emma’s benefit.
It wasn’t about Affonso’s wants.
“I promise to make it short, Affonso. I have a call to make. Can you entertain yourself for a few minutes until I’m ready to come out?” the priest asked.
Affonso nodded, turned on his heel, and left the small office without a backward glance. It took all the patience that Calisto had inside not to glare at his uncle’s back.
Father Day didn’t miss Calisto’s irritation for a second.
“He’s not up for this, I take it?”
“No,” Calisto said.
“That’s fine. His wife needs it more, I suspect.”
Calisto frowned. “She doesn’t talk a lot.”
“I know. I tried to speak with her earlier. It’s like she’s somewhere else entirely.”
“It was … difficult.”
“Difficult” didn’t begin to encompass the emotional impact of watching a woman birth a child so small that it fit in the palm of her hand. The word couldn’t possibly explain how heart-wrenching it was to see that same woman beg doctors not to make her birth the child, only to take him away from her because he wouldn’t be able to live outside her body.
But it was the best fucking word Calisto had.
For the moment.
“You were with her,” Father Day said. “That’s what you told me when you called.”
“Yeah.”
“Eighteen weeks is not enough time for a child. Most are born dead.”
“I’m aware. He breathed. He was not stillborn. He breathed for nearly a minute.”
Father Day pursed his lips. “I’ll give him the blessing with the holy water. The same as I would any stillborn child. I can’t do much else, Calisto.”
“It’ll be enough.”
“For the young woman, I certainly hope so. Perhaps if her husband would act like the child’s life had some substance, like he was real, she might allow herself to feel the same way.”
Calisto wondered if that was part of Emma’s problem in grieving for her child. Was her husband’s lack of empathy the reason why she had shut the rest of the world out? Did she feel like she wasn’t allowed to be sad over a child that her husband didn’t consider worthy?
“I still have to make that call,” the priest said.
“Sure.”
Calisto stepped out of the office and closed the door behind him. He walked out to the main floor of the church, over the altar and down the steps. Emma sat quietly in the front row in a black ensemble that fit the day. She was alone, unsurprisingly.
Affonso was nowhere to be seen.
Passing the small white casket at the bottom of the altar, Calisto took a seat beside Emma. She barely reacted to his presence, and her gaze never left the spot on the floor.
“The priest is almost finished,” Calisto said.
He didn’t even get a blink from her.
It bothered him to see Emma so distant and out of touch. She said very little when she did speak, and her voice was always soft.
“Emmy?”
Emma lifted her head, and her eyes were dry. “What, Cal?”
“Where did Affonso go?”
“He muttered something about needing a smoke.”
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She simply stared at him, saying nothing.
He took that as a no.
Digging in his pocket, Calisto pulled out the familiar item that the priest had given him months ago. He rolled the black beads of the rosary between his fingers, and let the cross swing between his knees.
“I don’t know what to do,” he heard Emma say under her breath.
His chest tightened. “About what?”
“How I feel.”
“Being sad is expected, Emmy. I’d be more worried if you felt nothing.”
“Sometimes I do. But mostly, I feel like a failure. For him, I failed.”
Calisto assumed she meant Affonso. “You have to know you’re worth more than your ability to give that man a child. You do know that, don’t you?”
“Not him. The baby.”
“Oh.” Calisto swallowed back the thickness in his throat. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Technically, it was. I didn’t push the doctor the day before, when I told him I was having pain. I kept ignoring it all morning. Maybe if I had—”
“Don’t do that, Emmy. How were you to know? That’s not fair.”
“Well, it’s true.”
“You didn’t fail, dolcezza.”
Emma let out a shaky sigh. “How else am I supposed to feel? The one thing that all women do, the thing they should be able to do, I can’t. Not without killing the baby in the process.”
Calisto didn’t know how to respond to that. He noticed that her eyes were still dry, too. If he had to guess, he would say that was a part of her grieving process. She’d cried a lot during the birth, and shortly after. Maybe she just wasn’t ready to cry again.
“Here,” Calisto said quietly.
“Hmm?”
He grabbed her hand in his. For a moment, he reveled in the feeling of her smooth skin against his and the warmth of her palm. Calisto slipped the black rosary into her hand. Without considering much of his actions or who might see, he interwove their fingers.
Nobody else was there to hold her.
Nobody else was being strong for her.
Nobody else seemed to care.
Calisto wanted Emma to know that he did.
Emma glanced down at their connected hands, staying silent. But her bottom lip trembled, and a wetness coated her bottom lashes as she sniffed away the tears. She put her head on his shoulder, and Calisto didn’t try to move her away.
Whatever Emma needed, he would give.
Or try to.
“I’m so sorry,” he told her.
“Me, too.”
Calisto put his arm around Emma’s shaking shoulders, and drew her closer into his side. She could hide there for as long as she needed, he didn’t mind. Turning his head to the side, he brushed his lips over her temple, kissing her skin quickly and repeating his apology.
No one would see, surely. Affonso was probably still outside in his own world.
Calisto kissed Emma’s skin again. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a shadowed form standing in the back hallway of the church. He recognized the quiet priest who stayed right where he was, mostly hidden, and watched the two in the pew.
He knew what the man was seeing.
Calisto holding someone who wasn’t his, offering comfort to a woman who was taken and not free to share her affections with someone else. It probably looked like the two were close, likely closer than what would be acceptable.
He still held her.
He let her cry.
Calisto would take his penance later.
The tiny coffin was lowered into the small grave with care and grace. Calisto stood back from it all, beyond his uncle’s and Emma’s view, to give them some sense of privacy.
Or her, at least.
Once the priest had said his final blessing, and the first shovelful of dirt was tossed into the grave, Affonso turned away. He bent his head and said something to Emma. She answered him back with a nod and nothing more.
Shortly after Affonso passed Calisto by, Emma turned away from the grave and followed behind her husband. Calisto watched them both disappear into the waiting town car, and waited for it to depart the cemetery before he too would take his leave.
It seemed appropriate to let them go first.
“Despite what the church may say,” Father Day said as he saddled up beside Calisto, “I do believe that lost babies, or unbaptized children, go to heaven. How can they not? They’re innocent—some never old enough to understand the sins of men. God allowed them to be created for their purpose.”
“Is that purpose to die?” Calisto asked.
“Their time may be short, but that doesn’t make their lives any less poignant, Calisto. I can’t believe that God would allow babies to be lost, or born and die without their rites, only to deny them His gift of love and heaven. I just can’t.”
“Thank you for today.”
“I see you’re missing something,” the priest noted.
Calisto looked down at his empty hands. “Missing what?”
“My rosary.”
Shit.
“I let Emma hold onto it.”
The priest chuckled. “I don’t need it back. He is always listening, regardless of what I am holding when I talk to Him.”
“It seemed to help her.”
“Mmhmm. As it did you.”
Calisto wet his lips, knowing what the priest was dancing around. He wanted to talk about what he had seen between Calisto and Emma at the church. Calisto didn’t want to talk about it.
“I should go,” Calisto said.
“You should be careful,” the priest responded. “You should be mindful of your affections, your care, and how far you let it go. Do not walk on lines so thin that they’ll break under your weight, Calisto. He will always forgive you, but it is earthly men who will not offer mercy as easily. Keep that in mind.”
“I haven’t done anything, Father.”
The priest didn’t seem like he believed him. Calisto had never been very good at lying to the man.
“I think you have. I think months ago when you came to me with a confession about taking something that didn’t belong to you, that something was your uncle’s fiancée at the time. I now understand better, when I think about you telling me how you felt nothing for the person you stole from.”
Calisto clenched his fists at his sides, refusing to look the priest in the eye. “Do you want me to confess properly?”
“Confession is meant for those who are ready to repent; sins you do not intend to repeat knowingly. I believe that when you came to me the first time, you didn’t plan on something happening again. Can you tell me you believe the same thing today?”
Calisto couldn’t.
“Think of the sacrifices your mother made for you, Calisto,” Father Day added. “Did she turn her cheek for all those years, only to have you put in a grave beside hers before it was your time?”
Ouch.
Those words practically cut Calisto apart.
“I think more than anyone else, my mother would understand,” Calisto said quietly.
“I can’t say the same. When you’re ready to see me again, you know where to find me. What will you do now?”
“About what?”
“The rosary. You were using it for your own comfort. I can’t see you taking it away from the woman,” the priest said.
“I’ll figure something out.”
“I have no doubt.”
Once the priest was inside his silver Mazda, Calisto took his first real breath. He trusted Father Day not to spill his secrets, or whatever assumptions the man had. That didn’t necessarily make Calisto’s feelings any better.
He was still heavy in his heart.
His stomach rolled.
Thin lines, the priest had said.
It was appropriate. Calisto had been walking on a tightrope from the moment he met Emma Sorrento all those months ago. Dancing between the lines of what was acceptable and what was downright wrong.
More than he wanted to admit, Calisto crossed those lines. He did in it his thoughts and sometimes his actions. He rarely felt guilt for what he had done, but more what he didn’t do.
He might do it again, too.
Calisto wanted to get the hell out of the cold October air, so he took the steps two at a time. It seemed like a blink, and the reasonably warm September gave way to a chilly, windy October. He’d been perfectly happy collecting money, checking up on his uncle’s Capos earlier in the day, and staying out of the wind. But when the boss called, Calisto did as he was told.
Affonso demanded Calisto come to the house.
Nothing else.
Calisto pressed the doorbell and waited. He tucked his head down, determined to hide from the wind by flipping the neck of his tweed coat up. He shoved his hands into his pockets and cursed under his breath.
Two long minutes later, the maid let Calisto in the front door. He would usually just go right in if Affonso wanted or needed something, but his uncle had told him to make sure he rang the doorbell. He wasn’t sure why.
“Mr. Donati,” the maid greeted, taking Calisto’s coat once the door was closed. “Your uncle is in his office with his wife. He’s almost done. You shouldn’t interrupt them when they’re in the middle of one of their … feuds. Let them shout it out and pretend like you didn’t hear. It’s better for us all that way.”
Calisto’s brow furrowed. “They’re fighting?”
“For the last week.”
He hadn’t noticed that.
“Really?” he asked.
The maid nodded. “About all sorts of things. At least she’s not quiet anymore. When she’s quiet, she makes me sad. But when she’s angry …”
Calisto couldn’t help but laugh at the expression the maid wore. “That bad, huh?”
“She gives it to him, let me just say. I’m surprised he lets her go on like that.”
Calisto had made an effort to come around to the house more than he usually would over the last month since the baby’s burial. He made all sorts of excuses to Affonso for why he would randomly show up. Maybe he had a payment to drop off that could have waited until tribute, or some issue that needed discussed that wasn’t really an issue at all.
Really, Calisto just wanted to check up on Emma. It was like a fucking itch that irritated him on a daily basis. It would prick at him just below the surface of his skin, demanding his attention. Most times, he would find Emma locked away in the library during his visits. She would be sitting in a window, or on one of the leather chairs. There was never a book in her hand, and she rarely acted like he was there. Sometimes she talked, but most times she didn’t.
Affonso occasionally mentioned how distant Emma was.
Calisto knew depression. He’d had his own bout of it after his mother had died and his anger ran its course. The grief in his heart had been debilitating. There was no doubt in his mind that Emma was probably in no better of a state.
She would have to work through it. Eventually the sadness would wane, and she would begin to come out of the dark cloud that never seemed to leave.
Calisto knew.
But he kept coming to check on her when he could. He would keep coming unless she told him to go away. Affonso didn’t mind Calisto coming around, and he didn’t seem to notice how Calisto made an effort to speak with Emma each time before he left.
That, or Affonso didn’t care.
It was hard to say.
“I’ll stay out of their way,” Calisto told the maid.
The woman smiled. “They’re almost done. They’ve been at it since this morning. The two don’t even sleep in the same room anymore and they still manage to wake up fighting with one another. Sad marriage, that is.”
Calisto shook his head, but said nothing. The maid was a wealth of information, if nothing else. Rolling up his sleeves as he walked through the house, Calisto made his way through the living room to the back hallway that he knew led to the library and Affonso’s office.
Sure enough, as he got closer, Calisto could hear the voices shouting at one another.
“It’s been a month,” Affonso growled. “It’s time for you to clean your face and do something else, Emma.”
“You don’t get to decide how long is appropriate for my grief, Affonso, and you sure as hell don’t get to decide how I grieve.”
“I’ve let you do what you wanted. You stay in bed until noon. You eat when you want to instead of having meals with me. You ignore invitations from others, you don’t take calls, and you can’t be bothered to say more than two words to me.”
“I wonder why!”
“The fact remains, it is time to get over it. Get up in the morning, get yourself ready, and go on with your day. What happened is better left behind in the past. Move on. Stop fretting over things you can’t change.”
Calisto balled his fists so hard that his fingernails broke into his skin. His uncle had said those very words to him more times than he cared to count. Affonso didn’t understand that people couldn’t forget his wrongs when he demanded they do so. People couldn’t move on because he willed it as so.
“I need my wife,” Affonso said when Emma stayed quiet. “I need her to be at my side, to have her dinners, sit at the table beside me, and act like the proper woman I know you are. You have duties, Emma, and you don’t get to drop them just because you want to be sad for another month.”
“Is that what you think this is?”
“I know that’s what it is.”
“You are un-fucking-believable,” Emma spat.
“So be it. You still have a duty to me. I expect you to fulfill it.”
“What, do you want me back in your bed, Affonso, fucking you and sucking your dick first thing in the morning?”
Calisto pinched the bridge of his nose, wishing he hadn’t heard that statement.
“I don’t need you for any of that, as you very well know. Keep your damn bedroom, Emma. Keep your body. You can’t give me what I want, anyway. You’ve already proven exactly what you can give me—heartache and burials for dead children.”
“Because I’m only good enough if I can birth a live baby, right? Other than that, I’m fucking useless.”
“Your language is horrible.”
“Go to hell, Affonso.”
“Emma, with you, I am already there.”
“Good,” she said, sweeter than honey. “The feeling is mutual.”
Something smacked hard against something solid, making Calisto straighten in place.
“Your issues and your pity party are over, girl,” Affonso barked. “I won’t say it again. When I want you at my side, you will be there. I don’t care if you need to pop a happy pill first thing in the morning to make it a reality. Do it. Your wallowing is making me look like a fool. I show up to dinners alone. I go to church alone. That is over.”
“I’m not wallowing.”
“You are. And it’s sickening. It’s been a month. Move on.”
“It’s not that easy,” Emma said quietly. “Don’t you get that?”
“What I get is that you’re using this as an excuse to get away from me. If the church wouldn’t shun me, I would send you back to your uncle and father for them to do with you what they wished.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Affonso.”
“You … I am not fighting with you anymore about this, Emma. Next month we have the Thanksgiving party. I expect you to be present. I am not making yet another excuse for my wife’s absence.”
“Because heaven forbid your young wife isn’t around to bat her lashes for your people,” Emma jeered.
“Get out of my face,” Affonso hissed.
Not two seconds later, Emma flew into the hallway with a scowl, fiery green eyes blazing, and a huff right on the tip of her tongue. She caught sight of Calisto waiting a few feet down from the entryway just as she walked out of Affonso’s view from inside the office.
He waved two fingers, his silent hello.
Emma sucked in a deep breath, and walked on past. Calisto didn’t fault her for the anger she must have felt. She had every right to be pissed off.
Rubbing the new ink on his wrist, Calisto strolled into his uncle’s office. The tattoo of the rosary and cross on his wrist was just a couple of weeks old. He’d had the piece done for his own selfish needs, and nothing more.
Hidden in the design of the beads of the rosary were the dates of death for people who’d left his life. His mother, father, and grandfather. The month and year for the miscarriage of his child that didn’t get the chance to even be. And another bead for the baby that never had the chance to live, but still made an impact during his short time on earth.
The rosary circled down from Calisto’s left elbow, around his arm, down to his wrist where the cross had been tattooed in his palm as if he were holding it.
It soothed him like the real thing.
But he didn’t want to keep adding dates to it.
“Zio,” Calisto greeted.
Affonso looked up from his hands. He sat behind his desk, rubbing his palms over his face. “Thank Dio, there you are.”
“You called?”
“I gave my driver the night off. I want to go out. Do something. Drive me.”
Calisto raised a brow. “You want me to act as your driver? There’s a half of a dozen enforcers who could do the same thing. I was busy picking up money and checking on your goddamn men.”
“They’re not my consigliere. You are. And you are never too busy for me.”
Point taken.
“Now?” Calisto asked.
Affonso nodded sharply. “Get me out of this house before I kill that woman.”
Christ.