Emma
Emma tugged her jacket tighter, wanting to keep the cold October wind out. It didn’t do very much to help. The light sprinkling of rain had practically stopped altogether as she crossed down the rows of headstones, looking for the one belonging to her child.
It wasn’t exactly hard to find it.
Coming to a stop under the maple tree, Emma’s sadness welled hard and swift in her heart. Just like it always did. She bent down to brush a few leaves off the marble headstone, letting her thumb linger on the carved letters of her boy’s name.
A sleeping baby angel wrapped in his own wings had been carved into the shiny black marble. She had thought it was appropriate at the time, seeing as how little Affonso had come into the world doomed to grow his wings before it was his time.
Even with the fallen leaves coloring up the small grave, Emma thought the spot looked a little lonely. She made a mental note to pick up some poinsettias and tiger lilies for the next time she visited.
Straightening back up, Emma hugged her jacket closer again, shivering under the wool. She was so focused on the headstone that she didn't realize someone was coming up behind her until a thick, warm jacket was thrown over her shoulders, and two hands squeezed her gently.
The touch was heavy, but familiar and supportive.
Emma took a quick breath, knowing who it was before he even said a word.
“I saw you shivering over here as I was getting ready to leave,” Calisto said behind her.
“I’m not sure if it’s just the cold doing it, or this day.”
Calisto chuckled softly. “I know what you mean.”
Emma turned around to face Calisto, and kept a hold on his jacket to keep it in place. She was worried that if she didn't give her hands something to do, she might just reach out and grab him instead.
She had wanted him closer for a long time.
She missed him all the time.
“What were you doing, anyway?” Calisto asked, throwing a glance over her shoulder.
Emma smiled brightly, hoping it was enough to deflect his attention. It worked for a quick second. “Just wanted to take a walk.”
She knew, without a doubt, that the headstone would only lead to more questions for Calisto that would likely go unanswered. She was sick and tired of lying to him and hiding things from him for fear Affonso might find out and hurt Calisto, or even her and their child.
But she didn’t know what else to do.
“Taking a walk in a graveyard?” Calisto asked, raising a single brow.
He didn’t believe her.
She could see it in his face.
“I needed a moment after the burial,” Emma said, hoping to wave all his concerns away. “Affonso is waiting for me in the car—he said something about a meeting. Do you want to walk me?”
It was playing with fire.
Affonso wouldn’t like seeing Emma and Calisto together, not alone.
She was willing to risk it on the offset chance she wouldn’t have to explain the headstone, the baby buried beneath it, or Calisto’s involvement in the birth.
Wasn’t going through it once enough?
“Sure,” Calisto said, smiling.
He offered her an arm, and she took it.
But just as they turned toward the path again, Calisto glanced back at the headstone. She tried not to react to his curiosity, but when his entire body seized as he read the name and date marked on the grave, she let out a ragged breath. Maybe the name and date, or even the baby angel could be overlooked, but the child’s parents’ names listed beneath certainly couldn’t.
It was coming …
Calisto’s questions.
Emma waited for them, but kept her gaze on the ground, especially when Calisto turned back and his hand covered hers that was tucked into his elbow.
Somehow, he managed to surprise her.
“I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I didn’t know that … well, that you had lost a child.”
“We don’t really talk about it, Cal.”
“I guess I can understand that. Is that part of the reason why Affonso keeps everyone away from you with this pregnancy? He’s always going on about how high-risk it is, and things.”
“Mostly,” Emma admitted. “Early labor is a very real possibility with any of my pregnancies. I have to be careful.”
“Come on,” Calisto said, tugging Emma forward with him. Once they were walking down the path, he slowed them a bit as they came up behind other people. “Are you even supposed to be walking around like you are?”
“Not as much as I did today, but everything looked good in my appointment yesterday. Besides, I wanted to be here.”
Calisto patted her hand. “I still think you should be resting.”
Emma laughed. “I plan to, no worries.”
The closer they came to the row of cars parked along a private road that was adjacent to the main road, the slower Calisto began to walk. Given that Emma’s arm was tucked along his, she was forced to walk slower, too.
She didn’t know what was up with him, but he’d grown quiet.
“Was that what happened to that baby?” Calisto asked. “He was born early?”
“Too early to live outside of my body,” Emma replied quietly. “But he did live for a short while, and I was able to love him for that time as much as I possibly could. That’s the one and only thing that got me through handing him over to y—”
Emma stopped speaking abruptly, well aware what she almost divulged. A secret about that day that no one knew except her, the doctor, and the one nurse who had stayed in the room after little Affonso had stopped breathing. Calisto would know, too … if he could remember.
Calisto’s walk slowed to a stall altogether, as did Emma’s as she had no choice but to follow him since he was still holding her. Without a word, he directed her off to the side of the path, slightly hidden by a few birch trees, and allowed a group of people to pass them from behind.
“Keep going,” he said. “You stopped. I want you to keep going.”
She swallowed hard, glancing to the side. She couldn’t meet that soul-black stare of Calisto’s. Usually, she adored looking into his eyes and seeing all that was good, familiar, and beautiful staring back at her. When he was cold everywhere else, he was lit up in his eyes.
It was only lately, with his memories being gone, that she felt like staring at him was like staring at a stranger.
But right then …
At that moment, he looked nothing like a stranger.
“You’re doing it again,” Calisto said. “Looking over your shoulder like someone might see you chatting with me. You did that in the library, too.”
Emma tugged her arm out of his hold, needing the space. “I told you why.”
“A bit, but I don’t think you told me all.”
Jesus.
She looked down the pathway at the row of cars, searching for Affonso. As long as her husband didn’t see her chatting privately with Calisto, there should be no problem.
But it was hard to avoid her husband’s sharp eye.
It was even harder to avoid his heavy hand. She had learned that once on the floor of her walk-in closet when Affonso nearly killed her after finding out she was pregnant. He only stopped because the child she carried was a boy, and the baby belonged to Calisto.
Otherwise, she didn’t doubt that Affonso would have strangled her or beaten her to death, right there on the marble floor while Calisto was sleeping downstairs.
It was fucking impossible for Emma to forget that awful night. It was even more impossible to forget how easily Affonso had attacked her, and that he would likely do it again in a second if she gave him one reason.
That was all the bastard needed.
A reason.
Crossing her arms to discourage Calisto from holding her again, Emma faced him. “There’s nothing else to tell about it. Draw your own conclusions. You know Affonso is territorial. It’s never someone else’s fault that they’re near me, it’s always mine. Is that what you want, for him to throw a fit because we’re having a friendly conversation while I’m wearing your jacket?”
Calisto’s face barely flickered with an emotion. “Of course not.”
“What else do you want to know?”
“Very little about my uncle,” Calisto murmured.
Emma’s gaze cut to his. “Then what?”
Silently, Calisto held out his arm and began unbuttoning the cuffs of his sleeves. Emma couldn’t help but notice how the ink on his hand, where he had the cross done inside his palm, seemed less faded than it had the last time she looked at it. Like maybe he had the cross touched up recently.
Calisto rolled up the silk sleeve to his elbow, showcasing the full length of the rosary tattoo to Emma’s view. It never failed to amaze her how realistic and beautiful the design was. She loved it just as much now as she had when he’d first gotten it done.
But he never explained much about it to her.
She didn’t know all the reasons why he’d had it done. He only said that it was like a personal memorial, or something. She’d assumed it had something to do with the rosary he’d given to her, considering it was so similar in design with the cross and black beads.
“Well?” Calisto asked.
Emma just stared at him. “Well, what?”
“I want to know what you know about this.”
“Your tattoo?”
“Exactly,” Calisto said. “Even the artist who put this on me didn’t know what they meant.”
Emma’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know what you mean, but your tattoo wasn’t something I was made aware of until after you had it done, Cal. And I admired it, nothing more. You didn’t tell me anything about it.”
“Bullshit.”
For the first time in a long while, Calisto’s tone stunned Emma. His curse had come out dark and tired—like he knew she was hiding something and he was sick of being lied to.
“It’s not bull—”
“It is,” Calisto interrupted fast, taking a step toward her. Emma refused to move when he held his arm up a little higher and then ticked his chin over her shoulder, back in the direction of the grave they had just left together. “It is fucking bullshit, Emmy, and I’ll tell you why it is. Because there are several dates on my arm right here. Some I know. Others I don’t. But the third date matches the day, month, and year on your child’s headstone. So don’t tell me it’s bullshit when I’ve been staring at this tattoo for a week, and you’re the first goddamn person who I’ve been able to correlate at least one of the two unknown dates to.”
Emma’s mouth opened to speak, but nothing came out. Her bottom lip trembled, and she clenched her fists tight to give her something else to focus on other than the pain in Calisto’s darkly handsome features.
Finally, her words caught up with her brain. “I didn’t know there were dates in your tattoo.”
Calisto’s anger started to bleed out of his gaze. “Oh.”
He glanced around before drawing his finger over the different rosary beads, as if to show Emma where the dates were hidden. She did notice them once he’d pointed them out, but they were very well hidden in the design.
“I didn’t know, either,” Calisto said. “Not until recently.”
Emma had a hard time hiding how it made her feel to know that his personal memorial had included something as difficult and significant as the day her son was born and then died. She barely gave the other date he said was unknown a second glance, because one was enough.
She knew what it was, too.
The month and year she had miscarried Calisto’s child right after her wedding to Affonso.
Jesus.
Emma didn’t realize how those events had affected Calisto. But clearly, they had left impacts on his very person. So much so that he wanted to carry them with him in a very permanent way.
“My statement still stands, though,” Calisto said, forcing Emma out of her thoughts.
“Which was what?” she asked.
“You’re the only person I’ve been able to correlate one of the two unknown dates with, and it matches the date on your baby’s headstone. Tell me, what are the chances that the other date on my arm will match up with you, too?”
Emma looked away. “I—”
“You’re a terrible liar,” he said before she could even get a word in edgewise.
Fuck.
“You are,” Calisto continued, “because you can’t even look a person in the eye when you do it. Why won’t you just tell me the truth? And I feel like I have to ask you again about us, like I did in the library.”
Emma swallowed the lump beginning to form in her throat. “Cal, please.”
“Give me something, or I’m going to start looking for it.”
She was pretty fucking sure he already was.
“I don’t know the other date,” she lied, looking him straight in the eye, “but the one that matches my child’s birth and death date is well-known to close people in our circles. It’s not talked about, but everybody kind of knows in one way or another. You were the one who went with me in the ambulance when I went into labor because Affonso was too busy with Carl Calabrese and their breakfast meeting to bother with me or the blood running down between my legs.”
Calisto’s arm dropped. “Oh.”
“Yeah. You went with me. You were there for that.”
“What you were saying earlier … you didn’t finish. It was about me, yeah?”
Emma shrugged, wishing her shoulders didn’t feel as heavy as they did. It was impossible to pretend otherwise. It was like the whole world rested there, pushing her into the damn ground.
“Yes,” she agreed, “it was. I didn’t want to hand my baby over after I’d birthed him and watched him die. The doctor wanted to weigh him and check for any visible abnormalities—there were none, he was perfect, but he just wasn’t ready to come out yet. That was the only reason he died.”
“You wouldn’t give him to the doctor,” Cal assumed.
“No.”
“But you handed him to me.”
Emma clenched her teeth so hard her molars ached. Still, the word slipped out. “Yes.”
Suddenly, he lifted his arm and two of Calisto’s fingers stroked Emma’s cheek. Gently. Tenderly. Almost knowingly.
Before she could stop herself, the familiarity in his action had her tilting her face into the palm of his hand, and then his thumb grazed over her cheekbone like he had done so many times before.
It took Emma all of three seconds to realize what she was doing before she blinked out of her daze and took a huge step away from Calisto. He sucked in a sharp breath at her action, like she’d somehow hurt him.
“I-I have to go,” Emma said.
Calisto took a tentative step forward, hands up as if to reach for her. “Just wait a second, please.”
“No, I—”
“Don’t run right now. I just want you to tell me the truth.”
“I did!” Emma winced at the level of her shout before adding quieter, “I did about the baby and the date.”
“But we’re back to the same thing again like before. How close were we, Emma, that I couldn’t wait outside your hospital room during the delivery? How close that you only gave the baby to me to hand off? How close that I had to tattoo the date of that event on my body forever? What else is there about us that you’re not telling me?”
Everything.
There was everything, and she was scared.
“Stop,” she whispered, willing the anxiety in her tone away.
They were too close to Affonso’s car, or even one of his men.
“Emma, wait!”
“Stop, Cal,” she repeated stronger.
Calisto threw his arms wide, seemingly unbothered by where they were or by who might be watching. “I just want answers.”
“I can’t give them to you.”
Emma knew the truth of their situation, and why Calisto couldn’t see what was right in front of his face. He had so much love and respect in his heart for Affonso that the idea he might have betrayed his uncle was the very last thing he might consider as something he could do to the man. And so, he was looking for other things, instead of the obvious.
She was terrified what might happen if he found out the truth before he gained his memories back. What would that do to him? Would he even be able to protect her and their child, or would he be torn between the knowledge of what he had done and his falsely-grown affection and wrongly placed loyalty for Affonso?
If she was forced to tell him what she knew about the things that had transpired between him and Affonso before she even came into the picture, would he resent her for ruining what he believed was his life?
Would he hate her?
Emma couldn’t bear the thought of that at all.
She just didn’t know what to do. Not for him. But she knew she had to protect herself and his baby. Until things were clearer, that’s the one and only thing Emma would do.
“What is it?” Calisto asked suddenly. “It’s all over your face—you’re just standing there like you don’t even know which way to go.”
Emma blinked up at him, realizing that in one single statement, he had summed up everything that was wrong with her without even properly understanding why. Even being lost like he was, Calisto still knew her. He was still in there somewhere.
“Are you torn?” he asked softly. “About me?”
She stayed quiet.
Calisto wasn’t looking for that. “Just answer me. I’m missing something. I’ve been missing something since I woke up from that coma. I only want to know what it is.”
“I … I am torn, but I don’t know.”
Emma didn’t know a lot of things, and for that, she was sorry.
“Then how about I help, huh? I’m going to look for it. Whatever it is you’re hiding that you don’t want me to know, I am going to look for it, Emma.”
“Then do what you need to do, Cal, but don’t get killed in the process.”
That was just about the best and only warning Emma could give Calisto. As it was, she had already given him too much.
It was like playing with fire.
And she wouldn’t survive the burns.