Ricky quickly scooped some of it and scootched back before she could get to him to hit him.
Willow laughed. “Sorry. He’s kind of impatient when it comes to food.”
“So I’ve noticed,” Molly replied.
Lunch was good. Thanks to Molly’s no work at the table rule, we refrained from discussing business at all and had a delightful lunch, bonding as a family. The kids were eating Willow up, not that I didn’t understand why. She’d always been good with kids, which was how I knew she’d be a fantastic mother one day. Whenever she got up from the table for any reason at all, Antonio would start to cry, and Anna would try and follow her. Luca, Willow, Ricky, and I went around and around, sharing stories of our childhood and the shenanigans we got up to in our youth. Molly just sat back and enjoyed hearing stories about her husband before his mature days, back when he was actually a bit of a goofball. The only thing missing was Gabriel, who’d been sent to Scranton to follow up on our app situation with our extension out there.
After lunch, Molly went to put the kids down for a nap, and Ricky and Luca were going to talk business, so I decided to take Willow outside to walk through our garden out back. We’d taken several walks through that garden as teenagers, and I knew she would enjoy spending some time out there again. We spent some time walking amongst the pristinely manicured hedges until Willow suddenly remembered the time we’d hidden in the bush maze on the southern side of the garden and ended up having sex back there. To my surprise and delight, she took my hand and dragged me back there once more, pulling me against her and telling me that she wanted to relive this part of our younger days, too. We only barely managed to get our clothes back on when we heard Ricky calling for us from the other side of the hedges I had pushed her up against.
I didn’t want her to go. Sharing her with my family, surrounding us with love, it felt so domestic, so normal. It was the life I dreamed of. I loved the idea of getting together to share meals, Willow playing with the kids, maybe even our kids, while Molly nagged at Luca to quit bringing up work at the table. Ricky making stupid puns about every single dish he put in his mouth, like some sort of lame uncle. That was what I wanted.
That’ll never happen, Sandro.
I parted ways with Willow, with a kiss and a promise to see her soon, and then stood on the front stairs as she and Ricky drove away. The feeling was all too familiar. It was the same one teenage Alessandro felt every time Willow left for the day. Any time spent away from her was too much time.
Luca walked up and stood next to me. “You’ve got it bad, don’t you?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything this badly,” I said. “All this shit we’ve gone through, and I think this may be the most difficult, and you know what the craziest part is?”
Luca shoved his hands in his pockets. “What?”
“I wish dad was here.” It felt weird to say it out loud. Of my brothers, I was probably closest to our father. Because I was willing to always give the benefit of the doubt, I was generally the only one who saw his human side.
“For as much of an ass as he was, it did sometimes feel like he had all the answers,” Luca responded. “But, you know, he’s not here. We’ve gotta figure it out.”
I imagined Willow heading back to California and me never seeing her again. “Yeah. I know.”
17
Willow
> At the end of week three of still being in Philadelphia, my mom finally came back from her vacation. She was reticent regarding my still being there when she got home and started awkwardly floating around me, randomly asking questions to try and ignite conversations with me that I had no interest in having. As a result, I’d started spending more and more days at Alessandro’s house instead of my own. It made me uncomfortable to be there, considering I was in the thick of it whenever I was there, but as long as I could be somewhere where I couldn’t actively see or hear it, I could pretend it didn’t exist.
Ricky would come around often, as well, and I could see from how comfortable he was walking in and out of the house he must have spent a lot of time there before I came to Philly. Often, I would be in the middle of spending time with him, playing chess, which was his favorite game, or hearing about the dates he was going on while I was there, and then he would get called away by Luca, Alessandro, or Gabriel to go work on business. It annoyed me, but I tried my best to take it in stride. Sasha’s words centered themselves in my mind. Don’t think, just do.
I worked as best as I could, especially when neither Alessandro or Ricky was around. I took breaks and spent time with Anna and Antonio and got to know Molly a little bit more, but I was shocked to learn that she was deeply involved in the organization, as well. She’d become known as Queen Molly for her control over certain aspects of the business. She could be as ruthless and cutthroat as the rest of them. She told me about the importance of making sure everyone knew that she was a dominant, active member of the family, not just Luca’s wife. It actually made me think a little bit, hearing how drastically her life had changed all because of one thing, but to say she met the challenge head-on would be an understatement. She was a badass and wasn’t around to be shuffled along. In many ways, Molly Varasso was the most powerful of them all.
I was in a tailspin of emotions. Whenever we were sitting down to a meal or doing something domestic and simple like game night, I was willing to jump on board. I loved it. I loved going to sleep with Alessandro at night and waking up next to him in the morning. I loved sitting out in the beautiful garden to work when it was warm enough, occasionally looking up to see one of the Varassos or Ricky carrying me out a glass of lemonade or coffee. I was quickly developing an affection for Anna and Antonio, who regularly tried to convince me to abandon my day job and become their fulltime play-person.
When that was my reality, I was fine, but I was beginning to witness other things I didn’t like to see. Luca, and even Molly on occasion, storming through the house with blood spatter on their clothes; Gabriel overseeing the discarding of weapons and other evidence that would link one of the Varassos to a crime; Alessandro rushing off upon the receipt of a phone call to stand outside of earshot of me, clearly agitated by his body language and movement. They were stark reminders that I wasn’t just hanging out at my boyfriend’s house. I was holed up in the epicenter of a mafia organization, working on my computer like it wasn’t all happening around me. The more I tried to ignore its existence, the more glaring occurrences I saw.
One day, it all melted down. The house was abuzz with something that all of the brothers and Ricky were looking into. They tried to keep the conversation away from me, but Luca exploded, saying that it was his house, and he would talk about his stuff wherever he wanted to. Once his temper was blown, he was on a tirade, storming through the estate, talking about how the Binachis needed to be aware of exactly how much power he had, and that if they wanted to fuck with his family, they would feel the consequences.
Alessandro came up to me in the throes of Luca’s fit and quietly told me to pack my stuff up. I did so quickly, and we left, heading to a nearby hotel. We checked into a nice room where Alessandro told me I could stay for the rest of the time I was there. I started to argue about the finances of it, but he cut me off with a kiss, begging me not to add any more stress to him. He’d feel better knowing I was there. It made me nervous that things were getting much worse within his family, as opposed to outside of it. Luca’s temperament made me afraid that the biggest risk to Alessandro was right in his own home.
To alleviate some of our collective stress, we went to the rooftop restaurant of the hotel, which happened to be one of the top five-star restaurants in the city. We picked a booth to squeeze into and sat as close as we could.
“I’m worried about you,” I told him. I traced the creases at the corners of his eyes, thinking that such a young man shouldn’t have crow’s feet already. “Luca’s volatile.”
“He was doing okay for a while there,” Alessandro said. “We’d had this really good conversation, and he actually admitted that we may be a little out of our depth. You know, we didn’t really have a choice in any of this. We were born into it like my dad was, and like his dad was. I think about Antonio and Anna, or even Amanda. Are we doomed to do this shit forever, until the world stops turning?”
“Amanda?” I asked.
“Oh, right,” I said. “Marco’s daughter.”
My jaw dropped. “Wait. Marco has a daughter? Where’s the mom?”
“They’re together, in…” He stopped short. “Nevermind.”