Five or ten minutes later when I could breathe properly again, I dug my thumb nail beneath the tape of the present and rent the paper open in a clean line.
A silver frame slid out of wrapping and landed on the marble vanity top with a clatter, almost falling over the edge into my lap. Instinctively, I caught the cold edge and looked down into the glass covered center.
Someone, probably Walcott, had taken the photo one morning in the kitchen at Lion Court. In it, Tiernan was wearing one of his partially dismantled bespoke black suits, the jacket discarded and the sleeves of the black button up rolled to expose his corded, tattooed forearms. He was bent nearly double to look into Brando’s wide eyes as he explained something to the older man, his hands open and raised passionately. His face was in profile, one cheek sprinkled with floor, one hand coated in. On Tiernan’s scarred cheek, a small palm print of white powder appeared in stark relief on his tanned skin from where Brando had obviously patted him. I stood behind my brother, my hands on his shoulder, partially leaned over his head so I could see Tiernan’s expression as they spoke. It was a candid photo. No one was looking at the camera. And somehow, that heightened the intimacy of the moment.
Tiernan and I were curved over Brando like two parentheses.
And, despite the space between us, we were curved into each other, our awareness of the other somehow obvious in a million little physical tells. The way I smiled softly at both him and my brother, the hand he had braced on the kitchen counter right beside my hip, his fingers close enough to brush my school skirt, the way my hair made a curtained backdrop for both our bent heads.
We looked in every sense like a family.
A happy one.
Pain and longing cut through me like a thousand knives, snapping sinew and carving through bone, until I was slumped over the vanity unable to hold up my weight. I clutched the photo in one hand, the card with the bloody thumb print in the other, and I cried until the entire vanity was covered in my tears.
When I was done, eyes aching and chest sore, I peeled myself off the marble and forced myself to place the gifts face down beside me. The small, childish part of me wished fervently I could just call my mother or father and ask them for advice, but that hadn’t been a powerful option long before they’d passed away. As usual, it came down to me.
I was lost in a maze constructed between the Morelli and Constantine houses and I had to find my own way out. The question was whether I would end up with the Constantines who hid their secrets and lies behinds silks and saccharine smiles, where I had always assumed I’d belong, or with the blatantly cruel Morellis and their black sheep third born son.
8
BIANCA
Later that morning, Caroline insisted on taking me Christmas shopping.
I’d been to Fifth Avenue and perused the ritzy offerings of Manhattan with Tilda, Tiernan’s cousin, when I first moved to Bishop’s Landing, but nothing could have prepared me for the experience of shopping with one of New York’s more elite figures.
There was a personal shopper waiting for us at the entrance of Saks with two glasses of champagne waiting on a gilt tray. She treated Caroline as if she was true royalty, deferring to her on all things, readily accepting the matriarch’s sometimes acerbic comments about the clothes that had been pulled for us beforehand. When I mentioned that I was getting hungry, the woman even offered to call out for food for us. Everywhere we went, jewellery stores I’d never dreamed of seeing, clothing stores where a single garment was as much as a down payment on a house, Caroline was greeted with revered awe.
For a small-town girl who had spent most of her life favoring anonymity, it was…surreal.
But it was also pretty damn fun.
Caroline had certain expectations of how I should dress, but she also let me pick outfits that suited my style and coloring. Once, after trying on a velvet, navy blue dress just a shade darker than my eyes, she had even stopped emailing on her phone long enough to stare at me.
“You look…” she paused delicately. “You look very fine in that shade of blue. It compliments your eyes.”
I beamed at her. Since my mother’s death, I hadn’t had much female influence in my life and I’d almost forgotten how much fun it could be to just be girly with another woman.
I twirled, the skirt flaring out around me as I laughed. “It’s just beautiful. But truly, Caroline, I have clothes at Lion Court that Tiernan has to give back sometime. I can just wait for those.”