The Woman with the Scar (Costa Family)

The rest of the night was nice.

Big, as all Costa events were, even bigger still since the Costas and Espositos and Morellis had all sort of married into each other’s Families.

It wasn’t until we got home much later, Brio carrying our passed-out daughter on his chest, that I realized I’d made a horrible mistake.

I’d underestimated my husband’s animal impulsivity.

“Oh, God. Why is your pocket moving?” I asked, letting out a tired laugh.

“She said she wanted it,” Brio insisted, reaching into his pocket to produce a pure white kitten with one blue and one green eye.

“She’s going to want a lot of things in life,” I reminded him.

“And it’s my job to give them all to her,” Brio declared.

“You’ll spoil her.”

“Spoiled is good. Sets the bar high for any asshole who thinks he might deserve her when she is older,” he said, shrugging.

“And what will you teach our son?” I asked, pressing a hand to my belly.

“That he better treat his woman like spun gold. Like you said his grandpa did,” he told me, nodding, clearly taking a page out of my father’s parenting book. Which, well, made my heart feel like it was too big for my chest.

“And like his daddy does to his mom,” I added, moving forward to lean my head into his shoulder.

“He’s going to be a good man,” Brio declared, words a vow.

“It is impossible for him not to be, with you to show him the way.”

Brio - 22 years

“What’s the matter?” Ezzy asked, coming up behind where I was standing, looking out the window.

To where our son was getting his ass kicked by some neighborhood bully.

While he stood there with his arms crossed.

And just took it.

“You don’t want to know,” I said, shaking my head, not understanding why he was just standing there like that.

The kids all knew how to fight.

I’d wanted the three girls to learn for obvious reasons.

And I’d wanted our son to learn just because it was important. Especially because of my affiliations.

They all also knew how to get out of cuffs, tape, zip ties, how to pick locks, and where to press or hit to disable someone almost instantly.

It was a safety thing for all of them.

So he knew how to fight.

He was choosing not to.

And I couldn’t figure out why.

“Listen, you can’t chase away all the boys who might have a crush on our girls,” Ezzy insisted, as she often did.

“Sure I can,” I shot back, as I always did. Since no one would ever be good enough for my girls. “But this isn’t the girls.”

Before she could move beside me and look out, though, the bully just… gave up.

And walked away.

Our boy took a moment, then made his way across the street, then into the house.

“Mom, I’m fine,” he called before he was even in the doorway to the living room, wanting to warn her that it wasn’t pretty, but that he was okay.

“Oh, my God. What happened? You let this happen?” she asked, turning on me even as she reached out for his face.

“I would have stepped in if I needed to,” I told her, shrugging. If anyone knew that you couldn’t step into a fight, it was her. Sometimes, you just made that shit worse by getting involved. “Why did you stand there like that and take it?” I asked, shaking my head.

“I had nothing to prove,” he said, shrugging.

“You didn’t fight back?” Ezzy asked, pressing her fingers in around his eye that was a little too swollen for my liking.

“I didn’t need to.”

“I’m gonna need more than that,” I insisted.

To that, he shrugged.

“He needed someone to hit, Dad,” he said. “It wasn’t about me. It was never about me. It was about him. I have nothing against him. So why would I hit him back? He was working through some shit—stuff,” he said, wincing at his mother who never approved of him cursing even if I didn’t give a, well, shit.

“You saw him,” he said, shrugging. “Once he realized that it wasn’t violence he actually wanted, he kind of welled up… then walked away,” he said, shrugging. “Ma, I’m fine,” he insisted.