Sergio (Benedetti Brothers 3)

It’s an omen.

A bad one.11SergioI walk in the door of my house, drop the keys on the side table, take off my coat and let it fall to the floor. I should have stayed with her. What I want more than anything right now is to lie down beside her and watch her sleep. Listen to her breathe. Hold this tangible, living thing. Hold it so fucking tight it won’t vanish like everything does.

From the living room, I pick up a bottle of whiskey and a crystal tumbler. The lights are still off and I don’t switch them on but make my way into my study instead. This house is so quiet. So still. The curtains in the study are always drawn. This is the darkest room of the house.

I move behind my desk and switch on the lamp. From underneath the desk, I take out the large, rolled up sheet of what looks to be ancient parchment. It’s not. Just made to look that way. I unroll it, smoothing down the edges, looking at the black and white boxes, the gray, worn areas where I’ve erased and redrawn and erased and redrawn too many times. Where I’ve worn a small hole in one of those boxes.

This is why I came home. There’s work to be done.

Without paying attention, I pour a glass of whiskey and set the bottle on one corner of the sheet, sipping as I move around to the next. I slide another edge beneath the table lamp. The paperweight flattens another corner as I take my seat. One more sip and my tumbler rests on the final edge and the parchment is laid out before me.

I don’t have to look away to open the drawer and take out my pencils. Charcoal, for sketching. The callous on my middle finger is still dark from all the times I’ve held these.

The Benedetti family tree is all here before me from generations past. I wonder if anyone will continue to do this when I’m gone. When I’m one of the boxes that needs to be erased. Redrawn. The dates entered, finally.

I can’t find the eraser right away and turn to rummage through the drawer. It had slid to the back. Taking it and my ruler, I erase the already smudged line around a cousin’s box. I want it perfect.

No one’s seen this little project of mine, not even Salvatore. It’s morbid, I know. But it takes up so much of my mind, more and more as each day passes.

When I’m finished redrawing the box, I retrace the dates. This cousin was seventeen when he was killed. A car crash, not mob violence. Just too much alcohol and stupidity. We have those too. Life. Normal. Death.

When that’s done, I drag my gaze to my father’s box. Then my mother’s. I touch hers with the tip of my finger. It won’t be long before I add a date here.

I suck in a deep breath, rub the scruff of my jaw. If I don’t shave soon, it’ll be a fucking beard. I look away, look down at my brothers’ boxes. My own. Funny, I’ve drawn theirs with connected empty boxes beside for their eventual wives. Their families.

I told Natalie time was a luxury, but so is family. Children. A fucking wife.

I swallow all that shit down, swallow the choking lump in my throat, bury it deep in my gut. I steel myself, look at my own name there. I’ll be the boss of this family one day. It’ll be when I’ve added a date to my father’s box. It’s not that I don’t want it. I do. And it’s not that I feel guilt over what I do. I don’t. I’m very comfortable with who I am. It’s just—it’s always bittersweet, everything.

Someone always has to fucking die.

I line up the ruler, almost draw the link, almost add a box, but I stop. I can’t do that because if I do, I’ll be condemning her.

Instead, I take out a blank sheet of the same type of paper. This one’s letter sized. I have it specially made—vanity, I suppose. I like nice things.

I set the sheet on top of the family map—our graveyard—and pick up the tumbler, swallow the rest of my whiskey. I pour another glass and get to work.

From memory, I start with her eyes. Almond shaped and so dark, they’re almost black. Eyes are the hardest. Inside them is the soul. And I want to see her soul. I want it more than anything else right now.

It takes time, but I’ve got all night. My hands turn gray with charcoal as I smudge and erase and redraw again and again and again. I want to draw her like she was tonight. When she came. Soft and open and surrendered. Surrendered to me.