The Affair (The Evolution of Sin 1)

“Mama,” I breathed once, before tucking my face into her hair.

We stood like that in the middle of a room full of people for a few minutes before I could compose myself. Though we had talked almost every day on the phone or by email, it felt unspeakably good to be with my mother again. As with my other siblings, she was everything to me and it astonished me – now that I was home – that I could have ever been comfortable staying away.

“Quit hogging her, Ma.” A rich voice, the male equivalent of Cosima’s, but deeper, darker, resounded throughout the room and with a shriek of joy, I threw myself from Mama’s arms into Sebastian’s.

He chuckled as he caught me, and lifted me easily into his arms. “You’ve grown, mia sorella, and your hair…” He tugged a piece. “I think this is the first time I’ve seen you red since you were twelve.”

I pulled back and smiled into his ridiculously handsome face. “God, I missed you.”

Mama tapped me on the bottom and tsk-ed at my use of God’s name but Sebastian and I only laughed as he placed me once more on the floor.

Seb had visited me last year in Paris while he shot a movie, and it still wowed me that my two younger siblings were doing so well in their respective careers. Two years ago, Sebastian had starred in a low budget Indie movie about an impoverished Italian immigrant in New York during the 20s. It had won three awards at the Cannes Film Festival and now, my baby brother, the same person who used to run naked through the grimy streets of our home in Napoli, was a burgeoning movie star.

“I missed you too, bambina.” Though I was older than the twins, they both called me baby because I was decidedly shorter than their towering heights.

“I like it better this way.” Elena stepped forward, suddenly in front of me, her hands awkwardly extended for an embrace. “Your hair, I mean.”

My oldest sister shared my coloring but little else, her auburn hair was darker than mine, a red so black it was the color of wine, cut short and chic around her angular face, showcasing a creamy expanse of freckle-free skin and sloe eyes the colour of storm clouds. Her body was lean and small boned where mine was softer, curved like the other women in our family and I knew, as her eyes fell over my breasts and tucked waist, that she felt a pang of isolation at seeing me again. Whereas I took comfort from knowing that we looked at least vaguely similar, Elena saw only the things in me that made her different. She was the spitting image of our father and we all knew that was hard on her but I always found her heartrendingly beautiful anyway, somehow sharp and romantic all at once.

And though she was also the smartest person I knew, and despite my deep respect for her, our embrace was awkward. Something between us had wilted years ago and I was still unsure how to recover it.

“You look beautiful too, Elena.”

We both took a large step back after our hug but the twins and mama filled in around us.

Though I was tired and still mildly queasy from the long flight, it felt good to spend time with my family and the close group of friends they had made over the years. I met Sebastian’s girlfriend Sophie, who I had recognized immediately as being a model for Calvin Klein and a good friend of Cosima’s. It wasn’t serious, Seb assured me later as he refilled my wine glass, but she was a good lay.

There were also my Mama’s three best friends, all chefs like herself, and Cosima’s old roommate Erika, a Dutch model with cheekbones that could cut glass, and Elena’s assistant Beau whom I had known for years and who I was closer to than Elena herself.

“So,” Cosima began as she caught my arm and spun me through the doorway into a dark room off the main hall.

I had only visited the house once, on my only trip to America after the twins had officially moved Mama and Elena here three years ago and the layout was still unfamiliar but I thought we were in the guest bedroom.

“Tell me how things ended with the Frenchman,” she said before she flicked the light on and gracefully collapsed on the deep red covered bed, patting the space next to her so that I would sit.

I sighed and placed my head next to hers on the pillow, comforted by her spicy scent and the way she casually took my hand in hers. “I left.”

“Oh?”

“I left before he woke up this morning. I just couldn’t say goodbye. What was I going to say? Thanks for the hot sex and amazing adventures. I love you. Catch you never?”

I held myself still in the ensuing silence and resisted the urge to turn over to look into her expressive face for her response. Cosima was careful with her words – when she wasn’t in a temper – and I knew she was meticulously shifting through them like individual grains of sand.

“I was worried you would love him. You didn’t tell me much about him, I don’t even know the mystery man’s name, but I know you.” Her thumb swept back and forth over my palm. “And intimacy for one so passionate cannot be untangled from love.”

I scoffed. “You’re the passionate one, Cosi.”

She propped herself up on one elbow in order to glare down at me. “Can there be only one passionate woman in this family?”

I pursed my lips but said nothing.

“Exactly. Now tell me why you left like this. You took away his chance.”

“His chance to what?” Break my heart in person?

“To ask you home with him.”

She said it as if it was a simple choice, as if it was only natural that he would want to take a complete stranger home with him.