“The blondest and most beautiful,” I replied without hesitation, “and these deep, sterling-green eyes…and an ass.”
Stacy dropped her spoon into the bucket and started to clap. “She sounds like a ten out of ten.”
“One hundred out of ten.” I smiled, and Stacy smiled back at me. “I’m talking about you, you know?”
Stacy’s mouth widened dramatically. “Oh! I did not gather that.” Her sarcastic tone was flat and humorous.
I stared at her as she dug back into the bucket of ice cream, but a hollow scrape called back to her. She looked back in the bucket and frowned. “Aw. It’s gone.” She looked up at me. “Should we go get more?”
“I have a better idea.” I’d been struck with a random burst of inspiration. There was a piece of me that I’d always clung to as if my life depended on it. A piece of me only one other person had ever seen, and he was six feet beneath the earth now. “Come on.”
Stacy looked confused but didn’t argue. We put our shoes on and went out to pile into my truck. We drove for forty-five minutes until we were well outside the glow of Philly. We ascended a single-car-wide dirt path and parked in the same grass-worn spot I’d been to a thousand times before. We climbed out of the car, and I took Stacy’s hand and brought her to the top of Westberg Hill, an off-the-beaten-path picnic spot that overlooked the city in an unimpeded, postcard-worthy view. I walked over to the small maroon chest that I knew was tucked under an old oak tree there and pulled it free.
I opened the chest, which was just large enough to fit the big blanket I dug out of it. I gave it a flap against the cool, evening air, knocking some dust away and fanning it out its full length. I laid it over the perfect spot on the hill’s peak that was flat enough to lay it out on and was also devoid of miscellaneous rocks. I went back to the chest and picked out the bottle and shot glasses that pulling the blanket had revealed, walked over to the blanket, sat down, and patted next to me for Stacy to join. She sat down next to me, and I handed her a glass to hold while I unscrewed the black top of the half-empty whiskey bottle and poured a sizable shot.
“I take it you’ve been here before?” Stacy asked.
“Yeah. My dad used to bring me here all the time.”
I poured my own shot, returned the cap to the bottle, and set it off to the side. Stacy’s jaw went a little slack, and I knew she was no doubt reacting to the way I’d spoken about my father up to that point, which had been mostly negative.
“I know.” I knocked my shot back in a single toss and set my glass down. “He wasn’t a monster. My brothers think so, specifically Luca and Marco, but he was just…”
“Misunderstood?” Stacy filled in before taking her shot.
I shook my head. “No. It was almost impossible to misunderstand my dad. He would tell you exactly who he was, and if you didn’t want to believe in it, he would beat it into you.” I chuckled. “I realize that sounds pretty monster-like, but my dad was kind of like a conduit. Whatever you gave him, he gave back.”
“An empath.” I looked over at Stacy with a furrowed brow, and she grinned. “That’s the hippie term for it. Someone who takes on the emotions of the people around them and projects it.”
I was forever warmed by Stacy’s ability to find the missing pieces to the puzzle that was my life.
“I’m not excusing the way he was with my brothers or his wife, or even with me, but he could sense that they hated him. He loved his kids, but he wasn’t the type to accept mistreatment of any kind. He could hide behind the way he treated him by treating them the same way. They threw in shit, and he threw in shit, and they threw in more shit, and he threw in more shit until the void between them was so vast that all they could see was an enemy on the other side.” I looked out at the Philly skyline in the distance, trying to remember the weight of my dad next to me. “One time, when I was seven, I think, Luca walked up to me. He said, ‘You hate him too, right? Our dad.’ He was standing right there—dad was—Luca wanted me to admit in front of him that I hated him. Maybe if I had, they wouldn’t have been so awful to me coming up, but I loved my dad. I couldn’t say it. He treated me the same way as them, but I loved him anyway. He was my dad.”
“You’re an empath, too.” Stacy nodded her head as if it all made perfect sense. “You got it from him. You could feel that he loved you, and you loved him, too.”
I wrapped my arm around Stacy’s waist and pulled her flush against me. It shouldn’t have been possible for someone to just fit so well, but she did. She was the frame in which I could rest my picture. She rested her head against my shoulder, and I kissed her forehead before setting my head over hers.
“After that, he started bringing me here,” I continued. “He saw that the older boys were bullying me and that I was struggling to keep up with this life, so he made extra time for me. He brought me here, and we would talk for hours. He would smile when we were here, actually smile. None of the guys know this. I’ve been afraid that if I told them, they’d resent me even more. It works for them to continue to think that my dad was a beast, and when I see his worst qualities shoot out of them, I start to think he may have been one, too. I also knew the side of my dad that loved us, though. The side of him that would gush for hours about how proud he was of Luca when he played football or about his plans to build a whole, multi-million dollar workout facility because he could see Marco getting into working out more.”
I laughed. “Oh man, when he found out Alessandro was actually smart. He went on and on and on. He couldn’t believe it.” I lowered my voice in a desperate attempt to imitate his bass timber. “He’s got brains, Gabe. Real ones! Not ones like me. Must have gotten ‘em from his mom. He sure didn’t get ‘em from me.”
Stacy chuckled against me. “Sounds like a proud dad to me.”
I nodded. “He was. He was also vicious. Disciplinarian would be a nice way to describe him. I don’t blame my brothers for the way they feel about him. They’re right, and I’m right. My dad was all of that, and he was none of that.” I thought about Alessandro and how my dad would probably have the perfect solution to the problem. Whether it was some well-thought-out, multi-step plan of action to get him back on track, or just beating the ever-loving shit out of him, he’d have Alessandro back to his old self before any of us could blink.
“Parents are complicated,” Stacy said. “What about your mom?”
“Never knew her. I tried asking my dad about her once, and it was the only time he ever hit me, so I didn’t ask again. I don’t even know if she’s living. I assume she’s not. Back to that monster some people saw. I figured my dad beat wondering about my mom out of me because he knew that he’d buried her to get his hands on me. That’s just what I imagine, anyway.”
“I bet she was pretty.” Stacy glanced up around her flower crown at me. “Just based on how pretty you are.”
I looked down at her, and the emotions were too overwhelming to deny anymore. “I love you.”
Stacy sat straight up out of my arms. For half a second, I thought the shocked look on her face meant that I’d messed up saying it, but then her expression softened, and she smiled.
“I love you, too.” There was a breathless shock in her voice like she couldn’t believe she was saying it back. In retrospect, we hadn’t been together that long, but the time we’d spent together was so profound that it was the only natural conclusion. I could have said it to her when she first walked into her yoga studio. “Let’s go back to my place.”
I was already standing off the blanket while Stacy was returning the bottle to the chest. I folded the blanket, stuffed it in, and shoved it back under the tree. Our escalation in lovemaking was intense, so I hoped that the first utterances of our love wouldn’t break her bed, but I’d be sure to ask her the model just in case.