My mind wanders to Cristina again. Cristina alone in her room probably confused and definitely terrified. But that’s what I want, isn’t it?
I can’t help but think about the fact that she was a child at the time of the accident. Although she grew up impacted by the consequences, she still had a childhood. I wonder if it was a happy one. I doubt it. But whatever the case, she’s definitely ill-prepared for this. For me.
She’ll go to bed hungry, but one night won’t kill her. It’ll be a good lesson, and she does need to learn. I was serious about the monsters in this house. I see one just as I step onto the first-floor landing and turn toward the warmly lit living and dining rooms.
“Uncle Damian!” Bennie comes rushing toward me, carrying a toy airplane in his hand.
I push thoughts of the naked girl locked away upstairs out of my head and smile as I bend down to scoop him up.
“Bennie!” I hug him, noting the toy soldiers and Nerf guns left untouched in their boxes. My nephew doesn’t have any inclination to play with them. Nothing with anything violent, in fact. He must get that from his father. It’s certainly not from our side of the family.
“Damian.” My father’s voice, even though quieter as he’s aged, still booms in my ears and turns the blood in my veins to ice.
I set Bennie down and look toward my father. Feeble. That’s the first word anyone would think. He can’t weigh more than ninety-five pounds at this point. His cancer ridden body is finally turning on him.
And I still hate him. I feel nothing but contempt for him.
His wheelchair sits beside the large fireplace where wood crackles. I wonder if Johnny, his one trusted soldier, didn’t place him too close to it. I wonder if Johnny or anyone would save him if a spark alighted on the wool blanket covering his legs. I know my answer.
“Father,” I say in greeting.
“Where is the girl?” he barks.
“In her room.”
“Why isn’t she here?”
“It’s not yet time.” I glance at Bennie. Would my father destroy his innocence if he could?
He snorts his displeasure before taking the whiskey Elise offers him from the tray. He really shouldn’t be drinking at all, considering his cocktail of pills he’s on, but I don’t stop him. None of us do.
Michela watches us from her place on the pink chaise. My mother decorated this room ages ago. It’s strange to think that my father allowed all the feminine colors and touches. It’s certainly not like him. He’s like a ball of barbed wire. He will shred anyone through. But she was almost thirty years younger than him when he married her, so he indulged her. At least in his own way. This was one such indulgence.
“You’re wasting time,” he says.
His time. Is he counting his days like I am?
“She’s been here not twenty-four hours.” I move to the bar where Elise is mixing a cocktail for my sister.
“When do you think it’ll be time?” he asks, the expression on his old face the usual one of utter disappointment he’s worn ever since I can remember. I wonder if Lucas hadn’t left if he’d look at him that way too.
But this thing between my father and me, it’s unique. And now that I’ve taken over control of the business and the family, we’ve almost become rivals, he and I.
I stand tall, eyeing him dismissively. Exactly as I learned from him. He hates it, I know. Even without the paralysis—a result of the stroke, although he still blames Valentina for it—I’d still be bigger than him. Stronger than him. It wasn’t always the case and he never had any problem beating someone half his size. I wonder if he fears that I’m just like him. That I’ll someday return the favor.
“It’ll be time when I say it’s time,” I tell him reminding him who is head of this family now. I reach around the bar to the bottle of whiskey and pour one for myself. An image of Cristina’s naked body dances before my eyes. Pretty skin. Perfect skin but for that scar. I wonder if it’s more sensitive for it. My arm is. I feel everything more acutely than I did before, even though the doctors say it’s impossible.
I want her more for it, for her damage. We’re connected, she and I. We were bound, handfasted, the night of the accident.
Bennie walks over to my father’s chair. Bennie is short for Benedict. Michela had to legally change his name to my father’s before he’d accept her back at the house. That was one of his demands.
Michela looks up at me, then our father. I think he still scares her more. Or maybe it’s that she hates him more. I wonder if she knows the full extent of his involvement in Bennie’s father’s accident.