As I predicted, our honeymoon is anything but romantic. That’s fine with me. I’d rather be at home working with Little Al than going through with this empty tradition. Still, I try to engage Eliza in conversation a few times, only to have my questions met with resentful silence or hostile glares. Apparently, sex is not the only thing we won’t be having.
I suppose that’s fine, too. I did tell her she only had to be my wife in public. Conversations aren’t part of that.
Still, it’s hard to spend a week in a room in all-inclusive resort without getting to know someone a little. Despite her sullen attitude toward me, Eliza isn’t unhappy. She participates in the activities at the resort and excursions with excitement. She’s got a big personality that can’t be dampened by my presence. She makes friends with the boatmen, the dive guides, the waitresses.
And she’s never sloppy with herself. She gets up each morning and puts on nice clothes, ones befitting whatever excursion my mother planned for us. She’s meticulous with the scant amount of makeup she wears, her hair, her clothes. She obviously respects herself and isn’t going to let herself go or try to discourage my attraction by making herself unappealing. Her clothes are obviously expensive but on the alluring side—a silk shirt without a bra, a flowing dress that clings to her curves when she walks, tiny shorts that show every inch of her strong, toned legs.
Sometimes, I have to stop myself from reaching out and touching her. I remind myself I can’t love her, that it’s a good thing she hates me. It makes everything easier. At night, I turn my back and stay on my side of the bed, feeling every tiny movement she makes through the expanse of mattress between us, the tension in her body as she lies there, stiff as a board, barely breathing until I fall asleep. Despite what Little Al said, I don’t think she was faking it on our wedding night. She’s scared. And even though I tell myself I don’t care about her, it fills me with rage to think of anyone hurting her.
We have dinner together each night, and each night, she wants to go to the bar afterwards. I go with her for the first few nights, though I have no interest in drinking. I sit and watch her make friends with other guests at the resort, and a dark feeling creeps between my ribs. Why is it that she can make friends with the bartenders, waitresses, and strangers she’s just met, but she can’t stand to even speak to me beyond the absolute necessities—asking me to hand over her toothbrush in the morning or pass the salt at dinner. A comment on the food is the extent of our casual conversation, but at the bar, she can throw her head back and laugh, swatting the arm of the waitress like they’re best friends already.
I’m relieved when, on our fourth night, she calls me a psycho stalker and insists I stay in the room while she goes down to the bar. I fall asleep easily for the first night since we’ve arrived, without the dark tendrils of resentment licking at my ribs or the cold, thick feeling crawling up my throat like it does every time I wonder why she’s so frigid.
The end can’t come soon enough. At last, it arrives. On the last evening, I start picking up random pieces of clothes and things left around the room, wanting my bag packed and ready to get out of here the moment I wake in the morning. I know being home won’t change much, but at least I won’t have to spend every day with a woman who despises me.
Eliza reclines on the couch in a silk robe that’s parted over her knee, revealing her bare leg as she watches a show about a boy band breaking up. Cute little freckles randomly scatter across her olive skin, from the beauty mark on her cheekbone to the spot on her ankle just above the gold bangle she wore on our boat outing. From her position, I see new ones on her inner thigh I haven’t seen before, and I wonder how many more I don’t know about. I’ve seen her in her underwear just once, the morning after our wedding, and in a bathing suit several times on our trip, but I can’t help but wonder if there are more under those garments. It seems like something a husband should know.
I push the thought away and snatch up some socks from under the bed. “Want to give me a hand with this?” I ask, tossing a pair of her sandals toward her suitcase.
Eliza tears her eyes away from the TV, some trashy gossip channel my sister used to watch on occasion, and scoffs. “I’m not your fucking maid,” she snaps. “If you think I’m going to clean up after you and cook you dinner like some sad little housewife, you can forget it.”
“What exactly are you going to do?” I ask, thinking of my mother at home drinking herself silly and gossiping on her phone all day.
“Two things,” Eliza says, counting them off on her fingers as she speaks. “One, whatever the fuck I want, and two, none of your goddam business.”
I grit my teeth and yank the zipper closed on my suitcase. “I get that you wouldn’t have chosen me for a husband, but remind me… Exactly why is it you hate me so much?”
“You’re a nobody,” she says, giving me a dirty look. “Why should I even bother explaining it?”
“That’s it?” I ask. “You think I’m not good enough for you because I’m not some bigshot like an underboss or heir to one of the families’ empires?”
“You really don’t know anything about the families, do you?” she asks, staring at me. “It’s not my job to fix that. You should have done your homework.”
Her judgmental tone makes me want to shake her, but I try to remind myself she has a reason for the way she is. She may look like she has it all, like a spoiled mafia princess who needs a firm hand to guide her, but her life hasn’t been easy. I’m the last person to believe the myth that money makes problems disappear. It only makes them disappear from the public eye.
“Then what is it?” I ask, bitterness creeping into my tone. “You had a boyfriend you wanted to marry? That asshole you were cuddling on the beach the morning after I fucking married you?”
Eliza just blinks at me a few times like she can’t believe I’m this stupid. “You really don’t know, do you?” she says. “King, you killed my brother.”
I open my mouth to argue, to tell her I haven’t killed anyone yet, but then I get it. I shut my mouth and turn away. So, that solves that. If I was hoping for a breakthrough with her, which I wasn’t, I can stop now. It doesn’t matter if I did it myself or if it was Little Al or Al Valenti himself or some random enforcer. My family killed her brother. It doesn’t matter which one pulled the trigger. It might as well have been me. It’s my family. We’re all the same to her.
And if I was going to argue, all I have to do is imagine how I’d feel about her if one of the Pomponios was responsible for Crystal’s death. Just thinking about it puts an empty pit behind my sternum that makes it hurt to breathe, and I know I can’t ask her forgiveness.
“Okay,” I say, thinking it would have been real fucking nice if someone had told me that before. Not that it matters. If anything, this makes my life easier. I don’t have to wonder or think I did something to piss her off. “Okay. That’s fair, then.”
She gives me an incredulous look. “Fair? Is that what you call it? Fair would be if I killed one of your brothers.”
“You’re right.”
She cocks her head to one side and studies me for a long minute. “Okay, your turn,” she says at last.
“For what?”
“Why do you hate me?”
“I don’t hate you,” I say. “I just can’t love you.”
She looks like she might ask further, but then the commercial on TV ends and the show about the Wilder brothers comes back on, and she shrugs and goes back to that while I finish packing.