Page 10 of The Butcher's Wife
Dom takes one step forward and wraps him in a bearhug, and my devil-may-care brother, who I haven’t seen cry since he was a little boy, hugs Dom back and sobs.
I wakeup in the darkness, my heart pounding.
The gauzy canopy surrounding me reminds me where I am, why I’m here, and not in my bedroom in Tampa.
Why Serafina is in the ground at Graceland Cemetery and not in her bed.
I clutch the blankets at my neck. The house is completely silent. No—I can hear noise downstairs.
Is Dad back? A split in the canopy shows the softly glowing display of the wall clock reading almost three in the morning.
Something’s buzzing in the room. I squeeze my eyes shut, fear wrapping around me like a python.
The noise stops.
I relax into my mattress a little. Then it starts again, and I recognize it. I want to let it die, like a wasp under a glass cup, but the moment the buzzing stops, it starts back up again.
It’s a monstrous effort to move my body, shift it until I’ve rolled off my sister’s bed, even to look in the direction of the sound.
Too exhausted to stand, I slide against the nearest wall until I can open the top drawer of Serafina’s vanity. My phone was destroyed days ago. It’s Serafina’s phone I find inside.
Unknown number.
I slide my thumb across the screen and press the cool piece of glass against my ear.
At first, silence.
A woman exhales on the other side.
I swallow. “Hello?”
“I know what you did.”
The caller hangs up.
The phone falls from my hand.
I sprint through the hallway to Rafa’s room.
“What’s wrong?” Rafa asks sharply when I crash inside, throwing the door shut behind me. He’s already reaching for the gun he keeps in his desk drawer and rising from his chair.
My throat doesn’t work for a moment.
Then—Rafa doesn’t need to know. I can’t have him risking himself for me.
The words all seem to tumble out at once. “A nightmare. A bad dream.”
His hand falls away from the hidden gun in his drawer. He scrubs his face as he lets out a sigh.
“You know…” He pulls off his glasses, folding and setting them on his desk. He’s wearing grey sweatpants and a T-shirt, and he’s got a bunch of papers strewn along the top of his desk. The computer screen is filled with lines of numbers. “It’s fine. Did you want to stay in here for a while?”
I exhale a short laugh, the nightmare already fading in the soft light of Rafa’s bedroom. Nearly three years later, and I’m still a little girl running to his room whenever I get scared. I straighten up, tugging at the tight black sheath dress I never changed out of after the dinner.
Rafa glances back at his computer, as if it physically pains him to be away from his work. He’d probably hand me a spreadsheet and have me check for errors if I asked to stay in his room, telling me how much math helpshimrelax.
He’s gotten so skinny since I’ve moved out. All of hisbaby fat is gone, and he looks so much older than I remember.
“Where’s Carlo?” I ask.
