Page 92 of Skin Deep

“You are my sunshine…” they sang together. “My only sunshine…”

I liked the way Keely sang. Like a bird. I liked the sound of the song, too. The words. They stuck in my head as I clasped Augustus’s leash to his collar and led him outside. The wind hit me and made me burrow deeper into the scarf. The cold felt like thousands of knives cutting me at once.

Amadeo noticed and came walking toward me. He went to take off his jacket, but I held my hand up.

“I am okay,” I said in Sicilian. “Walk?”

“We can talk inside,” he said, “where it’s warm.”

“Really,” I said. “I will warm up when we start walking. I have a thick sweater on underneath this one.” I tightened the scarf around my nose and mouth. The wind felt harsher against those spots.

We made small talk as we headed away from the house. We talked about Modica and our family, but we did not bring up Nonno. It was too painful for us both. The last time I’d seen Amadeo had been in the same church he’d been married in. The same church where we said our last goodbyes to our grandfather.

He brought up Mari’s pregnancy, and I told him I’d heard about it from mamma. The light in his blue eyes surprised me when he spoke about it. I could tell it pleased him. Maybe more than pleased him.

A smile came to my face. I was happy for him. He was finally finding heaven after so much hell.

He made a comment about Augustus reminding him of Vito. My smile grew even wider. I told him Harrison had adopted him for me. My cousin’s forehead seemed to pinch, and so did his lips. He had a face some would trade their souls for, and when he looked that way, the set of it was severe. Especially when he looked me over again. He did not have to say what he was thinking. I did not look like I usually did.

Put together. Everything in place. Everything perfect.

Because that was the only time he saw me.

At my best.

A part of me wanted to be honest with him. To tell him how I struggled with the same disease (yes! that was what it felt like to me; a disease of the mind that affected my entire body) that his mamma had. But when I looked into his eyes, I could not find the heart to tell him. To bring back hard memories for him, then make him relive them.

“You are looking for a reason to kill him, Amadeo,” I said in Sicilian.

“Have I ever needed a reason?”

“No,” I said, but I stopped walking, and he did, too. I looked up at him. “But he means something to me.”

“Means something to you, ah?”

“He does.”

He shook his head. “He’s on thin ice with me.”

“He doesn’t love her,” I said. “Your wife.”

I looked away from him when his eyes became hard on mine.

No?His expression seemed to say.He was just fighting for her.But I knew why he wasn’t saying those words. He considered me hardheaded. He figured that if he said it, I would fight for the opposite.

“You look different already, G,” he said. “You don’t look like yourself.”

I looked tired, but I was getting rest, in the best way. But he was mistaking me being comfortable for something else—trading in the life I had for one he felt was probably beneath me. When we were children, he saw me playing around in the dirt, but for years, all he’d seen was the perfect version of me. I could not blame him for this, but I knew if I tried to sell Harrison on him, he would do the same thing he thought I would do. The opposite. He had to come to conclusions for himself. And if he ever felt like Harrison was manipulating me to get to his wife—even she could not stop him from revenge.

“I am comfortable,” I said. “I am getting some rest.”

“You don’t belong here,” he said. “I’ll bring you back with me to New York. You’ll go back to Italy from there.”

Back to your yachts and your rich lovers and your life of luxury and beautiful things.

Back to a life that was slowly killing me.

Even though I knew my cousin had no idea of that, it still stung. Did he not think I was worthy of more than what money could buy? Amadeo had experienced so much life and death. He of all people should have known that the value of love did not come with a price tag. He also knew me from when we were children. When did we grow so far apart that he couldn’t see that I needed more? I was not as shallow as that.

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