Page 57 of Sins of the Son

The mattress dipped as Cesare sat on the edge near me, but I didn’t look up. I just kept staring at the framed photograph.

My fingertips reached out to trace the simple black frame as if to reassure myself it was real.

I hadn't known he had this photograph, let alone had it framed and displayed in a place of honor by his bed.

I continued to stare at the image, not sure what to think.

Cesare’s voice broke into my thoughts. “Do you remember when it was taken?”

I nodded before clearing my throat. “The Feast of the Epiphany at the La Befana festival.”

It had always been one of my favorite times of the year. When the entire village was strung with holiday lights and filled with music and festivities. On the night of the festival, the children of the village would hang stockings around the piazza in the hopes La Befana, The Witch, would bring them sweets or a toy. In our village, La Befana was actually the Cavalieri family, who paid for the local shops to provide candies and toys for the children as well as all the entertainment and food for the villagers on the night of the festival.

The night this photograph had been taken, we were seventeen. Cesare, Enzo, and a few of their friends had escorted Amara, me, and some of our friends to the festival. I remembered getting Cesare a piece of carbone candy, teasing him that La Befana was leaving him only coal because she knew he had cheated off one of my exams.

He had retaliated by pulling me onto his lap and pushing a piece of traditional panettone cake he had been eating into my mouth, like grooms do to brides after cutting the wedding cake. I had grabbed another of the powdered sugar-sprinkled pieces and done the same to him. We had both broken out into hysterics.

Amara had snapped a photo of us at that precise moment. I hadn’t seen it in years.

In the photo, my head was tipped back and my mouth was open on a laugh, a piece of cake on my tongue. My lips and the tip of my nose were covered in white powdered sugar. Cesare’s head was dipped near mine. His right cheek was smeared with powdered sugar from where I'd missed his mouth. He too was laughing as he gazed at me with what could only be….

I looked up.

Cesare was watching me intently.

I looked back down at the photograph as my heart raced and my hands trembled.

Love.

It was love.

He was looking at me with love.

Unmistakable love.

Something was wrong. This didn’t make sense. Only a few months later, he'd orchestrated the attack that would send a very clear message about just how little I truly meant to him. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. This wasn’t the first sign in the last few days that I might have gotten this entire thing wrong.

I looked back at Cesare. “How did you get this photo?”

“I asked Amara for a copy the night she took it.”

“And you’ve kept it all this time?”

His gaze remained on me as he nodded slowly, as if he were studying my every movement, my every reaction.

“Why? Why are you showing me this?”

Cesare took the frame from my hands and looked down at the picture. “There is no denying that you are a stunningly beautiful woman, Milana, and I am personally looking forward to spoiling you rotten with more dresses, purses, and shoes than you could possibly wear in a lifetime, but….”

He handed the frame back to me and gestured toward it. “This is how I see you. This is how I will always remember you. This is my favorite version of you. You, in my arms, laughing with abandon. In this moment, your makeup isn’t perfect. Your hair was still super long back then and you have it up in a messy thing on the top of your head. You have powdered sugar all over your face and half-chewed food in your mouth. And to me, in that moment, you couldn’t have looked more beautiful.”

He reached out and cupped my cheek. “I fucked up. Again. I can’t seem to get things right with you. I will not deny that you deserve better than a half-assed engagement announcement, but I will deny to my dying breath all that bullshit that horrible woman fed you growing up. Milana, you are not trash, far from it. You are the most amazingly unique, exquisite, treasure of a woman I’ve ever known. And you don’t need makeup or designer clothes for that. Just you… and the most beautiful laugh I’ve ever heard. One that I hope to hear again one day.”

I swallowed past the lump in my throat as I averted my gaze, breaking the distracting contact of his hand.

Cesare sighed.

He rose off the bed and left the room without another word.

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