Over the next few months, I don’t fall for Stone, but I do get used to him. I also discover the daily life changing magic of having someone who truly doesn’t give an eff-word in your corner.
My store returns all go into the back of Stone’s Cadillac for him to take care of while he’s doing whatever he does all day in his tailored suits. And guess who the phone gets passed to when a pushy telemarketer dials me up. I’ve also learned the hard way, not to complain to Stone about any of my cases.
He still doesn’t mess with capes, but one missing college student from my foster roster suddenly reappeared, complaining about how none of the local drug dealers would sell to him. It was almost as if he’d gotten blacklisted.
“More like Stonelisted,” I accuse Stone that night when we’re walking Stallone around the block. “Tell me the truth, it was you wasn’t it.”
He just half-smiled and said, “Got some ideas about how you could interrogate me. It involves a whole lot of you bouncing up and down on my dick.”
I ended up interrogating him all night. But I never do get a clear answer.
That’s okay, I guess. I enjoy the way we connect in bed. Over our crowded dinner table. During the nightly TV we watch on the couch. And during our daily dog walks with Stallone. After a lot of thought and contemplation, I allow myself this. Allow myself to enjoy him—the crazy, mishmash life I’ve mosaicked together with him, Garnet, Aunt Mari, Cami, and Talia.
Stone leaves the majority of the parenting to me, but I’m not going to lie, he is fantastic backup. He uses his unusually strong menacing power like a space heater. Often standing in Talia’s doorway behind me, when I tell her to clean up her room.
I refuse to put any expectations on him, but if he did stick around, I bet his version of, “You heard your mother,” would totally be on point.
He’s great with the discipline and occasionally with the feelings stuff, too. I find that out one Sunday morning, a few months into Cami’s last semester of college.
Aunt Mari always takes this day “off” and insists on bringing Garnet and Talia with her to church, since there’s “one generation in this house the Lord can still save.”
So Cami and I are rinsing the dishes after making our own breakfast, while Stone sits at the table. Fresh off his New York morning flight, he’s eating the plate of bacon and egg-in-a-hole toast I made for him, shortly after he came through the door.
Her phone vibrates right as she’s about to put the last plate into the dishwasher, and in typical college girl fashion she pulls it out to check it instead of completing her task.
Only to repocket it as soon as she reads the message. A little too quickly, if you ask me. “Everything okay?” I ask.
“No, it’s nothing.”
“It sounded like something,” I press, my social worker spidey sense totally going off when I see the way she’s looking everywhere but at me.
“Well, it isn’t,” she snaps back at me. “It isn’t anything.”
“Hey, watch that tone, Marino,” Stone says from the table. “She was only asking you a question.”
“If you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to,” I say, reaching out to rub her shoulder. Good cop, to Stone’s bad.
“But you gotta be respectful,” he reminds her with a squint.
“I’m not trying to be disrespectful. I just don’t… don’t want to tell you,” she answers.
But then she starts fretting her hands, leading me to ask. “Are you safe? Do you feel threatened in any way by whatever was in that text?”
“Threatened?” Stone stands up from the table and demands, “Somebody fucking threatening you?”
“No, I guess not,” Cami says. “It’s more like I’m confused.”
“Maybe we could help with that confusion?” I suggest.
Cami, hesitates, her eyes darting between Stone and me. “I don’t know…”
“Just fucking tell her,” Stone says, pulling out a hundred from his billfold.
“You know she’s only going to gentle voice you til you do,” he says, dropping the Benjamin Franklin into the cuss jar I set up on the kitchen counter. “Remember how she broke Talia when she had pinworms?”
Stone clasps his hands and raises his voice about a thousand octaves, as he trills, “You sure you don’t want me to take a look? You seem really uncomfortable. And we all want to make sure you’re comfortable.”
Cami cracks up, but I glare at him, wondering if all the great sex is worth putting up with a man who makes me sound like the pushy version of Snow White.
“Anyway,” I say over her laughter. “I’m here for you. Whatever you need.”
“I don’t need anything,” Cami says, shaking her head. “It’s just a stupid boy…but kind of not a boy. He’s a teacher’s assistant from one of my classes last semester. And he was, like, hey, since you’re not in my class anymore, want to go see Weird Science on Friday night?”
“What’s Weird Science?” I ask.
“Some stupid shit only geeks like,” Stone answers, pulling out his wallet again. “Rock and his geeky Manhattan U friends made me watch it once.”
“So he’s asking you out on a date?” I say to Cami.
Cami pulls one arm into her side, grasping it nervously. “To hang, yeah. Whatever.”
“Do you want to hang out with this guy?” I ask her.
“I don’t know. I mean he’s cool. He stayed way past his office hours once to help me figure out an assignment problem. He’s nice. I think he is. I’m almost sure of it. But I’m…”
She trails off. And though, I’d never press on such a sensitive subject, I can’t help but wonder about all the ways she’s finishing that sentence inside her head. Not accurately, I sense. She’s doing the work with her university therapist. But it’s going to be a long time before she learns to see herself outside the lens of what her father did to her.
So, I finish the sentence for her, “Wonderful. You’re wonderful. Also, funny and easy-to-talk-to…and so, so bright.”
“Double down on that,” Stone agrees. “And hey, yo, Cam, all guys ain’t like your old man. If they’re liking you right, it ain’t got conditions on it. You can go to the movies with this dude or whatever, but you don’t have to do anything else. Remember, you put that bastard father of yours in the ground. So, from now on, how far you go stays up to you.”
Not exactly how I would have put it, but Cami releases a breath I didn’t know she was holding until it audibly comes out. “Okay, okay, you’re right,” she says her voice going a little higher with excitement. “I think I’m going to say yes.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Stone says, grabbing a bag of almonds from the cabinet above the cuss jar. “And hey, if this guy tries anything you don’t want, let him know you have somebody in your life who can make bodies disappear, real easy like.”
“Or…have a clear communication about boundaries before engaging in any mutually agreed upon acts of intimacy,” I suggest.
Stone pops an almond into his mouth. “If you want, I can show you how to snap a guy’s neck, using mostly your own body weight.”
“God, you are ridiculous,” I say, shaking my head at him.
But Cami’s face goes soft as she looks between us. “Seriously, thanks you two. For helping me figure this out, for everything. I don’t know how to really say this but living with you guys is like having a mom and dad. You make me feel safe and like I can do anything. I kind of wish I could stay here forever.”
My heart melts at her words. “You can stay here. As long as you like. I’m not ever kicking you out.”
“Thank you,” Cami whispers. Then she closes the distance between us and hugs me tight. Like I really am the mother she’s always needed.
“Why did you say ‘I’m’?’” Stone asks, later when we’re walking Stallone after breakfast. “Why did you say ‘I’m never going to kick you out,’ with Cami earlier?”
I startle. Over the last few months, I’ve gotten used to talking with Stone over our daily walks. Mostly about light things, like the kids, the latest episode of whatever contest show we’re watching with Talia and Cami after dinner, and the Knicks’ chances of making the playoffs this year. We never talk about his work, but he likes hearing about the older kids I’m helping. And sometimes we find ourselves in deeper conversations. About my childhood growing up with severely visually-impaired parents, and his childhood growing up as the next don of the Ferraro family.
“Do you ever wonder what if you were the head of the family instead of Luca?” I’d asked him on last night’s walk, remembering how often Rock had brought it up.
He’d shrugged. “Rock did, but I was all good. Enforcing seemed a more natural fit for my skillset anyway.”
I’d shivered and asked, “And how about now that you’re off the pills?”
He’d gone quiet, so long I’d wondered if he was going to answer. Then he quietly says, “I like how you do that.”
“Do what?”
“Dig deeper. You’re the only who’s ever done that with me. Assumed there was something underneath. Sometimes it feels like….I don’t know. Like I was living inside a huge piece of cotton. Then one day you came in and got me. Just got me and dragged me out.”
Last night, he’d looked down at me over Stallone with something akin to admiration in his eyes.
But today, he’s walking almost too fast for me to keep up, asking me questions, I don’t quite understand.
“Are you upset that I made Cami promises about never kicking her out, even though the house is in both our names?” I ask him.
“No, I’m upset because you made promises to Cami, like you weren’t married to me.”
I scrunch my forehead, so confused. “So what? You want me to kick her out at the end of the school year? Even if she doesn’t have a job?”
Stone shakes his head at me. “How do you fucking do that?”
“Do what?” I ask, my voice pitching high, because it feels like we’re speaking two different languages right now.
“Assume the best and the worst of me at the same damn time? It’s like I can’t figure out what you want from me.”
I stop dead in my tracks. “You’re trying to figure out what I want from you?”
“Yeah,” answers Stone, stopping as well. “Why is that a surprise?”
The answer to that question is too sad to say out loud. The thing is, sometimes it feels like I’ve been trying to figure out what other people want since the day I was born. But no one, not Rock, not Amber, not even my parents, has ever tried to figure out what I want from them.
Don’t fall, don’t fall, don’t fall, I pray as I tell Stone the truth. “I don’t expect anything from you. Is there something you want from me? Something I’m not giving you?”
He looks at me for a long, tense moment. Then he starts walking again. No more intimate and/or pleasant conversation. Instead we’re back to silence, with me not understanding what’s got Stone so agitated.