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Tony
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My alarm wakes me up. I reach for Christy. Her side of the bed is cold. I go still. I don’t hear her in the bathroom. A chill comes over me. No.
I’m up and in the bathroom, nothing. I push open the door to the walk in closet. Closing my eyes, I open them again. It’s gone. The one lone box she kept is gone. Most of her clothes are here, but enough aren’t. She’s gone.
It’s there in the marrow of my bones. She’s gone, and she’s not coming back. I’ll have to drag her back by her hair. If she were smart, she would have left not long after I fell asleep. I grab my phone and check the history of the alarm. Midnight. She’s now six hours ahead of me.
I dress on autopilot and go down to my office. Even though I know it’s useless, I can’t not do it. I call in every favor I’m owed. She had to get out of the city some way. How did she do it?
***
Tony
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It’s been four days and I’m no closer to finding Christy than I was when I woke up the morning she left. She had liquidated her retirement plan before she came to see me, probably for her run after she killed me. As I was tearing the city apart for her she was walking out of a bank with almost sixty thousand dollars in a cashier’s check. Enough money to start over while still hiding.
If I haven’t picked up her trail by now, I’m not going to. I haven’t slept. It doesn’t matter it’s three in the morning, I go to the only lead I have—Lisa.
I hadn’t because I was sure she probably didn’t know. Christy wouldn’t have gone to her twice. As close as I am to losing it, I didn’t want to take out my anger on Lisa, but I have to be sure.
Lisa answers the door within minutes. “I’m sorry, Tony. I heard she was gone. I swear to you, I don’t know where she is. If I knew, I would tell you. It’s probably why she didn’t tell me.”
Falling onto her couch, I shake my head. “She never talked about somewhere she wanted to go? What about her brother?”
“No, and her brother and her aren’t close. All I know is he’s in California. I don’t even know what city. I’m sorry, Tony. I’m so sorry.” Her hand goes to my chest.
I look away from her, unable to take the tears in her eyes. I’m floating on the edge of sleep when I feel her hand on my cock. “No.” I push her away.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. Her hand is back.
I’m not hard. I don’t want her. I want Christy. Christy, who left and isn’t coming back. Christy, who whispered the word forever and was gone like a thief in the night, taking my fucking soul with her.
Her wet mouth is on me. I’m still not hard, still don’t want this. “I can make you feel good. I just want to make you feel good,” she whispers as her mouth moves on me.
Fuck, she’s not even doing it right. Christy’s mouth felt so much better—no, don’t even fucking think of her. She left and she’s not coming back. Whatever it was, I was a fool to believe in it. My hand goes into the fake blonde hair and I move her on my cock. Needing the release, needing to feel something after being numb for the last four days.
Only when I come pleasure runs through me for all of a few seconds. As soon as it’s gone, I hate myself. I hate Lisa for fooling me into thinking I could feel something. Fuck, that’s not fair to her, not fair at all. I blink once, twice, and drift into sleep.
When I wake up, it’s to find Lisa lowering herself onto me. I push her off. What the fuck?
“I’m sorry, Tony. I just wanted to make you feel good.” I stumble away from her.
I make it into the empty apartment I keep in the building. I fall into bed and wake up to a warm body beside me. For five seconds, I wonder if it was all a bad dream. It’s Eve, Joseph let her in. Closing my eyes, I lose myself in her. I’m a bastard. I have never been as punishing as I am with her. I don’t know who I’m trying to hurt, her for not being Christy, or Christy for not being here.
The scotch I have in the place runs out after the first day. Eve leaves crying two days after I wake up next to her. I put out a call for someone else and a new woman comes. I send her away the next day. Then a new one, and then another, until they blur together. None of them give me the release I really need. All of them leaving me aching for Christy, and I hate her, them, and myself.
***
Tony
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“Pop.” Dominic is above me. He smacks my cheek. “Come on, Pop. Enough of this. It’s been two fucking weeks. You can’t keep this shit up.”
“Go away,” I groan as I reach for the bedside table and the scotch I have there.
Dominic picks up the bottle and holds it out of my reach. “Pop, I need you. This shit with the Serbians is boiling up. I need you to watch my back.”
“You need me?” I try to push up out of bed.
“Yes, they called a meeting. I don’t trust those fuckers for shit. I need you there with me.”
I shake my head. “No meeting. It’s too dangerous.” No way is my son walking into a fucking meeting with those bastards.
“Johnny thinks a meeting is a good thing. Unless you can think of something else it’s going to happen.”
Fuck. “Let me take a shower.”
When I look in the mirror, I flinch. I haven’t shaved since she left. There’s a bunch of gray in my beard. What the hell was I thinking? Thirty years old, of course, she didn’t want to get stuck with me for the rest of her life. The beard stays to remind me.
***
Tony
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Three weeks later
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I’m in my office reading when my cell phone rings. It’s Alicia. “Hello, Tony. I hate to bother you, but I heard from Dante and Enzo about this amazing lasagna your mother and their dad used to make. I was hoping to get the recipe from you. As a surprise for Cesare.”
Such a sweet girl. “It’s not something we wrote down. I can bring over everything and teach you how to cook it.”
“Please, that would be amazing. Thank you.”
“I’ve never been able to deny a beautiful woman anything. When would you like to do it?”
“Anytime that works for you. I’m just here in this big house by myself. I don’t have anything to do, so whenever you have the time, I’m good.” Her loneliness is recognizable.
“Tuesdays and Thursdays are my lighter days. Tomorrow is Tuesday, that work for you?”
“It would be wonderful. Thank you so much, Tony.”
“It’s nothing. I’ll see you at three.”
The next day, with Cesare’s home being so far outside of the city, I take my own car and tell Vito to keep an eye on things for me. Whenever we go to Cesare’s or spend time with my nephews both Dominic and I go alone, without men. Even though going without security was more dangerous for my nephews, I believe it best to keep our world separate from theirs.
When she answers the door, excitement has her brown eyes glowing like sherry. “I’m so glad you’re here. This house feels so big sometimes.”
I look around as I follow her into the kitchen. The place is a two-story ten thousand square feet mansion with an elevator. “It is a big house.”
She lets out a sad sigh. “And it feels like it’s the middle of nowhere. I can’t complain. This is what I told Cesare I wanted.” Tilting her head, “Not this exactly. I said I wanted a house that wasn’t in the city. When I started looking, it was for a house like yours. Cesare laughed and said, no way, too small, and we needed more land for security.”
“Talk to your husband. He only wants what will make you happy.” I urge her as I set a pot on the stove to boil.
“I thought this is what would make me happy. For me to say I've changed my mind, it feels like I'm a brat.” Lines appear on her forehead as she shakes her head.
Leaning against the counter, I wonder if I should have a talk with Cesare, since it’s clear she won’t. “There's nothing wrong with changing your mind.”
She begins unpacking the bags I carried in. “Cesare already has so much he feels he needs to fix. I don’t want this to be another thing. Please let it go. I’ll be fine. I’m sure it’s just settling in. I don’t want to sound like I’m whining. Besides, I have news. It’s a part of why I called you.”
I can’t help smiling at the way she clutches her hands in front of her with anticipation. “What’s your news?”
“I’m pregnant!” Her happiness shines from her.
The pang of envy is pushed down as I open my arms to give her a hug. She hugs me tight. “Congratulations. I’m happy for you and Cesare. You’re going to be an amazing mother. You did a great job raising your little sister, the first ones are the ones you get all the mistakes out on.”
Stepping back, she kisses me on my cheek. “Thank you, that’s what Dante said. We just found out. I wanted to wait until we got to twelve weeks, but I’m too excited. It’s a part of why I wanted to get this recipe. I know I need to start learning Italian. Cesare is on me about the baby’s first language being Italian.”
I nod, glad. “I’m happy to hear it. It’s been important for Sabatinis through the years to carry on the tradition.”
“At first, I resented it—Cesare wanting to raise the baby speaking Italian. Then I realized it was stupid, and maybe there was a little jealousy. That you have a family tradition. That you had a family. For years it’s just been my sister and me. We didn’t really have anything special to us.” Her eyes dim slightly.
“I want to learn all the things your family did. And I would so love to hear about your parents. With Cesare’s father not allowing Cesare and his brothers to know them, there’s so much it feels like I don’t know.”
Over the next few hours, I’m surprised by how easy it is to talk with Alicia and about the memories of my parents and grandparents. I leave her with the lasagna and an invitation to call me again if she wants more recipes and stories.
I’m not really surprised when she calls the next week. I am grateful in a way I hadn’t expected. This time I teach her how to make gnocchi.
It isn’t until I’m about to leave she finally says what I had seen hovering in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I will say she didn’t deserve you. And that’s all.”
I shake my head and kiss her cheek. She blinks, and her eyes glisten with tears. “Ah, no tears, please. I do not deserve them.”
“You do. Only you won’t cry them, so I have to do it for you. I’m sorry, Tony.” She hugs me tight.
Her calls keep coming over the next few weeks until it becomes a habit to visit her every Tuesday and Thursday. We cook together, practice her Italian and we manage to keep the loneliness at bay for the both of us.
But that’s during the day. At night, I still burn for Christy. For months, I wish I had just killed her so I would never know this need. Gradually, the hate dies, but the longing never does.
***
Christy
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The first eight days away from Tony, every minute of every day all I wanted to do was run back to him and beg forgiveness for leaving him. I’m sure it will get easier, except as the days go by, it never does. I’m in Austin, Texas. It’s sunny and the people are nice. And I hate everything about it because it isn’t Chicago and Tony isn’t here.
I had taken a train to Indianapolis. From there, I flew to a small town in Mexico where I got the identification I knew I needed to live without Tony finding me. When the man handed me the paperwork and called me Christy Sabatini for the first time, I wondered what the hell I was doing daring to take the name I would have freely been given, if I had stayed.
No, Tony didn’t really love me. He only wanted to keep me to stay alive. I can live with the memories of the last three months. I’ll keep them and treasure them forever.
I tell myself this longing will fade, but damn it, it doesn’t. I’ve found a job as a home health worker and am settling into my empty apartment. On the eighth day, I wake up one morning feeling even worse than I have been. When I get up to take a shower, I faint dead away. A few hours later, the urgent care doctor congratulates me on being seven weeks pregnant. I faint again for only the third time in my life.
All I want to do is get in my car and drive straight through the night to get back to Tony. I actually start packing until I remember all the reasons it’s wrong. No, I would be wrecking his life. I have to stay strong, for the baby and for Tony.
Now that I know I’m having his baby, a new calm comes over me. This is a way of having Tony forever. If I had known, I never would have left. Deep down, I hate myself for walking away from him with the one thing we both wanted. I have no doubt Tony will hate me ten times more for not going back to him with our baby. But the baby gives me a different kind of strength to get through every day. It wasn’t really love. I need to remember that.