I yelped in pain as my ribs screamed mercy.
They all laughed, and he quickly put me back on my feet. “Sorry.”
“And...” my father added, “Mr. Giordano has approved this partnership.”
Clueless to what he meant, I listened as Sal stuttered again, “L-Like how you two were?” He gestured at their suits.
Now, I was dumbfounded. “I am so confused.”
My father explained, “Mr. Rossi and I are best friends and partnered as a team.” His smile faded. “Until his loss.”
“Loss?” I asked, wondering who he was referring to.
The silence that joined the conversation was something I understood. We don’t like to speak of the dead in fear their soul will return to Earth, only not in a reincarnation sense. The idea of my mother roaming the Earth, lost, had me not mentioning her after my mourning. Elders mentioning her gave me peace because I believe they knew how to do it without bringing her back, and I loved hearing about her.
Who has my adopted family lost?
Sal said, “When the time is right, I would love to offer Mr. Giordano my gratitude.”
“Uh,” I looked to Sal to see if I should be offering the same. When he nodded, I repeated his words to my father and Mr. Rossi.
The men smiled with pride as if seeing how, even though Sal’s life was in my hands yesterday, there was no dominant character in our friendship. We truly counted on each other for different things. I guess you could say, together, we offered each other a balance that would prove to be beneficial time and time again.
Leaving Sal to his chores of mending a fence, I headed back toward the barn. Mr. Rossi and my father went closer to the Giordano home to relieve two other Suits.
In front of them, in a lawn chair, the daughter of Mr. Giordano lay, possibly unaware of the four Suits standing behind her off in the distance, making sure harm never reached her again. A blanket protected her legs from a chill, but nothing was guarding her mind.
I had been told Isabella was now twenty-eight, but she looked closer to thirty-five. Her eyes, even from a distance, were clearly vacant. That is why, when she spotted me, I was shocked that her head tilted. “Boy,” she called out in English. All her Suits—including my father and Mr. Rossi—now looked at me. “Are you the one who saved the Rossi boy?”
My English, even though becoming so prevalent in Italy, was not yet strong, so I touched my chest. “Pardon?”
Her eyes closed in a regretful manner, but then she opened them and lifted her chin. Her voice was strained, but she managed to say, “Please, come to me,” in Italian.
My stare popped up to my father, who gave a curt nod that said much; do as she asks but do not upset her.
Mrs. Rossi’s words echoed in my mind, “… you have not fallen from your path,” because every step I took, I felt my life alter. I felt myself get closer to something that would be epic in my world. No, beyond epic. However Isabella Giordano was connected, beyond the obvious name behind her, was going to become essential for me to turn into the man I would become.
“Do you know any English?” Isabella asked once I was closer.
There was such a sorrow present in her, I could feel it, even at such a tender age when a young man is in a selfish stage in his life. “Yes, some, but do not speak it often.”
Her long black hair shone in the sun. “Would you mind speaking it with me now? Maybe it could bring me the comfort that keeps escaping me.”
I almost hissed at such sad words. This Italian woman was with her family, where she should feel much happiness. I instantly felt that everyone around her, including myself, were failing. Unacceptable.
So, even though I didn’t understand why she wanted to speak English, I tried. My words were jerky as my mouth worked hard to produce foreign pronunciations. “Will you… correct if… I make… mistake?”
“Me.”
“Yes, you.”
A tiny giggle bubbled. “No, I was already correcting you. ‘Will you correct me if I make a mistake?’ See?”
“Oh. Thank you.”
Her large blue eyes squinted due to the sun behind me, so I stepped to adjust and block the light hurting her eyes. She sighed. “Thank you. The sun can be brutal on eyes no longer used to it.”
“Do you… w-wish to go… back inside?”
“I do, but they want me to get some sun.”
You didn’t have to speak perfect English to hear the disdain in the word ‘they’. Since I was sure her family only wanted the best for her, and she had horrible dark circles under her eyes, I assumed ‘they’ wanted her to gain the health benefits of the sun. “Maybe… you could close your, um,” I switched to Italian, “eyes?”
She helped me by offering the word in English. “Eyes.”
I dipped my chin. “Eyes.”
With a little scar on her upper lip, she exhaled more sorrow. “I think I am too lonely to close my eyes.”
“L-lonely?” I wasn’t familiar with this English word.
“Solitaria.”
“Oh.” I peered at the guards watching over her. “But you are… not alone.”
Her stare went vacant again. “Sometimes you can be in a crowd of many, yet still feel… alone.”
“I am s-sorry you feel that way.”
For some reason, my words pulled her from her distant thought. “Thank you.”
I nodded, even though I was clueless as to why she was giving me gratitude.
She pointed to my bandaged arms. “Are you in pain?”
I shrugged. “Yes, a little, but worth it.”
“Rossi’s boy was just a kid when I—” Her brows pinched as if concentrating very hard.
I didn’t push for her to finish her sentence when she stopped talking. But after the silence lingered, I told her, “Sal is my… best friend.”
A weak smile appeared. “How lucky for him to have you—” She stopped again but for a different reason this time. “I am so sorry. I never asked your first name. Your father has been so good to me.”
That made me proud to hear. It made me a little prouder of who my father was. “I am Angelo,” I looked to my father and smiled, “Bianchi.”
The surprise in his eyes told me how aware he was of my true ill feelings toward him.
The warm moment was short-lived when Isabella said, “Angelo.” She was staring off to the hill behind me where Sal and I almost died the night prior. “Wow, Sal has his own Angel of the Night.”
I was thinking back to Zeta and how she called me that when Isabella suddenly grabbed my hand, mumbling, “… the Angel of the Night…”
Not pulling away from her intense hold, my eyes raced to my father and Mr. Rossi, asking if I were in trouble, but they weren’t looking at me as they slowly started to approach us. They were focused on Isabella as if very aware something beyond my understanding was happening.
Isabella kept talking to herself, mumbling English words. “…the sky… clouds…”
When Mr. Rossi and my father tried to touch her shoulders, she recoiled from them and snarled, “Don’t you touch me.”
Their eyes widened, then raced to the other two Suits. My father jerked his head, telling them to go get help.