“This is the land your father left you, Anita,” Romeo spoke after a beat, letting the sight sink in. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and I saw the ramshackle space with fresh eyes. Of course. The land itself was large enough for a sizable greenhouse, and thick trees hemmed it in, making it private. It would make a fine base. My fingers were numb as they fumbled with the car door. I pulled away from Romeo and Paolo, drawn to the land by something magnetic. I could see my father bent over, turning the dirt between his fingers as he squinted at the sky. The hairs on the back of my neck rose in a wave.
“Did he have a good eye?” Romeo asked softly, his feet crunching on the gravel behind me.
I sucked in a deep breath, filling my lungs with crisp, fresh air. My father had wanted to build his own legacy in this place, but now it belonged to me. My eyelids felt swollen with heat.
“I wish…” I took a shuddering breath. “I wish we could have done this together.”
For years, I’d grown the plants with his phantom touch my company. But this was different. He’d stood here thinking of the future, of me.
“Anita.” Romeo’s warmth heated my back. I allowed it. Paolo wandered over to the run-down cottage. He grappled with one board, and it splintered, coming away with a crack. His head disappeared into the dark opening.
“It’s a knockdown, but we can build another sturdier greenhouse.” He thumped his fist on the side of the structure, grinning when it groaned.
“Was this what you wanted to tell me?” I turned to Romeo, disturbed by the haunted look on his face. He reached out and caught my hands, holding tight when I grumbled.
“What I need to say will hurt you, Anita. But I don’t want to lie or keep secrets from you. All I ask is you listen until the end. And know if I could spare you this, I would.”
His fingers crushed mine as he tried to force desperate comfort as I balked. He reeled me closer despite my heels digging into the ground. Paolo jogged back, wariness making him stiff.
“Changed your mind about your dad?” he sneered, but Romeo quieted him with a blistering glare.
“Your mom never intended to give you this land, Anita, even though it was your father’s last wish. I visited her, insisted she tell me the truth. Did you ever wonder why your father disappeared? Where he’d gone?” Romeo paused. The warmth of his fingers tangled in mine soothed the rising roar in my ears. I’d spent endless sleepless nights tossing to that unanswered question.
“He worked for your family,” I bit out. “I always assumed he died while on a job. But no one ever told us anything. They actedas if he abandoned us. But he would never do that. What did my mom tell you? What lies did she spread?”
Romeo’s nostrils flared, and he stroked his thumbs over my prickling skin. The movement couldn’t stem the way my limbs shook. A rupture rumbled underneath my skin. Instinctively, I stiffened against the words he spoke next.
“She told me your father was ill; had been for a long time. He couldn’t keep down food. He knew he was dying, Anita, but he was too proud to seek help. Instead, he planned for his death. The only person who knew the truth about his illness, about where he was buried, was your mom. He made her promise to keep it a secret. When he died, he wanted to be buried right here.”
My world split in two, and the change was violent. The jagged tear made my ears pop, and a dry heave bore me to the ground. Ripped open at the seams by Romeo’s careful words. As my knees grazed the ground, he caught me, arms clamping tight. My eardrums swelled with the ring of my high-pitched keening as it shattered quiet peace.
My father was dead.
He’d died a long time ago.
In my heart of hearts, I’d always known that. But it was the betrayal of him hiding it that scored me deeper than any hurt I’d ever experienced. I clung to Romeo. His chest was a shield I hid against, as if it could protect me from the obliteration of my heart. I retreated, lost in memories. They flashed in front of my tear-stricken eyes, looking different now with the new knowledge I had. The forgotten meals, the constant fights, the whip-thinness his body had held. I had attributed it to an unhappy marriage. A dangerous job. I’d even pinned it on my mom, some dark action that she’d no doubt enacted.
But it had been a clawing illness that whittled him down into nothing. And he’d never said a word. Never let me say goodbye.
My hands curled in the dirt. Romeo looped his arm around my waist, the only thing keeping me from sprawling in the unforgiving soil. I didn’t care how I looked. Appearances lost in the throes of grief. Betrayal was as sharp as the bile climbing up my throat. Each pump of my heart deepened the pain, but there was also relief. It overwhelmed me. After so many years, mourning my father with no outlet to pour it into? The dam broke, and my tears mingled with the ground.
“I’m so sorry, Anita,” Romeo’s voice cut through the fog. He was a sentinel as pain engulfed me. I couldn’t find words, fingers scrambling nonsensically in the ground. I’d ached for my father for years, and he’d been here all this time. Every night, I had raged in the dark, unable to sleep with the coil of poker hot emotions riding my back. He’d hidden closure from me.
“W-where?” My words were wet with tears. “Where is his body?”
It didn’t occur to me to pull myself together. I was too far gone.
Romeo let me lean on him, and I clutched at his steel hold to keep from drowning. He snatched at my hands, safekeeping them against his chest. A wild idea fluttered on broken wings that I could prove his words wrong. There was nobody here, no lies, and my father remained as untouchable and perfect as I remembered him.
But people were inherently flawed.
I’d considered my father immune from that affliction. The truth of his death was a mirage, shattering into pieces. Each tiny shard sliced my protective walls to dust.
“Catch your breath, I’ll show you,” Romeo soothed. His hands swiped the tears on my cheeks. Easier said than done. My organs seized, responding sluggishly. My throat tightened around inhales, making me choke on the much-needed oxygen. The sun slid across the sky as I clutched together the broken parts of my insides. I wrapped my arms around Romeo, not even tryingto hide my need for his support. I didn’t even consider Paolo. Somehow, my husband’s comfort kept me from breaking down beyond repair. His warmth a constant as he muttered an endless string of crooning noises. Sounds bled back in as the ringing in my ears dimmed. The rims of my eyes stung. I was hollowed out, raw, a gaping wound. Tender to the touch. Romeo anchored his arm around my waist. I stumbled over the plot, the revelation robbing my ability to walk. We grazed the edge of the land, and I saw the excavated soil. My heels dug into the ground, my body knowing before I did.
I couldn’t.
My world had been annihilated, but I couldn’t see my father taken by the earth and made one of their own. It wouldn’t appease the hurt, only further erode the memory I had of him.
