I do this now. I listen. I want to feel the comfort of her still-thick accent and romantically fluent words flow over me.
“Bless this child,” she whispers, each word flowing into the next in perfectly smooth Italian. “Give him the strength he needs to keep his spirit on this Earth. Bless his laughter and his smile. Lend him your bravery so he may fight this obstacle that’s been thrown into his path. Bless his sweet disposition and selflessness. Allow him to draw on your everlasting knowledge so that he may give himself everything, so that his soul and his mind may align as one to give him the power he so desperately needs. Lord, I beg of you to give your son all that he gives to you without asking you for a single thing.”
My eyes sting. Her ability to trust something she’ll never have validity of is overwhelming. But it’s like Father Luiz said to me only weeks ago. Belief is relative.
She repeats that, over and over, never faltering in her whispering. Never a single syllable of Italian stepping into the wrong. Her whispers are melodic and rhythmic. I’m thankful for every single one as her words continue to wrap me in their warm embrace borne of the kind of belief and faith I don’t know I’ll ever experience myself.
The movement of a body next to me has me glancing over. Drake. He’s kneeling with us, too, his eyes closed. And Alison next to him. Then Trent. And Bek. And Dev. And Mom.
Mom.
“Speak up, Nonna,” I murmur loud enough for only her to hear. “You have an audience, and we’re not all hard of hearing yet.”
I glance at her in time to see her smile stretch across her face.
“Ah, Noella,” she replies, her voice thick. “You-a all-a know what I’m-a saying. You-a don’t need me. You need-a your hearts. Believe.” She closes her eyes once more “Me? I-a believe that-a the Lord will-a bless-a Brody. He will-a give-a him his heart. Believe,” she repeats once more. “It’s-a all about-a belief.”
And don’t you know, that crazy old lady has a point.
Once you believe, you can do anything.
The door opens, and we all turn our heads toward it. The man in the doorframe is wearing green scrubs, a hair cap in his hands.
“I don’t mean to intrude,” he says in a thick Texan accent. “I’ll come back if y’all need a moment.”
“No,” Nonna says, standing before any of us despite her age. She’s facing I’m guessing is the surgeon before we’re all on our feet.
For as long as she lives, she’ll be the head of this family. That’s for sure.
“We are-a ready.” She pulls her pashmina over her shoulders and takes the seat closest to the door.
Devin hands her her cane, and she winks at him, but the lines in her face seem to have deepened since I saw her yesterday. Dad takes both of my hands and helps me stand. Then he immediately deposits me in the closest chair. Trent does the same with Mom and then Alison. Bek takes her seat next to Alison, and Drake stands next to me.
If this isn’t the strongest group of people I’ve ever met...
“Mrs. Bond,” the surgeon says, looking at Mom.
“Si,” Nonna says, her eyes going to Mom. “There are-a two of us. Antonio, move-a over.” She hauls herself up with the help of her cane and hobbles across the room.
I bite the inside of my lip as Nonna takes the seat next to Mom and takes her younger hand into her much older, darker, wrinklier one.
“We-a are ready,” Nonna informs the surgeon.
Twenty-eight years and, although my heart is so hollow, it’s oddly never been fuller.
The surgeon holds his hands out. “Well, Mrs. Bond...s,” he adds, glancing at Alison, too. “I don’t know what to tell you. Our intial tests showed the bullet inside his kidney, but when we got him on the operating table, it’d barely grazed it. Brody Bond has either skin of steel or the luck of an angel.”
“He’s okay?” I gasp, grabbing the edge of my seat and sitting forward. He’s okay.
“Yes, ma’am. He’s out for tonight to allow himself to sleep through the pain, but I’m gonna tell y’all that he’ll be right as rain soon enough.”
I cover my mouth with my hand yet again, but it isn’t enough, because those tears that threatened earlier are making their appearance. Mom grabs me into her, and I find my face against her shoulder, and Nonna’s hand reaches across Mom’s legs to find mine.
Find mine it does. And she squeezes. Hard.
Maybe there’s something to her beliefs after all.
Soon enough, every Bond in the room has been tugged in to this huge family celebratory hug. My eyes clear enough to see Alison reach out and tug Bek in. My best friend has tears in her eyes, too, and it’s an easy enough swoop from her gaze to Drake.
I think he’s the only one in the room not crying. But his smile? That half smile that only lightens the relief in his eyes and radiates the happiness he’s really feeling? That’s the best part of this post-Brody’s-okay moment.
And instead of joining us, he simply leans forward and touches his lips to the top of my head.
Somehow, it’s better than a hug.
Mom called first thing this morning to tell me that, since the bullet never hit any major organs and they’re leaving Brody to wake up in his own time, which they think will be any time now, they’re taking him out of intensive care and putting him on a normal ward.
Which is exactly why I’m sitting cross-legged on my office floor, in my yoga pants, with one hundred Post-it notes scattered in front of me in a pink-orange-yellow-and-green rainbow. Okay, one hundred might be an exaggeration. Then again, maybe not. Scribbling on the sticky notes is so addictive.
So is adjusting them so they make pretty patterns.
So far I’ve made a heart, a boat, and a cupcake.
There is method to my madness. Kind of. Each of the notes has a different aspect of the case written on them, and aside from my, ahem, procrastination designs, they’re all grouped together in my best shot at chronological order to see if there’s anything I’ve missed. Anything that might help figure this out.
I scan my eyes over each note, but the move is redundant. There’s nothing I’ve missed that I haven’t already looked at this morning.
I sigh and fall backward, throwing my arm over my eyes. Ugh. I roll to the side and reach for my purse. Yesterday’s mail is still sitting inside it, untouched, and I’m pretty sure there was a bill I should probably open in there somewhere.
I sit up again and pull the small stack out, removing the elastic band holding the envelopes together. The electric bill slips out of the pile, but my eyes catch the top envelope.
There’s no stamp. No postage. Just my name and the address of the building.
Handwritten. Hand-delivered.
Damn. These letters are never good in the movies.
Still, it has piqued my curiosity. Hell, it’s gone well above the peak. It’s the Everest of curiosities.
I slip my pinkie finger into the small hole by the corner of the flap and use my nail to ease it open. A piece of paper is folded in half inside, so I pinch the creased side and pull it out, but that isn’t the only thing inside the envelope.
Small photos fall out from the paper, and I reach for one as I open the note. They’re grainy and not the best quality, but what’s on them is obvious.
Two people are having sex. The woman’s hands are bound to a headboard, short, blond hair splaying around her face. The man has her legs hooked over his shoulders in this one, but in another, it’s vastly different.
I drop that photo and pick another up. In this one, the woman is attached to a large cross and the man is holding a whip.
In another, she’s on all fours and he’s coming at her from behind.
In another, her hands are bound behind her back and a tie is knotted around her neck. She’s on top of him, her head thrown back, and he’s pulling the tie on.
Holy shit.
These are pictures of Natalie.
And I’d recognise that smug face contorted with pleasure and the receding hairline anywhere.