He Let Me Wait for Nothing, Then Cried When I Left

After two years of waiting across distance, I was finally counting down the days until we could share a roof. Then the man courting me looked me in the eye, said something about steady work down at the docks where a man could disappear and keep his head down, and vanished into it.

For two years I lived for the half hour we got to talk each week.

Then, on a trip across the city into a borough I'd never set foot in, in a territory that belonged to people I didn't understand, I saw the man who was supposed to be loading crates at the waterfront.

Salvatore Lombardi, dressed in a suit that cost more than a year of my wages, one hand at the small of a woman's back as he eased her into a low black car that purred like something dangerous.

Her laughter drifted across the air, light, careless, the laughter of a woman who had never once had to wonder where her next dollar came from.

"Salvatore, are you still playing the dockworker for fun? Carlotta isn't like the girls in our circle. If she finds out the two of you have been bound two years and you're still tangled up with some wildflower off the street, she'll burn the whole alliance down. Her people don't forgive that kind of stain."

Salvatore brought the engine to life.

"Once the anniversary comes in five days, I'll end it. Carlotta wants her name lit up on every billboard in the city to mark it. There's no hiding it anyway."

I wiped my eyes, packed every feeling back down where it belonged, and told my mother yes. I'd let her introduce me to the surgeon's son.

But later, I would hear that Salvatore had given up everything, walked away from the alliance with nothing, severed every obligation of blood and honor, shown up covered in blood, all to earn the chance to bind himself to me.

The exhaust from the car drifted back and stung my eyes until they watered.

I lifted my hand and sent a message to the Salvatore on the other side of the screen.

When do you finish at the docks?

Silence on the other end.

In the car, Salvatore glanced at his phone, then tossed it onto the seat.

Watching him drive away into the heart of a world I'd never been allowed to see, I felt my grip on my phone tighten and tighten, my breath slipping out of my control. My thumb found the thin silver band on my right hand, my father's ring, and turned it without my knowing.

I refused to give up and sent another message. Still nothing.

I scrolled slowly up the thread. The whole screen was green.

Over two years of days and nights, I'd sent Salvatore more than ten thousand messages.

He'd answered maybe a few dozen.

And on those scraps of love, I'd held myself together until now.

I searched the name Carlotta. The very first result said it all.

Celebrated jeweler weds the young heir of the Lombardi bloodline. Two great houses, one perfect match.

The date: the day after I watched Salvatore leave for the waterfront.

He'd told me goodbye, walked into the night, and gone straight into his union with Carlotta Ferraro.

My phone rang. I covered the screen, then slid my hand away inch by inch, and when I saw my mother's name pulsing there, something in me went cold.

"Gianna Russo, when are you coming home? How long are you going to keep waiting on that man?"

I forced the ache back down. The tears fell without a sound.

"Mom, I'm coming home. I'll meet him, like you said. I can't keep doing this."

She hung up overjoyed. I sank into memory.

All these years, worried the dock work was hard on him, that the cold off the water got into his bones, I'd scrimped to buy Salvatore blankets and warm clothes, and after he turned me down again and again, I just started wiring cash straight to his account, tribute paid to a man who never needed it.

Only now did I see it clearly: all that money put together wasn't worth the watch on his wrist.

I watched the screen light up and go dark again, and drifted, hollow, back to the rented rooms that were supposed to be ours.

I pulled the cardboard box out from under the bed and opened one letter after another.

From the long-distance days to the night he left for the docks, all the way to now. One thousand eight hundred and twenty-five days together.

These hundreds of letters were what made his love feel like it was right there beside me.

Even when Yara said you could find the exact same lines printed in any cheap paperback, I told myself he just wasn't good with words.

There were only a handful of photos on the wall. All those years of love had been a one-woman show.

Salvatore came in road-worn, dragging a big suitcase, nuzzling against my hand, a thread of complaint in his voice.

"Gianna, I told you I got off early. Why didn't you come meet me?"

His thumb moved, slow, along the inside of a band on his finger I had never been meant to see, turning it as though he could twist the truth away.

Feeling the warmth in his palm, my tears fell all at once.

This love was never real. Just a dream Salvatore had spun on a whim, and I had only five days left to feel it.

He'd decided how we ended long ago.

The anger in my chest wouldn't rise and wouldn't settle. I reached up to touch his face, but my hand fell back, useless, and the dark closed over me.

Somewhere in the haze I felt Salvatore panic, felt him scoop me up and run from the building, shouting my name over and over.

When I came to again, he had the Family's quiet physician pinned by the collar.

"She was perfectly fine. Why would she pass out? If you can't find out what's wrong, every last one of you can get out."

He said it low, the way men in his world said things they meant. I tugged at the hem of his shirt and forced the words out.

"Don't take it out on the doctor. I've just been too busy lately. I forgot to eat."

Salvatore let out a breath.

The handle turned softly, and a woman walked in, every strand of her polished, every stone on her hands worth more than the room. Her face was full of confusion.

"Salvatore, who's this?"

His hand dropped mine in an instant. I recognized her before he could answer.

Carlotta Ferraro. The celebrated jeweler whose name opened doors in every Family from here to the coast.

My boyfriend's wife.

I dragged a weak smile onto my face.

"Hello. I fainted on the street just now, and this gentleman was kind enough to help me."

The tension went out of her, and she walked straight out.

For the first time in my life I hated having good eyesight. The report in her hand said she was pregnant.

Salvatore opened his mouth, and it was a long moment before anything came.

"Gianna, why don't you ask me anything?"

I shook my head, meek, and gave him a sweet smile.

"I trust that you have your reasons."

If all of it was a dream, I would rather it stay a beautiful one all the way to the end.

Salvatore blew on the broth one of his men had carried up, and as he bent toward me the couples' ring on its chain swung free at his collar. In the sports car, his neck had been bare.

I looked into his eyes and laughed, soft and light.

"Salvatore. Thank you."

He tilted his head, as if he hadn't understood. His thumb moved, slow, to the band hidden against his shirt, turning it the way a man does when he's deciding how much truth a room can hold.

Thank you for acting this out with me. Thank you for playing your part so well.

A nurse knocked.

"Mr. Lombardi, your wife is ready for her prenatal exam."

His face changed in a heartbeat. He turned to look at me.

I yawned and rolled away from him.

"I'm so tired. Salvatore, let me sleep a little."

He let out a breath, pressed a kiss to my forehead, and slipped out of the room on quiet feet, an enforcer falling in behind him at the door without a word.

The warm tears soaked into the blanket, unchecked now.

And I couldn't hold back any longer. I slipped out after him, careful and quiet.

Around the corner, Carlotta was confronting him.

Salvatore sounded worn down.

"It'll be over in a few days. Carlotta, just wait a little longer. I'll explain everything to you."

She flung a sheaf of paper into his face and laughed, cold. Then she slid a ring from her finger and set it down on the windowsill beside her with a single deliberate click.

"And here the whole Cosa Nostra thought you kept yourself clean. Turns out you just have a taste for weeds. She could work her whole life and not earn what one bathroom in our house cost. She isn't worth you."

The pages scattered across the floor, and I saw them. Dense with our past, all of it.

Falling in love in college, scraping by on part-time work, splitting a single ice cream cone and so happy doing it.

Whatever sweetness was still in my mouth, the truth had already washed it away.

Salvatore said nothing. Carlotta was already gone, the ring left behind on the sill.

He bent and gathered the pages one by one, his thumb tracing a photo of the two of us.

I fled back to the room, undone, only to find Carlotta already inside, waiting.

She dropped a banded stack of cash and the pregnancy report on the floor.

"I'm having his child. So you'll stay out of our family, won't you?"

"This is more than you'll earn in a lifetime. Take it and go. Think of it as me buying back all these years of yours."

I gathered up every bit of strength I had to pick up the cash, my voice barely there. Under the blanket my thumb found the thin silver band my father left me, turning it, turning it.

"Fine."

After she left, I drafted my notice and sent it to the man I worked for.

That evening Salvatore packed everything up and checked me out, bundling me into so many layers I could barely move.

"Wear more, then you won't get sick. You scared me, you know that?"

"When I watched you go down today, I kept thinking. All these years I wasn't here. Is this how you got through being sick, every single time, alone?"

"I'm a real piece of garbage. I should've thought about you more back then. I never should've gone to work those docks."

I caught his hand and shook my head, saying nothing.

"No. I supported every decision you made."

That included leaving.

Back in my cramped little walk-up, I sank into a heavy, fevered sleep.

Somewhere at the edge of it I caught Salvatore and another man talking low, the way men in that world always talked, half their meaning buried under the rest.

"You've got patience, Lombardi. A one-room flat this cramped, and you can actually stand to be here?"

"Heard you're about to wrap it up? Then how about I take her off your hands. She's hurting right now, easiest time to slip in and lock it down."

"Works out for me. Never had a sweet, clean type before, the kind who knows nothing about the life. Good for a change of taste."

Cigarette smoke spread through the air, thick and slow. Salvatore stroked my hair.

"Lock her down if you can."

Then his fingers found the wet on my face.

He pulled me in fast and kissed the tears away.

"What's wrong, Gianna?"

I wound my arms around his neck and pressed myself a little deeper into him.

"A dream. I dreamed you didn't want me anymore."

His body went rigid all at once, his throat working. His thumb turned slow against something on his other hand, a small motion in the dark, twisting like he could twist the truth away.

"You're hungry, aren't you? Let's eat, okay?"

I heard the dodge in it, and the storm inside me settled into something flat and still.

My fingers tightened on the hem of his shirt.

"Can I have a meal with your family?"

He had no answer. He only gave way when he saw the red creeping into my eyes.

At a corner market I loaded up on fruit and small gifts.

Salvatore sighed that it was far too much, but I stubbornly set all of it in the car anyway.

The car stopped outside a plain little house, nothing about it whispering of money or blood, and there I met his family.

A simple, ordinary couple. They saw the gifts in my hands and welcomed me in, delighted.

Salvatore busied himself in the kitchen while I sat on the couch and listened to the woman share funny stories from his childhood.

The boy in those stories had grown up in a quiet neighborhood, far from any name worth fearing.

That was not the life lived by a Salvatore polished from head to toe, the one who moved through a room like he owned the air in it.

We ate and talked and watched television, like any ordinary family.

His phone rang sharp and urgent, and when he stepped outside to take it, I followed under the excuse of washing the fruit.

He was frowning.

"Carlotta, can you stop pushing? When the time comes I'll just say my parents don't approve, and we break it off. That's all!"

Carlotta's voice came back, cold and mocking, the voice of a woman bred to a name that made men lower their eyes.

"Since when do you have this kind of patience? You're going to stage a whole disgrace too?"

The fruit slipped from my hands and hit the ground. He hung up, rushed to my side, and pushed my cut, bleeding finger into his mouth to suck it clean.

It was the trick I'd taught him years ago. Some habits carve themselves into the bone.

In the moment of parting, that sound was deafening.

He guided me to the couch to rest and went to wash the fruit himself.

A message dropped onto my phone.

Didn't you take the cash already?! Without him, how am I supposed to live, me and the child?! Would all of you be satisfied if I just died?

The phone weighed a thousand pounds, dragging at me until I couldn't breathe.

Why was my love driving someone else to die?

Salvatore slipped a strawberry between my lips and asked, puzzled, what was wrong. I shook my head and said nothing.

He wiped my tears away, gently.

"Is it your time of the month? You've turned into such a crybaby lately."

"From now on I won't let you cry."

After saying goodbye to the couple, I stood there, dazed, and watched that door swing shut in front of me.

If only the story could have ended right there.

Salvatore dropped me home and went to deal with something he called an interview.

And then a text came, and I went to the lounge it named, one of those dim places the Families used and the rest of the city pretended not to see.

Through the gap in the private-room door, I could see the hard lines of Salvatore's body.

And on him sat Carlotta, half-undressed, her face flushed.

When he used to be on me, he was all force, leaving me unable to get out of bed. When I said I was tired, he'd only kiss my back and tell me he loved me, over and over.

Now his movements were tender, like the most devout believer at an altar.

Carlotta let out a soft sound, her fingers sliding into his hair.

His mouth pressed to her collarbone.

The low, broken breaths drifted out of the room. I tore the necklace from my throat and clenched it tight, its sharp edge slicing open my palm, blood dripping to the floor.

He tipped his head back to look at her.

"What is there for you to worry about? A trash bag you use once and throw away. How could that ever compare to you?"

Carlotta saw me at the door first.

She took Salvatore's hand.

"Salvatore, do you still remember this moon tattoo?"

He answered without a flicker.

"That's your nickname, isn't it. Moon."

Carlotta lifted her left hand, the sun inked on her wrist sharp and impossible to miss.

"That's right. We were born to circle each other."

Years ago, Salvatore had shown off his own tattoo, his voice warm with laughter, and it still echoed in my ears.

"Gianna, you're my moon. Always bright, always shining."

The phone slipped from my hand and clattered against the floor, sharp and clear.

Salvatore knew something was wrong. He shoved Carlotta aside and came out.

The matched necklace on the floor stirred something half-familiar in him, until he pulled the other half from his own pocket, the piece that locked into it.

His pupils shrank to points as he stared at the bright red on the floor, and he scrambled for his phone.

The number that used to answer with a cheerful ring gave back only a cold electronic tone.

Then the conversation he'd just had with Carlotta came back to him.

He swayed where he stood.

Down the corridor a server came running, shouting.

There's been a car accident downstairs! A girl got thrown into the air!