Page 136 of Thin Lives

Emma didn’t respond, but he knew she heard him just by the way her gaze softened as she stroked Cross’s cheek again. The sleeping baby boy seemed fully content where he was, and so did his mother. Calisto didn’t want to pull Emma away from his son if that’s where she really wanted to be right then. Deep in his heart, he could feel a tugging sensation that demanded he be closer to Cross, too, but for the moment, he simply wanted to clear his head for the days to come.

He would have a lifetime with his son.

Emma had felt like hers had been prematurely ripped away before he stopped it.

“Emmy?”

“Yeah, Cal?”

“When you’re feeling ready to leave him be, Wolf will stand outside his door until he wakes up. I’ve already asked him to stay a while. He agreed.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“He’s safe, I promise.”

“Right now he is.”

“Forever, Emmy.”

God, Calisto hoped Emma believed it.

The water wasn’t hot enough for Calisto’s needs. He turned the cold water knob down a little more, feeling that fresh sting of scalding water hit his back and shoulders. It made him hiss at first, but it felt damn good, too. He wanted to wash away the day—the shit he had done. He didn’t regret it, and he never would, but he still felt as if he were in the mindset of then and not the now.

That was a problem.

So he turned the water hotter, and washed the blood from his hands. He prayed under the spray, his lips moving silently, and his hands pressed against the shower tiles.

There was one second—one weak, passing thought—when he almost wished that things could have been different. That maybe his life could have been different, and his paths could have been easier ones to travel. He only thought of that for the simple reason that he hated to see someone he loved suffer.

Someone like Emma.

Someone like his mother.

Someone like Father Day.

Or even his son.

Those were burdens he wore like a noose tightening around his throat. In one way or another, Calisto always ended up causing someone he loved to suffer in some way. Each time his mother looked at him, she had to have seen Affonso staring back, her attacker reflected in her own son’s eyes. And then with Emma, he had been too stupid, too weak, and too selfish to let her go when he knew he should.

Somewhere inside, he was scared that he might end up doing the same thing to his son someday. He’d never given much thought to children, but he hadn’t not thought about them, either. Now he had a child of his own, one that needed him to love him, keep him safe, and give him all the things he needed to be a good human being.

That was something Calisto could thank his mother for doing where he was concerned. Had she left his raising mostly up to Affonso, there was no telling how he would have turned out.

Terribly, likely.

Worse than he was. And as it was, Calisto already felt like a monster.

Did love justify suffering?

Would it ever justify pain?

Calisto wasn’t sure that fixing mistakes and giving futures that would have been otherwise lonely and obsolete was enough to make up for the suffering.

But he had chosen this path—it was the right one for him. Emma, his son, and his famiglia … how could it be wrong?

As someone had once told him, he would find his way back to the right path eventually, but it would be a journey to get there.

Calisto sincerely hoped the worst of it was over.