Page 77 of Thin Lives

Calisto shook his head. “I should go.”

“Stay.”

Her one word stopped his walk. He had turned, but glanced over his shoulder. “Didn’t you say that you asked me that once, and I didn’t listen?”

She frowned. “Something terrible happened.”

“I should go,” he repeated.

But he really wanted to stay there with her and that baby that made his heart clench just by looking at him.

“Cal,” Emma whispered.

His head snapped up from the baby to her face again. “Yes?”

“You keep looking at him like—”

“It’s nothing, Emmy.”

“Is it?”

“Congratulations again, but I need to find Affonso.”

Calisto strolled forward again, needing space and time to think.

Behind him, he heard Emma call out, “Maybe you can’t remember because you don’t want to know what you’ve done. Is that it, Calisto?”

He didn’t answer, but he was terrified that she was right.

Calisto had every intention of just leaving the hospital—he did. As he came to the exit doors of the wing, the one that would lead him back the way he came, the elevators opened down the opposite hallway, and out came several people he recognized.

Affonso, Ray, and another family Capo that his uncle was particularly fond of.

Calisto’s hand was on the door, ready to push it open, when his uncle called out. He tried not to show how warred he felt inside as he turned to his uncle with a fake smile firmly in place.

“Zio,” he greeted, meeting the men in the middle of the hall. “I couldn’t find you.”

Affonso waved a hand, dismissing his words. “No worries, Cal. They took my boy to his mother, and I went up to the roof for a smoke break.”

“It’s a time to be celebrated,” Ray agreed.

The Capo nodded as well.

Calisto paid them no mind. He was more focused on the way Affonso was looking at him, as if he was searching for something.

“Did you see the baby?” Affonso asked.

Calisto forced back the truth. “No, and they didn’t give me a room number when I asked.”

All lies.

“Oh?”

“No, I thought maybe I had the wrong hospital.”

Affonso laughed. “Only you, Calisto. Come, we’ll see him now.”

Calisto was going to refuse, but Affonso was already turning on his heel and heading down another hallway in the wing, far away from Emma’s room. He knew the baby boy—Cross, she had named him—was with his mother, but he didn’t say a thing as they came up to a row of glass windows showcasing plastic bassinets and rocking chairs behind the walls.