Page 139 of Always: A Legacy Novel

She made it worse.

It still hurt.

A lot.

At least her mother made her feel like she wasn’t going to shatter all over the floor. Not for the moment, anyway.

The old Marcello mansion was a huge estate that Catherine loved. It held her very fondest memories of her family—her entire family—because they so often gathered at their grandparents’ home as a group for everything from dinners, to parties. Sure, as they got older, and busier, the parties and dinners had lessened, but the nostalgic feeling she felt stepping inside the large front foyer was still the very same.

Like coming home.

“There’s my Catty girl,” her grandfather, Antony, said.

For a man in his late seventies, her grandfather barely ever missed a beat.

“Hey, Grandpapa,” Catherine said, taking his hug.

“Must be different without your brother at the house all the time, isn’t it?”

“He’s been gone for a month, now. It’s all right.”

Antony laughed, his face crinkling from his age. “I’m sure you miss him.”

Catherine winked. “I’m sure I do, too.”

“Go, find one of your cousins. Your grandmother is tittering about in the kitchen, hanging over everyone’s shoulders like she does.”

And Catherine would make sure to avoid the kitchen just because of that. Her grandmother, Cecelia, was a tyrant in the kitchen, but more so now that she had let her sons’ wives cook their big dinners. She had to make sure everything was perfect. Catherine could not remember her mother, or her aunts, ever complaining about it.

It was definitely an Italian thing.

“Do you know where John is?” Catherine asked, referring to her oldest cousin, Johnathan.

Antony’s brow furrowed. “In the dining room, the last I saw. He and Andino were playing with my old cards.”

“Papa, you should be sitting down somewhere.”

Catherine’s father came into the house, followed by Catrina.

“Oh, you better not start that nonsense today, Dante,” Antony muttered, heading in the opposite direction of his son. “Not too old to—”

“Don’t get yourself worked up, now,” her father replied, following after Antony. “I was joking.”

“You were not, and you know it. I only look old.”

“So you keep saying,” Dante said.

“So I know!”

Catrina rolled her eyes, and passed her daughter by with a smile.

Catherine eventually did find her oldest cousin sitting in the dining room, but he was entertaining his youngest sister, Lucia. John was a few years older than Catherine, and fully engrained in the family business.

Which was exactly why Catherine needed to talk to him …

Sometimes, John could be a little high-strung, or that’s how their family liked to put it. That’s how everyone had always described John. High-strung, hard to focus, and a little too wild for his own good. When he was around seventeen, they finally learned why John sometimes went off like he did. He focused on certain things like it was an obsession he couldn’t kick, stayed up for days at a time, or chased after anything that gave him a high. From girls, to drugs, to dangerous stuff. Anything.

John could go from being really low, to really high with his moods in very fast, and seemingly short, amounts of time. It didn’t only effect his moods, but also his behavior, and how he reacted to those around him and his environment. His manic episodes as a teenager had been bad, and they only worsened until the diagnosis was made, and medication was given.