Slowburn

Chapter 102

        The weather was beautiful outside today. I don't know how this summer has escaped me so quickly, but it's already the end of August and Autumn will be just around the corner. The Fall season is actually lovely in New England, but I just felt as though I blinked and all this time passed me without my having much involvement in it. 

I guess there has been a lot of drama unfolding over the last few months. Still, I was determined to enjoy the weather today while I still had it. I'm not in my own home, nor is this my backyard, but I'm making the best out of a tough situation and sunbathing on the patio that surrounds the pool area. 

I don't have a bathing suit with me. That was not what was on my mind while packing for this place. Instead I just wore some light weight exercise shorts that are a bit small on me and used a crop tank so that my belly, shoulders and chest were all exposed to the sun too.

        I had no music playing, even though I had brought my phone with me with the intention of playing some. I just started listening to the sound of the birds chirping and it brought me back to a memory. 

The night, well really it was morning by then, but the time Renzo and I shared a passionate night together that ended up lasting us until the early morning hours when we could literally hear the start of the birds chirping with the sun. He'd held me in his arms to get some sleep together and I felt such bliss. I'd give anything to go back to that.

        In the distance somewhere I hear the faint sounds of a lawn mower, and once in a while when the breeze shifts I smell the fresh cut grass. How long has it been since I've been present in a moment like this one and not either looking back or forward at something. 

If I'm living in the now, I can feel the heat against my exposed flesh. The trickle of sweat forming between my breasts and lower back where I'm propped in a sun chair. The birds, the grassy breeze, the solid walls of a compound meant to both keep me in and other men out. 

I don't know where Renzo or any of the other Revello's are, and I don't know if this 'sit down' has happened yet or not. I have no answers, and so I stopped asking myself questions today.

        "Katarina?" My momentary bliss of living in the now burst when my name cut through the quiet. "Yes?" I sat up and glanced at the woman across the pool from me, on the opposite end of the stone patio. It was Claudia Revello with Prada sunglasses and a long open sun robe. I don't know what to call that article of clothing other than that. 

"May I join you? The weather is so great today" I heard the clicking of heels while squinting into the sun that was directly behind her. "Sure." I would never turn the woman away. She came and sat on the sun chair beside me, and gathered her dark hair up while tipping her beautiful face to the sun. 

I hope I look half as good at her age. I don't know her actual age, but she has two grown sons. I believe Rocco is 30, so she has to at least be in her mid fifties.

        "Have you heard any word from my son?" She asked without tipping her face away from the light in the sky. "No, have you?" I wondered how much Mrs. Revello actually knows about the family business, and just how often she keeps up with it. 

She doesn't seem like a woman who is clueless. I know the women of the crime families take no official roles in the mob, but I bet plenty of them have a hand in things we just don't know about. What's the saying? Behind every strong man is a good woman?

        "No, carissima stellina, I haven't heard from Milo yet" she answered me. "Oh, is your husband there too?" I never know what role that man plays because I've seen Renzo and Rocco doing plenty together, but I don't see their father doing much.