The sun had quickly faded under the trees and a darkness fell over Aberama's camp. There had been a small bonfire with drink and song passed around with ease. To Lucia, draped in Aberama's large coat while Charlie was wrapped in hers, it felt like she'd stumbled into a dream where the green was greener and the air was lighter, where her soul was understood and her troubles withered away in the safety of brightly painted caravans and a warm fire.
When Lucia was sixteen, Tommy would watch her dance and bound around the same flames on younger legs and look at him with a wider smile. Tommy wasn't there now, but the chorus of Oró Sé do Bheatha 'Bhaile rose through canopies of trees to welcome his new bride to the family, as was tradition.
Lucia was older now, and she stared into the fire filled with the same drink and songs warming her heart. She wanted to jump to her feet, feel the cool dirt between her toes, and spin around the fire to the beautiful music. Tommy wouldn't be there to watch her, but his son would be in her arms and that could have been enough for her.
Instead Lucia held Charlie in the warm folds of her coat as he slept. The fire had reduced to embers and the time to dance had long passed. Aberama watched her through the ruddy light of cinders and could see the moon glitter in the corners of her brown eyes.
"Nineteen years since I've seen you," he said. "What a woman you've become."
Lucia looked down at Charlie's soft face and scoffed. "Some woman. Some overconfident and prideful woman I've become." Her eyes drifted out to the shadows between tree branches. "Because of me, this sweet child might have been wandering through these woods, cold and alone and afraid."
"It's a good thing your husband sent us word to watch you then." Aberama prodded at the embers with a stick. He smiled. "Congratulations are in order for nabbing him. It took longer than Birdie and Mary had expected. I had hoped they'd be alive to see it."
"Might have been easier and quicker if they had been alive. Tommy's stubborn," she laughed.
"It might have been too easy. You and Tommy aren't meant to have an easy life."
There's much more suffering left to face, Polly had predicted. As a young girl, their forbidden love had been exciting. Through the years Lucia had fought for that love, been reinforced by it. She looked at Tommy Shelby and saw a man she believed in, could be proud of, and loved fiercely. But it seemed all the struggling and heartbreak leading up to Tommy marrying her had been the preamble to a much greater suffering, and Lucia wished for a break. She didn't want to hear you and Tommy aren't meant to have an easy life or there's much more suffering left to face. Lucia wanted to drown in the sleepy ocean in Tommy's eyes and be happy.
"Luce?"
She gently reemerged from her thoughts and met Aberama's concerned gaze. "Charlie could hear the trees talking. He's got his father's intuition. I hope my own child has the same."
Aberama snorted, shifting on the log he sat across from her. "I commend you for stepping into the role for his child, but motherhood...you're not made for it."
Perplexed and rather offended, Lucia asked, "Why not?"
"To you, children are a weakness and motherhood is a burden."
The care in his face was enough for Lucia to logically know he wasn't being cruel, but she felt slighted anyways. Her feminine biology was bloody furious. "I'm perfectly happy with the prospects of motherhood! I'm built well and sturdy!"
"Describing yourself or one of your husband's horses, now, are you?" That earned Aberama a glare. He decided to continue in a softer tone; the same he'd use to speak to his own daughters. "You're built for greater things than motherhood. Who'll advise your husband if you're chasing after wains? Your cleverness would be wasted."
"Puh!" Lucia dismissed with a careless wave of her hand. "How could I marry Tommy Shelby and not have his children? He — He's so—" Her eyes danced through the night, eyebrows furrowed in search of the perfect word to describe a man like Tommy. It eluded her entirely.
Still the lovesick fool, Aberama thought to himself. He watched her stubbornly chase after the words with so much concentration that she hadn't noticed her husband's car pull up the hill. Tommy stalked down to the circle of caravans with the dimming fire built at the center.
Stopping beside Lucia he coldly said, "Give me my son." Lucia's coat fell carelessly to the dirt when he took Charlie and disappeared into an empty caravan Aberama motioned towards.
Aberama turned to Lucia. Her cheeks hollowed, fighting back tears, fingers suddenly shaking on her knees from the cool breeze. Aberama pointed after Tommy. "And that'll be the father of your children?" he questioned skeptically.
That had done it. Lips quivering, Lucia, barefoot, got to her feet and disappeared through the rustling brush to the river, her coat lying forgotten on the ground. Aberama exhaled deeply and would have followed after to comfort her if Tommy hadn't stepped down from the caravan.
"Where did she run off to?" he asked, unconcerned, and lit a cigarette.
"Down by the river. Be gentle with her." Aberama Gold squared his shoulders to Tommy Shelby. "She fought for your boy's life. She was ready to have a bullet in her temple. Be gentle with her," he repeated.
Tommy pulled the cigarette between two fingers and wet his lips, eyes furrowed fierce with study. "I suggest you worry about training your son for the match rather than my wife, Mr. Gold."
Further down the incline beside the gently rushing water, Lucia didn't listen into the silence to hear Tommy's conversation with Aberama. She fixed her senses onto the brush of the trees and the rush of the river. Her feet were numb and sinking into the cold ankle-deep mud. As chilled as she was, she hoped neither Tommy nor Aberama would come down to her. She was listening into the water for answers, reason, and reinforcement.
Eyes closing on English forests, she opened her mind to the bright Sicilian hills. She imagined the smell of the orange blossoms, the warmth of the sand, and the twittering of the blue rock thrushes sitting on the carob tree. Instead of the cold mud she stood in, she imagined the warm grass underfoot. She wanted to go back home. Lucia concentrated hard on the pale sand and the blue ocean, but gnarled flashes of her brother's face invaded her peace until it all went black.
"I want to die," she whispered into the darkness.
It didn't answer back, but Tommy Shelby did.
"Aberama said you came quite close." He held out her coat which Lucia took with hesitation, watching his face carefully. "I tried to tell you not to go."
"If you knew that Luca would attack before I left, then you didn't try hard enough."
Tommy pulled at his cigarette with leisure and ignored the distress in his wife's voice. Between the fight, the vendetta, and the union issues, he hadn't taken kindly to driving hours out of Small Heath to fetch her and his son.
"Did you use us as bait? Is that why you sent word to Aberama?"
Tommy didn't answer.
"You bastard! Even for you," Lucia snarled, "that's evil."
"You were never in any real danger," he calmly deflected.
Her face twisted in disbelief. "Your son — our son ran to me, terrified, calling me mama. I could have died and another mother for your boy would have been gone! You nearly ruined your son to win this vendetta."
"I did it for my son!" Tommy threw the cigarette into the mud and advanced, a finger spearing toward her face.
Lucia's hand wrapped around his finger and threw it down. "There could have been an easier way! Did you want me to die? Would you prefer May instead? Or Lizzie?"
"No," he quickly denied. "I love you!" His shoulders heaved. "I love you," Tommy repeated again. "I didn't think it would go the way it did. Aberama should have gotten there earlier."
"It was Alfie then," she deduced. "He's playing both sides as he always does and yet, like a fool, you continue to trust him - this time at the expense of your wife and your child."
"I did have a suspicion," Tommy admitted slowly. He'd done it again - he had seen her too much as an extension of himself and trusted she had the same disregard for her own life as he did. Raising his sharp jaw to look above her anger, Tommy's eyes swept across the shoreline on the opposite side of the river.
"Is this what it feels like?"
His attention dropped back down. "What?"
"What it feels like to loathe the very sight of you."
Tommy took a step back and dragged a hand over his face. He fished for his cigarette tin and pinched it between his dry lips. His fingers faltered and failed to light a match. Lucia had to do it for him. "Do you still love me?" he finally asked.
"That's the saddest part of it all. I do still love you. My love for you is what got us into this the whole bloody mess." She stilled. "Do you know the last thing your mother said to me before she died? She said, 'call me mother and promise me you'll take care of our family.' I can't do right by her and take care of our family if I'm dead, Tommy. Share your burdens with me equally and honestly."
There's much more suffering left to face.
Tommy nodded slowly, at first, but again to show he'd understood and was willing to accept it, however unwilling. "Wash the mud off your feet. I'll carry you back."
Aberama watched through the small window on his wagon as Tommy came through the brush with Lucia in his arms. Tommy put her down gently and followed her into the caravan where his son slept, and Aberama shook his head with pity. The lovesick fool was won over again. As he would for any of his three daughters. Aberama wanted to protect her. It was too late and just in time. As long as she doesn't have his children, he thought, she'll have a chance at happiness.
Just as Moses parted the Red Sea, Thomas parted the crowds. Just as Zipporah stood up to God and saved her husband's life, Lucia was destined to do the same. Aberama didn't know how or when, but Birdie had told him long ago and he could never forget.
It was nearly noon when Tommy, Lucia, and Charlie returned to Small Heath and entered Watery Lane. Lizzie rose from behind her desk with a slip of paper, bypassed Tommy's waiting hand, and held it out to Lucia.
She looked up from the message. "It's Capone. He's agreed to talk."
Preview for chapter 15:
"Bona sira," she spoke into the receiver with the sweetest lilt in her voice.
The line was quiet for several moments before a rough voice cut through. "Cut the shit. None of these power games."
Lucia's eyes met Tommy's. She straightened in her seat. There would be no games. "Alright," she answered back in English. These Chicago men were even more gruff, uncouth, and tactless than she had been told. Even more so than Alfie.