looked down at Gia, his skin pale, eyes puffy and red, she realized he hadn’t come to her dorm at five a.m. to lecture her about pre-marital sex with a college linebacker.
“Uncle Mike?”
“Cara, mi amore…”
She opened her mouth, willing the words to leave, petrified of what he’d say next. Mike had not called her darling or referred to her as his love since she was six years old. Something was wrong.
“What?” she said, pulling him inside. “Is it…Mama? Papa? One of the boys?”
“No, sweet girl…”
He didn’t fight her when she grabbed him, when she tugged him to sit on her bed, clinging to him as he fought to get the words out.
“Tell me…”
“Your family is well, Gia. No one is hurt in New York.” He grabbed her hand, holding both between his big fingers but didn’t seem able to look at her. “But…last night.”
Mike shook his head and Gia thought she’d never breathe again, not until he finished speaking, not until every word was exhausted. When they came, they lifted from him like a fog, clouding in Gia’s mind, consuming her reason. She only heard sounds, small phrases she pieced together that made sense of what he said.
“There was a shooting.” Every syllable he made sounded thicker. Each more muted than the next. “Kona was mixed up with a fella dealing steroids to athletes. Keira and Luka were worried and went to find him. They got caught up in the middle of something bad.” Bile moved up Gia’s throat and she went still, know there would be something bad, something horrible coming next. Something…impossible. “Luka…I’m sorry, but Luka was shot. He…didn’t make it. He’s gone.”
EPILOGUE
GIA
New Orleans Steamers
Corporate Offices, 2017
The figurine was small. White with gold trim. The belly round, the face grinning and sweet. But the wings were massive in comparison to the pig’s stature. They stretched out as though the small creature was ready to take flight. It was a symbol of the impossible. Sweet but fearless. A boundless hurdle jumper. Like Gia was supposed to be.
The gift had come two months from the last day she’d seen Luka. Uncle Mike had brought it with him from New Orleans to her parents’ lake house. Until then, Gia had promised she’d never go back. Her days at CPU were done, she’d told him.
“Find another water girl.”
“You were more than that, cara,” he’d promised and because she hadn’t believed him, because it seemed that Luka was still trying to watch over her, get her to jump those hurdles from wherever he was now, Mike had chosen that moment to leave the box. “This came to you at my office.” She barely glanced at it, more interested in the three fingers of bourbon she’d swiped from her papa’s liquor cabinet. It was St. Paddy’s Day. Even Italians can pretend to be Irish if it meant getting blinding drunk. “It’s from…Luka’s grandfather. He said the boy…he meant for you to have it.”
The gift he’d meant for her had come in a black box. A small, white flying pig nestled in velvet with the last corny note Luka would ever write anyone.
Gia-
The size of your wings doesn’t matter as long as you’re using them to fly.
Yours forever, - L
It took Gia a year to return to CPU. Another six months after that, she realized she couldn’t finish there. There were other sports management programs in other universities, none with uncles willing to put in a good word. In many ways, it was the best path, certainly the hardest, but Gia took it.
She cleared those hurdles one by one.
And now here she stood, staring out of the window of her new office, overlooking the city that had stolen so much from her. There were a lot of demons she’d never faced in New Orleans. There were a lot of goodbyes she never said. She hadn’t made it to the funeral. She’d never been to his grave. Gia promised herself she never would.
Her heart had been a great expansive thing that Luka let float into the ether with him. There Gia had let it stay. At eighteen, she’d learned life was a journey, the road paved through minefields and love was a gamble with too high a risk.
“Miss Jilani?” She heard, turning to greet her assistant, Cat, as she came into the office. “I have your schedule and the itinerary for this morning’s staff meeting. The owners will be by at noon to bring you to lunch and I have the tape on…” She looked behind