Chapter 86 Marco Recovers

Chapter 86 Marco Recovers
Marco decided on the second morning that he was well enough to hold court.

He had established himself in the main sitting room with a blanket across his lap that he hadn't asked for and a cup of tea he hadn't made and a position on the sofa that suggested he had been there for years and intended to remain indefinitely. By nine in the morning two of the household staff had already been through to check on him and Elena had brought food he hadn't requested and Biscuit had somehow migrated from the library and was sitting beside him with the proprietary ease of a cat who recognized someone who would tolerate being used as a cushion.

I found him there at half past nine with the blanket and the cat and an expression of complete unashamed satisfaction.

"You look comfortable," I said.

"I am in significant pain," he said immediately. "My arm is extremely troubling. The doctors were very concerned."

"The doctors cleared you for light activity yesterday," I said.

"Light activity," he said. "Not no-activity. There is an important distinction." He adjusted the blanket. "Sitting and receiving visitors is very light activity."

I sat in the chair across from him and looked at him properly in the morning light. He was bruised along the left side of his face in a way that had gone from angry red to deep purple overnight and the arm in the sling was held carefully even when he was pretending he had forgotten about it. He was also considerably paler than his usual version and the energy he was projecting was being projected deliberately, the cheerful insufferable Marco turned up because the alternative was letting people see how much the previous forty eight hours had actually cost him.

I understood that completely.

"Tell me something embarrassing about Dante," I said.

His face lit up with the specific joy of a man who had been waiting his entire life for exactly this invitation.

"How much time do you have," he said.

"All morning," I said.

He settled back against the cushions and began.

He told me about Dante at fifteen attempting to learn to drive in the estate grounds and reversing into the fountain with such precision that it looked deliberate, which it was not. He told me about Dante at seventeen developing a brief and passionate interest in cooking that had lasted exactly three weeks and produced one remarkable dinner and four complete disasters that Elena still refused to discuss in specific terms. He told me about Dante at nineteen being talked into attending a formal event by their mother and spending the entire evening in the corner with a book he had hidden in his jacket because the conversation had exhausted him within twenty minutes.

"He still does that," I said.

"He has never stopped doing that," Marco said. "The book is just metaphorical now. He is still in the corner. He has just learned to look like he is participating."

I laughed and Marco looked pleased with himself in the way he always looked pleased with himself when something landed correctly.

Dante appeared in the doorway at eleven.

He looked at Marco on the sofa with the blanket and the cat and the expression of a man who had been managing his brother for twenty seven years and had arrived at a settled and permanent peace with the fact that this was simply what Marco was.

"You should be resting," he said.

"I am resting," Marco said. "This is resting. Mia is here. We are talking. It is extremely restful."

"You have been talking for two hours," Dante said.

"Therapeutic conversation," Marco said. "The doctors recommended it."

"The doctors recommended rest and limited activity," Dante said.

"Conversation is limited activity," Marco said. "My arm is not involved."

Dante looked at me.

I pressed my lips together and said nothing because getting involved in this particular dynamic felt inadvisable.

He came into the room and sat in the chair beside mine and looked at his brother with the resigned affection of a man who had spent his entire adult life being responsible for everything and had never once managed to make Marco take any of it seriously and had stopped trying somewhere around Marco's twentieth birthday.

"The blanket," Dante said.

"What about it," Marco said.

"Elena brought it," Dante said.

"Elena was concerned about my comfort," Marco said.

"You asked her for it," Dante said.

"I expressed that I was cold," Marco said. "Elena responded appropriately."

"You told her you were freezing and that the cold was affecting your recovery," Dante said.

"That is an accurate description of what I communicated," Marco said.

"It is twenty two degrees in this house," Dante said.

"I am recovering," Marco said. "My temperature regulation is compromised."

Dante looked at him for a long moment with the expression of a man constructing a response and then deciding it wasn't worth the energy.

"Fine," he said.

"Thank you," Marco said pleasantly.

They looked at each other.

Then Dante said "You are not having dinner in here tonight."

"I may need to," Marco said.

"You are walking to the dining room under your own power," Dante said.

"My arm," Marco said.

"Is not your legs," Dante said.

"The psychological impact of the injury," Marco said, "affects the whole body."

"Marco," Dante said.

"Dante," Marco said.

"Dining room," Dante said.

"We will see how I feel," Marco said.

"Dining room," Dante said again, in a tone that had no flexibility in it.

"Fine," Marco said. "But I want the good chair."

"You always want the good chair," Dante said.

"Because it is the good chair," Marco said. "There is a reason it is called that."

I looked at the two of them going back and forth across the sitting room and something started in my chest that I couldn't contain and it came out as a laugh, a real one, the kind that arrived before anything could be done about it and kept going past the point where I could have stopped it.

Both of them stopped talking.

Both of them looked at me.

I laughed harder.

Marco's mouth started moving and then he was laughing too, shoulders shaking, good hand pressed to his ribs, and then Dante, slowly and with the specific reluctance of a man who had been trying to maintain a position, let the corner of his mouth go and then the rest of it and the sitting room filled with the three of us laughing at nothing and everything and the estate around us warm and quiet and entirely itself.

It was the best sound the house had made in a very long time.