Free Dinner at Fiorello’s by Rick R. Reed Page A

though his very bones weighed more, such was the effort to drag them across the room.
    He paused in the doorway and thought, for the thousandth time, he should get rid of all the toys and kiddie books. He could donate them to a charity where some child could actually get some joy out of them, instead of having them lie fallow here, like museum pieces.
    He could turn the room into a study for himself, perhaps get a leather recliner and a reading lamp, a nice side table, and come in here and have a glass of wine or a grappa, read at night, instead of brooding over what could never be changed.
    He sighed and left the room, closing the door behind him.
    The girls lay on the couch, taking up the whole of it. Vito smiled at them, scratching at the scruff along his chin and jawline. Should he roust them to take them out for a final walk or leave them be?
    The answer lay in the total exhaustion Vito felt. They’ll be okay’til morning. Those dogs sleep like the dead.
    In his bedroom, with its king-size bed and colorful Picasso prints on the wall, Vito stripped down, tossing his clothes in the wicker hamper he kept in the closet. He sat down on the big bed naked, wondering if he should beat off, just for the release. But he was too tired. He didn’t need the help sleeping masturbation would afford. He lay down on his back, wondering if he should wake the girls, just to call them to join him on the bed.
    They would come into the bedroom eventually, when they realized they were alone in the living room, but Vito felt so small on the big mattress, as if he was not over six feet and more than two hundred pounds. Bed was such a lonely place.
    He continued to stare up at the ceiling until the shadows cast upon it became the silhouettes of two men, their bodies intertwined, moving apart only to come together again. Vito thought he had shed every tear possible in the other bedroom, but one or two leaked out of his eyes at the vision.
    He closed his eyes, told himself to sleep. Tomorrow would be a busy day, and Vito thanked God for that.
     
    There is a blond man standing in the distance on a beach. Waves lap at the shore, and sunlight makes the water sparkle. The man is kneeling at the feet of a little boy, who is turned away from Vito. The man is telling the boy something, but Vito cannot make out his words. The wind snatches them away before they reach Vito’s ears.
    The little boy turns around, and when he spies Vito across the span of hot sand, his eyes light up and he grins. He says a final word to the man kneeling next to him and then runs, filled with joy, toward Vito, his little feet beating hard into the wet sand near the shoreline.
    His small arms are outstretched, and there is happiness, pure and simple, spread across his slightly sunburned features. That happiness feels like a gift to Vito, consuming him and filling him up.
    Vito squats and stretches his arms out, anticipating the moment when the little boy will be in his arms, when he can lift him and swing him around, heading into the water with him.
     
    Vito awakened and looked around his darkened bedroom, feeling disappointed and disoriented. Alone. His heart was in his throat, and he was torn between two emotions, joy at having the privilege of seeing them both and despair at the knowledge that he never would again.
    The dogs, one at his feet and one lying curled up at his side, snored softly, unaware of Vito’s dreaming. He reached out for the closer one, wrapping his arms around her warm and furry neck and drawing her close.

C HAPTER F IVE
     
     
    H ENRY AWAKENED to bright sunlight streaming in through his bedroom window. For a moment his thoughts were free from the turmoil and excitement of the day before and he lay in bed, not thinking, just enjoying the streams of light that came in in angular lines through the plantation shutters at his windows. He reveled in the feel of the warm linens beneath him.
    He was hard, as he was every morning, come rain or come shine,