Fifty years of Love & Secrets

H3. We were young once

Christiano Ferrante 41,

son of Roberto and Bianca Ferrante.

Married to Grace 42.

Father of Nick 12, Marlin 11 & Cooper 9 (and stepfather of James 28, Thomas 27, and Lizzy 20).

I put the car in the parking lot in front of the house and look at the closed windows. I sigh and shake my head. I know what I'm going to find, I know what the boys are like. Riccardo and Marcello follow me. It is quiet at the house.

They only had one job.

Be on time at the appointment to try on the suits for Saturday. Grace picked them out for us. "Your mother wants them to wear new suits and all the same for the boys in our family."

I have plenty of suits in the closet, James and Thomas too, but what my mother wants, or what Grace wants she gets. I’m not too proud to admit that.

"How often does this happen?" asks Marcello as I put the key in the front door.

"Too often, but I haven't experienced it before on Monday morning," I answer when we walk in.

I close the front door hard in the hope that they will wake up from the blow.

Riccardo smirks and rubs his hands together.

"BOYS!" I shout upstairs and start my way up the stairs. I still don't hear anything.

"We were once young." Riccardo shrugs.

"Wait and see when your boys are going to live on their own. Vivian has no girls to worry about." I tell him and the smirk falls from his face.

Exactly, he knows how we were ourselves, he knows how the boys are and he knows exactly what to be afraid of. His boys are already exactly like him. I can't say like us, because I was always different from Riccardo. Our parents really gave birth to four different boys. In appearance, we all look like our father, but we all have our own character. And I never was like this.

I'll start with James' bedroom. He sleeps directly at the top of the stairs. I bang on the bedroom door and throw the door open.

"James!" I shout and he shoots up.

"What?!" he shouts back. Until he sees me and then his eyes grow big. "F*ck, what time is it?"

"Too late," I answer with a sigh. I turn around and ignore the woman in his bed.

"No, don't go to Thom!" shouts James, and he comes after me.

"where's your underwear?" I ask as I look at him from top to bottom.

"F*ck" James runs back into the bedroom and I shake my head. "Tell the woman in your bed that she gets dressed and goes home," I call him after him.

Thomas has to be awake now.

Marcello smirks as he looks into James' bedroom. I shake my head. His kids will do this someday. And then I will be the one smirking.

I bang on Thomas' door and throw it open.

"Jesus Thomas!" I shout as I look at the bed and shake my head. Their father would be proud of the boys.

James comes running in his boxer shorts. " didn't I say not to go to Thom jusy yet!" he shouts.

Thom raises his head and groans when he sees us standing. He lets himself fall backward with his arm over his eyes.

"You couldn't share one with your older brother Thomas? James only had one," laughs Riccardo as he walks into the bedroom. I shake my head. I've never been like that. I've never done this kind of thing. I was not a saint and I did my fair share of sharing the bed with women, but never several at the same time.

"Five minutes and then you're downstairs and the ladies are gone." I don't have to say anymore, they hear from my tone that I mean it.

James and Thomas nod, without shame. I don't wait for my brothers but go down the stairs.

Grace: Do you have them?

Me: Yes.

Grace: Where were they?

Me: in bed.

Grace: do I want to know?

Me: No

After that, it stays quiet on my phone and I put it away. Riccardo and Marcello come down smiling.

"So this is it if you have older children?" Marcello pats me on the shoulder before he sits down at the table. Riccardo walks into the kitchen and starts making coffee. Marcello has the youngest children, his oldest is only nine, he still has years to prepare for this.

"Lucas was talking the other day about a girl who is in Terry's class." Riccardo starts and we both look up. "Terry is 10!" I reply and Riccardo shrugs. "It's very innocent, he liked her, Lucas said, and Terry told him to leave the girl alone." Riccardo smiles big.

I shake my head and sit down at the table with a smiling Marcello. That's new, Marcello laughing, all thanks to his wife Camilla. She really brought him to life.

We hear a lot of noise coming down the stairs and when I look into the hall I see how Thomas and James work the four ladies out the door. I shake my head for the umpteenth time, but I know that it is impossible work with those two.

"Coffee?" shouts Riccardo and the two boys call back. "Yes! Thank you!" – "Yes please."

"We brought breakfast." Starts Marcello.

The boys' eyes light up. "Really?" asks Thomas. I tap both of them on their heads. "Of course not! Idiots!"

Both rub their heads but say nothing when they are sitting next to me on both sides.

Riccardo gives both coffee.

"Maybe we should talk about it Thomas, that you no longer have a day off on Mondays." Begins Riccardo. Thomas works for him in the company.

"That doesn't matter, Riccardo, he chooses another day." Laughs James.

Sometimes I wish James wasn't as successful in his car business. Then he could not afford this lifestyle. James is too successful for his own good, twenty-eight, already has more money than he could ever clear out himself and more women in his bed than I have ever had. Well, that doesn't say much either, because once I wanted to go for Grace I stopped with other women.

Sometimes I think the boys are like that because the boys have been through too much in their adolescence, with their father, with their mother, and with living on the ranch, where half-dressed women are a constant, and despite my rules, I know they have visited the ladies.

But Riccardo and Marcello assured me it wasn't the Ranch. All three of us grew up with half-naked women around us, at the clubs we had in New York. Even with drugs, guns, and all the other s**t, we turned out great, okay good. We turned out good. Only one brother went crazy, I say a good score one out of four.

"Relax Chris, we've had this phase too." Riccardo puts a hand on my shoulder, but I shake my head.

"No, you've had this phase," I answer and point at him. "You, Marcello, Luca, and Stefano have had that phase. I've never had this, I respect women."

"Hey! We also respect women!" Calls Thomas.

James nods "They always come first."

Riccardo starts laughing and I take a deep sigh. "Hopeless."

Marcello starts laughing. "You were already hopelessly in love with Grace at their age."

James and Thomas start laughing. The boys get a lot of pleasure out of being budding teenagers when their mother Grace and I got together. Our scramble to be in love, to start a family together, and that with their idiotic father who came to visit too often unannounced. I ignore the jokes James and Thomas tell.

When I want to address them for the umpteenth time about their behavior, my phone rings. I frown when I see that it is a video conversation with Lizzy.

"saved by your sister," I mumble and answer.

"Hello, Princess," I shout, but my smile disappears when I see her tears. "What's wrong?" My heart skips. Immediately James and Thomas are with me. You can say what you want about the two boys, but if something is wrong with their mother or Lizzy, they turn into lions that have to protect their young.

"I had to take another exam." She starts sobbing. "I was already late and there was no taxi, so I called Martin, he came, with my suitcase, but I missed the plane." She starts crying even harder.

"I'm coming to get you," James shouts.

"I'm going with you." Answer Thomas.

Lizzy looks up. "No!"

"No? Why not?" asks James. "I can have a plane ready in an hour and then I'll be with you in five hours. Then we'll fly back to Cliffs tomorrow."

I'm not saying anything, but I know Lizzy doesn't want this. I heard her discuss it with Grace and I heard her ranting at her brothers the last time she came home. Let's say the scar on James' hand and on Thomas' leg is well healed and leave it at that. Lizzy can be very temperamental and throw shoes very well. Especially shoes with heels.

"No! You are not coming. I don't call you but dad!" she shouts. "Dad!"

It still warms my heart when she calls me that and she knows it, like everyone else, as soon as she calls me dad, I do everything for her. I can't describe the feeling, but mini-Grace, Lizzy, something warm happens inside when she calls me her father. Something I never expected to feel for children who are not mine. But the moment Lizzy accepted me and felt safe with me, my heart felt full. So much love. But I also feel a special bond with James and Thomas. I'm not their father and the boys never call me that, but I know they respect me as a father. James and Thomas mention it every year on my birthday and Father's Day, every year they thank me for being the father figure when they needed it most.

"No, because you broke all my girlfriends."

I apparently missed part of the conversation.

James starts laughing "Listen Lizz, I've always been honest with your girlfriends. I can't help it either that they-"

I push my hand over his face and push him away. "Enough now," I answer, James, nods and sits down next to me again. They both know when I mean it.

"Riccardo sends the plane princess, no worries. It is good that you have taken the time for your exam. I don't want you to rush. There is no reason to panic." I tell her.

"but the ticket." She sobs. I shake my head. "That can happen. No problem." I reassure her. Something inside me tells me that something is not right. Lizzy is never that emotional. But I'm not going to discuss that with her now, not over the phone and not with these men.

"I call Luca." Answer Riccardo.

"Thank you dad and give mom a hug from me."

I nod and promise to let her know when and with whom she can fly back. She thanks me again and then her face disappears. My princess.

"Well guys, go take a shower, you stink of..." I move my hands up and down "I don't want to know what all of this is about, but it smells like..." I try to come up with words, but it just smells like "s*x".

Thomas starts laughing when he gets up. "That could well be, one sat on my face while the other on my d-"

James pushes Thomas so that he stops talking and while laughing they walk up the stairs.

"Fifteen minutes guys. Then let's go!" I shout after them.

"sh*t, were we like that too?" asks Marcello, and I shake my head.

"one, we didn't live in one house together. Ricco and I both lived somewhere else and you lived with Lorenzo in one house. Rico and Luca were like that." I answer. Almost every weekend, sometimes during weekdays, girls were all over that place and all over the two guys.

At the name Lorenzo, both my brothers look away. It's a topic we never really talk about.

"Does he know?" asks Ricco, looking at Marcello.