Page 79 of Thus with a Kiss I Die

Although . . . two men in my bedroom, one after another . . .

What had the family given me that I was hallucinating?

Lysander observed me looking at him and the babe. “He’s so tiny!” he said in awe.

Maybe not a hallucination. Maybe an apparition, like Elder?

Don’t even think it, Rosie.“Another two months in the womb would have been beneficial.” I sounded like Friar Laurence, and that wasn’t whom I wanted Lysander to think of when he saw me. “What’s his name?”

“Adino!” Cesario shouted.

The babe didn’t even flinch. Already he was used to the loud and lusty Montague voices.

I looked toward the sound of Cesario’s voice.

Ah. That explained the male presence by my bedside. All of my siblings and my papà were crowded into the room, watching me. Lysander and I had sufficient chaperonage.

“Adino means ‘adornment,’ ” Cesario added. He held baby #2 against his shoulder with an older brother’s insouciance. “This one’s Efron. It means ‘doubly blessed.’”

I laughed gently, careful not to hurt myself. “Perfect. May I . . . ?”

Lysander stood and placed Adino beside me in bed. I wrapped my arms around him. “Look at you,” I crooned. Tears seeped from my eyes.

“Rosie, don’t you like our babies?” Cesario sounded shocked and concerned.

Imogene bumped him. “She’s crying because she’s happy.”

“That’s stupid,” Cesario said.

“It’s a girl thing,” Lysander told him.

“Ah.Va bene.” From Imogene, Cesario thought it was stupid. From Lysander, Cesario accepted and gazed at him in wide-eyed hero worship.

I looked to Papà. “Mamma?”

“She’s well. Nurse is with her. She grows restless to see you, but the midwife demands she remain in bed.”

“I’ll go to her tomorrow.”

Papà removed Efron from Cesario’s grasp and brought him to lie beside his brother. “They sleep better together.”

My siblings crowded close.

I touched the babes’ wrinkled foreheads, their tiny chins. Every other part of them was swaddled in layers of blankets. “They are perfect?” I asked. “They suckle?”

Papà nodded. “Friar Laurence came at once to christen them, and he said they’re miracles. Too small, but they breathe easily and vigorously take the teat.”

“Miracles,” I agreed. “I don’t know how we’ll tell one from the other.”

“They both look like Grandpapa Montague, and they’ll change as they grow.” Imogene stroked Efron’s head. “This is our winemaker. Adino”—she stroked his head, too—“will be an inventor like Lysander.”

“I want to be an inventor like Lysander!” Cesario proclaimed.

“I thought you wanted to be a great swordsman like Papà,” Emilia said.

“I’ll be a great swordsman inventor! You’re jealous because you can’t do either, because you’re a girl.”

Cesario sometimes forgot that Emilia could beat him up, but now she reminded him.