The Benedetti family tree is all here before me from generations past. I wonder if anyone will continue to do this when I’m gone. When I’m one of the boxes that needs to be erased. Redrawn. The dates entered, finally.

I can’t find the eraser right away and turn to rummage through the drawer. It had slid to the back. Taking it and my ruler, I erase the already smudged line around a cousin’s box. I want it perfect.

No one’s seen this little project of mine, not even Salvatore. It’s morbid, I know. But it takes up so much of my mind, more and more as each day passes.

When I’m finished redrawing the box, I retrace the dates. This cousin was seventeen when he was killed. A car crash, not mob violence. Just too much alcohol and stupidity. We have those too. Life. Normal. Death.

When that’s done, I drag my gaze to my father’s box. Then my mother’s. I touch hers with the tip of my finger. It won’t be long before I add a date here.

I suck in a deep breath, rub the scruff of my jaw. If I don’t shave soon, it’ll be a fucking beard. I look away, look down at my brothers’ boxes. My own. Funny, I’ve drawn theirs with connected empty boxes beside for their eventual wives. Their families.

I told Natalie time was a luxury, but so is family. Children. A fucking wife.

I swallow all that shit down, swallow the choking lump in my throat, bury it deep in my gut. I steel myself, look at my own name there. I’ll be the boss of this family one day. It’ll be when I’ve added a date to my father’s box. It’s not that I don’t want it. I do. And it’s not that I feel guilt over what I do. I don’t. I’m very comfortable with who I am. It’s just—it’s always bittersweet, everything.

Someone always has to fucking die.

I line up the ruler, almost draw the link, almost add a box, but I stop. I can’t do that because if I do, I’ll be condemning her.

Instead, I take out a blank sheet of the same type of paper. This one’s letter sized. I have it specially made—vanity, I suppose. I like nice things.

I set the sheet on top of the family map—our graveyard—and pick up the tumbler, swallow the rest of my whiskey. I pour another glass and get to work.

From memory, I start with her eyes. Almond shaped and so dark, they’re almost black. Eyes are the hardest. Inside them is the soul. And I want to see her soul. I want it more than anything else right now.