Crime Reborn
an excerpt

"No, no...it's something entirely different. You see Sethy, me and Daddy have decided your big enough to know this now. Do you remember the calls we used to get about that man named Louis?" It took a few seconds for the name to register in the boy's head before he slowly nodded.
" Well, that was your uncle's name. He...uhm...went up to God before you were born." There. It was out. There was a silence in the room before those gray eyes looked up at Isabella, curiosity practically spilling from them. "Really?"
" Yep." Oh, boy. Here comes the waterworks. To her surprise, Seth smiled. "That's great! That means I have a guardian angel!"
" Guardian angel...?"
" Uh huh!" Seth nodded. " Uncle Gio told me that when people die, they become your guardian angel!" Isabella couldn't help but give a smile. Her oldest brother, Giovanni, was a priest- the only non-law related job in the family. She should have known that he would say something more about God and angels to him already then what he was told in religion class. " You know what that means, right Momma?" Before the woman could reply, he started talking again. "It means you gots one, too!"
Well...this was unexpected. Maybe there would be another priest in the family. " Yep, that's right!" said Isabella with fake cheerfulness, which luckily Seth couldn't seem to tell apart from her true happiness. "What a smart boy I have." To this, Seth nodded and kissed his mother on the forehead from where he lay. "G'night, Momma! Don't let the bedbugs bite!"
" I'll make sure to keep the bug spray by the nightstand." When Seth showed no sings of understanding, Isabella just planted a kiss on her son. "Goodnight, bambina."

***

" Your name is Seth, right?"
I looked up from where I sat, playing with Mr.Fuzzlies. Mike said teddy bears were for babies and girls, but I didn't care. Momma gave me Mr.Fuzzlies when I was an itty-bitty baby when the stork brought me, so I kept him with my when I went to sleep.
Momma and Daddy are always telling me not to talk to strangers, but I liked this man. He had nice brown eyes, just like Momma. "Uh huh." I told him. "What's your name, mister?"
The nice man just smiled. "That's not important, Sethy." How did he know that? Only Momma, Dadd,y grandma, and everybody else in my family called me. "Just think of me as your special friend, okay?"
" Alright, mister nice guy...Say, you look familiar, Special friend." I squinted my eyes at him real tight like I was concentrating hard and he laughed at me. " Hey!" I said to him. "If you're my special friend, you can't make fun of me! I'll tell Momma on you!"
" Oh, I'm not laughing at you, Sethy!" said the nice man- although I thought he was kinda mean for laughing at me. " That's just something I do all the time. But yeah, lots of people think you and I look alike. But don't tell them about me, okay?"
" Okay. Hey, special friend?" I looked at him again, careful not to make my alls all squinty 'cause I didn't want him to laugh at me again. " Do you have a nickname or somethin'? Calling you 'special friend' gonna bug me a lot." The nice man smiled again- he had a real big smile that reminded me of a monkey. " Well, I guess I'm kind of like ''Sethy', too, but let's talk about that later. You can call me Lou if you want to." He laughed, and so did I. "That rhymed!" We said together, and he grinned again. But something seemed kinda funny. Lou...Lou...
" Well, I guess I'll be seeing you later, Sethy. Don't tell Mommy or anybody else about me just yet, okay?" he winked at me, and I giggled. " You look silly when you do that!" I told him, laughing. He pretended that I hurt his feelings, so I said sorry.

And then I woke up.