3. Chapter Three—Carlotta
Chapter Three—Carlotta
Standing beside my sniffling mother, I resist the urge to roll my eyes.
When the vicar bows out, the golden light from overhead reflecting from his bald head, leaving the two of us alone, she stops putting on the waterworks, straightening her back and staring down at the peaceful face of my brother.
He could simply be sleeping, if it weren’t for the suit he’s wearing, the satin of the coffin beneath his body and the thick makeup the embalmers have coated his face with so as to hide the cuts and bruises he’d sustained before his untimely death.
“Silly boy,” Mother admonishes, hands firmly clutched down by her sides. I don’t think I’ve seen her reach in to touch her angelic boy at all, not even to press a kiss to his cold cheek. “Getting yourself killed like that.”
I hold back the barb residing on the tip of my tongue to remind her that we don’t even know how Cristiano was killed.
The postmortem concluded that it was hours after his death that my older brother was dumped on the steps of the Bellucci family home.
“And missing a finger, at that.”
I can’t help but look at the way the embalmers have curled the remaining four fingers on his left hand into his palm, creating a fist, so as to not draw attention to his lack of fifth digit.
“What would your father say, hm?”
I bite down on my lower lip until I taste the copper tang of blood, swallowing back the sting of tears which build in my eyes at any mention of my father.
Peering down at her only son for another heartbeat, mother raps her fist on the edge of the mahogany coffin and then turns on her tall heel. “Let us go, Carlotta.”
But I don’t move.
“I—” I lick my dry lips, staring into the plastic smooth and shiny face of the woman who birthed me.
Underneath all the makeup, filler, Botox and threads, it’s the crape-like fold of her neck which give away her real age.
“I would like to be alone with him for a moment, so I can say my final goodbyes.”
“Your final goodbyes?” Mother sneers, crossing her arms over her body, an angry slash and wafting up the expensive scent of her signature oil perfume.
It’s been years since I last smelt it and yet as soon as it greets my nose, I’m transported back to being seven years old again, clutching my burning cheek from where mother had slapped me for getting the shins of my socks dirty.
I draw myself up to my full five-foot six height, grounding myself back into the present moment by focusing on the pinch of my heels squeezing my toes. “Yes.”
“What would you need to say goodbye for?” she tries again, eyes flashing. “You were hardly close.”
I want to tell her that Cristiano and I were close until we got older; because while he was lead down the path of heir to the Bellucci Mafia throne, I was being molded into being the demurest lady I could be for my future mob husband, whoever he may be.
I hate to admit, but I resented my older brother for that fact.
He was given freedom, so much I thought he would choke on it.
The opposite could be said for me; the bound wrappings of my freedom only seemed to tighten, cutting off my circulation, until they no longer existed.
I was watched at every move. Chaperoned. Never let out of sight.
Until that night…
The blood connection holding us together as brother and sister, only weakened when I escaped home at the age of nineteen—starting a new life for myself and leaving the Mafia world and the Bellucci name behind.
While he, now head of the family seeing as how Father was dead, began to climb the ranks that are only ever available to men and not women.
It had been seven years since I last heard from or saw my brother.
Up until now.
“You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, Mother.”
“I’d rather it we’re you, than him.”
I bite my tongue, hard, to avoid rising to my mother’s bait. Any other day, I might’ve, but not today.
Her words ricochet off me without causing much damage. How can it, when her words are nothing but a variation of the same thing, she’s been telling me for years on end? I’ve heard it all before.
I may have been the apple of my late father’s eye, but I learnt from a very early age that my mother did not love me in any capacity. I was nothing but something short of a burden to her.
Fixing my gaze on my now forever slumbering brother, I strain my ears to hear her leave. Heels muffled by the thin layer of carpet beneath our feet, the clink of her rings against the metal doorhandle and then the loud bang as the door slams behind her.
I flinch at that, but recover quickly, tracing her steps to lock the door.
Unsure of how much longer my legs are going to hold me up, I sink into the singular uncomfortable wooden chair in the otherwise almost deserted room.
I watch the dust motes dance in the bar of weak sunlight breaking through the window and then stare down at my folded hands.
“I am sorry, Cristiano.” My voice escapes, gritty with emotion and disuse. How often in the past seven years have I uttered the word ‘sorry?’
I can probably count the number on one hand.
For a heartbeat, I wait to hear my brother’s reply, before my logical brain kicks in.
Of course he isn’t going to reply. Not ever again.
Never again will I hear the voice of my older brother, a man I once thought my protector before I realized the only person who can protect me is myself.
Never again will I hear his gruff laugh, or the sound of his heavy feet on the stairs, announcing his presence before I could even see him.
Never again will I see him smile, showcasing those pearly white teeth and the slight crookedness of his top left canine.
A hot teardrop slides down the edge of my nose, landing in my lap, staining my charcoal grey pencil skirt until it resembles the color of nightshade.
Another tear follows and another, until my cheeks are wet, and my eyes are blurred, lashes spiky.
I wipe my nose with the back of my hand, uncaring about the smear of makeup which now coats my knuckles and lick my lips, tasting the salt of my tears.
“God, Cristiano. What happened?”
I swear my heart tears in two at the sound of his name on my tongue; the feel of the vowels and consonants leaving a phantom bitter taste behind.
Wishing I had a pail of water, or perhaps something stronger, I swallow back the thick ball of sorrow building in the base of my throat and stand.
Body feeling disjointed from itself, I wrap my fingertips over the lip of the wooden coffin—the only thing holding me upright at this present moment—and stare down at my brother.
He doesn’t look like I remember.
Now fully a man, Cristiano’s face has—had—lost all of the plumpness of youth, only for it to be replaced with wrinkle beaten skin of a hard-earned leader.
I don’t recall ever seeing the silvery scar running through his upper lip or the knot of skin and bone at the base of his right-hand thumb—an evident sign of it being broke, reset and then broken again.
God, the last time I saw him he was just growing whiskers.
How can he be a man?
A dead man, at that?
“I—” My voice seizes, but I push on. “I’m sorry we didn’t have more time together.
I am… well, I’m not sorry I left, I had to.
But I’m sorry I didn’t return any of your calls or attempts to reach me.
No… no matter what went on, you we’re still my big brother and I did care for you deeply.
I did—I do—love you… in my own special way. ”
I swallow, inhaling in shakily, relishing in the expansion of my lungs as they fill with precious oxygen.
The proof of my alive humanness—the whoosh of my breath, the wet sniffle of my running nose, the crack of my voice—is loud and jarring in the otherwise silent room.
“I will miss you.”
Silence kisses my ears in reply.
Blinking back another wave of tears, I slip my hand inside my long peacoat, searching for the secret lining sewn inside.
I didn’t think I’d be this upset, but grief has a funny way of showing itself, and the body? Well, the body has an even funnier way of revealing the emotional strife it has been storing deep inside.
From the depths of my coat, I remove the jewelry box that had shown up on my doorstep over a week ago, containing my brother’s missing finger.
Pulling the collar of my coat up over my nose and mouth so as to not inhale the foul smell, I carefully open the box. Decay has begun to set in, seeing as the severed flesh has been exposed to the elements for more hours than necessary.
Trying to quell the tremor running through my body, making my teeth clack together, I place the entire jewelry box containing the finger down at my brother’s feet where a grainy photograph of him and a ratty stuffed bunny resides.
God, that bunny. He carried it with him everywhere, propping him up at mealtimes and pretending to feed him.
I was never allowed to even touch bunny.
And now… I haven’t seen the ratted thing in years, but I highly doubt it was our mother who placed the beloved stuffed rabbit there with tender love and care.
So, if not her, then who?
I make a split-second decision to take the stuffed rabbit, so I can have something of my brother’s, pocketing his cell while I’m at it.
As I do, I look up, checking for cameras and finding nothing but bare, white-washed walls staring back at me.
Good.
I flick my eyes to the window; it’s frame old and peeling, the glass coated in dust and dirt, making it hard to see—
Something moves outside, a flash of black, followed by the crack of a twig as if it’s been stepped on.
Heart picking up speed, I crane my neck to see into the churchyard beyond, it’s sprawling land of barren, winter picked trees laid out in front of me.
I swear I heard something, maybe even saw someone, but who would come this far into the churchyard?
Shaking my head, I reprimand myself for being so skittish. There isn’t anybody here except for me and Cristiano’s body.
Slipping the stuffed rabbit and phone into the pocket of my peacoat, I step back from the window, just in time for a hammering to start on the door.