Chapter 19 Annetta #2
“When did you start wearing your hair like that?” Mom asks about the waves. Serafina always kept her hair pin-straight.
“Just thought I’d try something new.”
“Now’s not a good time to be trying new things.”
“Dom likes it.” I turn with my full plate.
Mom’s mouth twists down.
“I’ll go bring this out to Dad.”
When I return, Mom’s moved the wine bottle closer to the stove, and she’s got that look in her eye like she wants to offer my diet tips or ask me about my grades. I load up the second plate a little faster. My calves burn from the effort of standing in heels after working out.
“Did Dom like the wine I sent over?” she asks.
“Yes, thank you.”
“When was your last period?”
“Ma!” The eggplant I was balancing on a serving spoon slips back into its pan and splatters oil onto my dress.
“Honestly, Serafina!”
I blow out an exhale and reach for the paper towels, but Mom’s closer and snatches a handful off the roll to dab at my breasts. Without thinking, I slap her hand away.
“Serafina!”
“Ma!”
A burst of masculine laughter erupts from the dining room. Mom’s gaze flickers from the doorway to me.
“Your dad is going to Florida next week to meet with the Chiarellis.” She levels a serious, sober stare at me.
I’m as stuck as a fly in honey. Guilt coils in my belly.
This was all your fault, her look tells me.
I lower my eyes.
Mom wrings the damp paper towels between her hands before sighing and setting them on the counter. “I know it might take a few tries, but you know me and Aunt Karen got pregnant young. The sooner you can get pregnant, the better.”
“Dom will stand up for me.” My mind flashes back to Don Salvatore’s basement. I load up another plate. “He’s not Dad.”
“Serafina, do not be rude!” she calls after me as I walk to the dining room. Like it’s rude to remind her she only got Dad to stop cheating on her so much when she baby-trapped him with Carlo, instead of thinking it’s rude to send ovulation tests to her grieving daughter.
When I come back, Mom’s loading a plate for me, taking her time to arrange everything beautifully. She finishes, sets it on the counter, and reaches for my arm to rotate me toward her.
“Serafina.” She cups my face, and I have to shut down the urge to pull away. “Dad and I are doing everything we can to keep you safe. You need to be doing your part.”
I’m training, I want to tell her. I can use a gun.
I know it’s not enough, but it’s something. It’s at least more than waiting around at home for my husband to shoot his load into me.
I swallow my protests, resisting the urge to argue with her—like our arguments have ever done me any good anyway. Mom will just cry about what a terrible mother she is, like she always does when she’s against a wall.
Instead, I jerk off her ring from my right hand, and her eyes widen when she spots my new engagement ring on my left. Without a word, I drop her ring on the counter, take the plate, and walk to the dining room.
I don’t return to the kitchen after I sit down between my brothers. Mom brings the rest of the food out, with a smile plastered across her face.
“Buon Appetito!” she exclaims. She sits and pours herself a glass of wine to the absolute brim.
Carlo immediately points his loaded fork at Red. “What’d you think of the Bulls’ game?”
Dinner passes quickly while Carlo and Red get into an argument about the latest game, which Dad eventually settles by telling them to shut their yapping.
Mom and I clean the dining room table in silence, and the guys leave to start a game of poker.
Once the kitchen’s cleaned, I feign the need to go to the bathroom, leave Mom with her bottle of wine, and go upstairs.
The day I’d moved out to live with Frederico, Serafina had told me Mom and Dad had all my things packed up from my old room.
She’d rescued a few items, but most of my stuff got thrown away or donated.
What was the point of a young, virginal bride if she brought literal baggage with her?
I was supposed to be shiny and brand new.
If I needed dresses or equipment for hobbies, my new husband would supply what he thought I needed.
I pass by my room and slip into Serafina’s old room, shutting the door softly behind me.
Her room is like a time capsule.
I run my finger along the top of one dresser, and it comes away with a light coating of dust. The housekeepers haven’t been allowed in here.
A pang of guilt strikes my chest at how I spoke to Mom earlier—she’s grieving too, even if it makes her a bigger pain in the ass.
Does Dad hold her in the shower while she cries like Dom does for me? Somehow, I doubt it.
The empty wine glass next to Serafina’s bed confirms my suspicions and twists the knife in a little deeper. I hate that I have to be the one who has to be gentle with Mom, and not the other way around. I know she’s trying her best. She just can’t imagine a relationship that’s not built on babies.
A hint of dried flowers permeates the stale air as I kick off my heels and walk through the room. I don’t think Serafina would’ve understood either. She loved thinking about the little family she’d have with her future husband.
I swallow past the ball of wool in my throat. She would’ve made a great mother.
I wipe away an errant tear as I open her closet, a little smile twisting my lips.
She would always share any of her clothes with me, but she never liked anyone to be in her closet, even the housekeepers.
The one time I teased her about hiding her nonexistent vibrator in there, she got red in the face and refused to talk to me for the rest of the day.
That memory used to make me so mad, and now I’m smiling and a little heartbroken thinking about it.
The plastic bins I’m searching for are stacked in the far corner of her walk-in closet, and I pull off the top one with a grunt.
Most of my cookbooks are in here, and another one I haven’t seen before, about vegetarian cooking.
I pop off the plastic lid of the storage bin and reach for it.
As far as I know, Serafina had never taken an overt interest in cooking.
She used to tell me that if she hadn’t married a man who didn’t give her a personal chef, she hadn’t done her job right.
Did she want to be a vegetarian? My stomach sours. She never told me.
The book’s much lighter than it looks, shooting upward when I misjudge its weight.
“What the…?”
Pill bottles tumble out from a hollow center. I don’t know why my heart’s racing as I pick them up and read the labels.
One of the bottles says it’s Xanax, prescribed to Serafina.
Since when did she take Xanax? She never told me about that.
Why would she even hide this from me? I knew she had panic attacks, but I wouldn’t have judged her for the Xanax.
The bottle’s nearly empty, with only a few white pills at the bottom.
The other bottle’s nearly full to the brim with tiny blue pills.
The label says it’s Adderall for Russell Wilson.
So that loser was giving her drugs?
A knock at the door has me scrambling to hide all the pill bottles back in the book and tucking it away.
“What’s up, creeper?” I ask as Rafa comes in.
Once, I overheard some of Dad’s coworkers calling him their keeper. They were talking about bookkeeping, but they could’ve been calling him a creeper—one can never be certain.
“Shrimp,” he says by way of greeting.
I wait to see if he has a good reason for coming in here, but when he starts doing his Rafa thing and feigning disinterest by picking up and setting back down some of the perfume bottles on Serafina’s dresser, I turn back to the rest of the boxes.
It’s oddly comforting to hear my brother rustling around while I do my own search until I find what I need—my old camera equipment.
Spending all that time overlooking the city in Dom’s penthouse has been making me itch for my DSLR.
I had a few more pieces, but it looks like Serafina didn’t know they were worth saving. I sigh.
“Do you know where Mom and Dad put my tripod?” I ask, hauling the box with my equipment out of the walk-in closet.
Rafa shakes his head as he peers into a collage of Serafina’s and my pics for our graduation trip to Europe.
“What’re you doing here?” I ask, perched on top of the box.
“I’m moving.”
The statement hits me like a bag of rocks.
“What?” I ask, my voice pitching high.
I know it’s ridiculous to expect Rafa to stay here, especially when I’ve already moved out.
He’s twenty-eight. I can’t expect him to live with Mom and Dad forever—although Carlo probably will.
Rafa, on the other hand, has more money than God.
He could afford a nicer place than our parents if he wanted.
I just thought he’d stay.
Rafa exhales, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “I stayed for Serafina. Now there’s no point. I’ll stay in town. I just want my own place.”
“For Serafina,” I say, dully.
He gives a short exhale. “You know she needed protecting. She’s delicate.”
“So am I.”
Rafa smirks. “No. You’re tough, sis.”
That takes me by surprise. Has he met me? “It doesn’t mean I didn’t need protecting.”
His smile falls. “Yeah, I know.” He scans over the room again before landing on me. “Dad said you wanted to marry Dom. Is that true?”
I nod.
“Things are good?”
I flush. “Yeah. Really good.”
“Glad to hear. Just so you know, the place I’m moving into? There’ll be a room made up for you. It’ll always be there for you, too. You know, just in case you—oof.”
I cut him short with a tight hug.
“Thanks, creeper.”
“Sure, shrimp.” He rustles my hair, and I step back with a shriek, slapping his hands away. He grins and walks out of the room, leaving it a little brighter than when he came.
I glance back at the boxes in the closet, filled with a new sense of purpose. I’m going to need to get to the bottom of those pills, and I think I have a good idea of where to start.
The door opens gently. Footsteps shuffle in, then the door shuts and locks.
Still smiling, I turn to tease Rafa.
Except, it’s not Rafa.