Chapter 36 #3
She crouches before me, meeting me at eye level before speaking to ensure I hear her response. “Remember the…” Her lips draw to the side, and I know precisely what triggering words she's trying to avoid. “Remember the day you lost your hearing?”
My eyes blink rapidly. There’s no need to answer the rhetorical question.
How could I ever forget? The infernal ringing in my ears, hearing aids, and recurring nightmares act as a constant reminder of the event.
Ironic how the deafening sound, in the aftermath, is the only thing I can hear without my aids.
“It wasn’t an accident,” I state matter-of-factly.
“There was never a gas leak,” she adds to my realization, while placing a soothing hand on my knee. “Someone… maybe a rivaling gang… tried to cut off the Lombardi bloodline.”
The swaying feeling fades, only for the air to be ripped from my lungs.
“Your brother wasn’t in the room with you like the assailant had hoped.”
I glance down at my hands. The raw sensation has reached my pale fingertips. I’m sure my face appears just as ghostly, all the blood in my body rushing to my heart to keep it beating, in response to the shock.
What I need right now, more than anything, is sugar.
Perhaps a candy cane… the fruity kind, not the festive peppermint shit.
I crave sugar when I am stressed. Hell… maybe I could craft the treat into a shiv!
Ready and willing to stab whomever harmed me, went after my family, and possibly killed my brother!
Looking up to Andrea’s assessing stare, I figure out how one crooked piece fits into this confounded puzzle. “How?” A small curious flame ignites within my icy form. Before she’s able to speak, I cut her off. “Not how did it happen, but how do YOU know all of this?!”
Her tender touch on my leg becomes stiff, as if she’s taken aback by the question. Removing her hand from me, she sits back onto the table and begins to rub at her opposite arm.
“Your parents are like family to me.” This I already know.
Andrea’s upbringing was unstable. She was moved around in the system, spending most of her teen years on the streets.
She may have a tough exterior, but she’s forged a precious relationship with my mom and dad.
Sometimes I think she’s closer to them than I am. “They never wanted this for you.”
As if the Distress Express wasn’t clear enough when it mowed me over with the news that I am a Lombardi, the thing backs up.
At which point, I realize that makes my parents Lombardis too.
The notorious Mafia family I read about, with a questionable presence in these parts.
Oh. My. God… my parents! Dad? No? No… no!
My cinnamon roll making father with his terrible dad jokes and notable gardening habits is…
a Mafia boss? One time, my dad rushed his dog Kingston to the vet after he stepped on a pile of thorn bush clippings.
He sounded like he was ready to cry when he told me the story over the phone that very night.
That’s who the Don of Boston is? Well… was the Don, apparently.
I’ve watched enough Sopranos to understand how the hierarchy works.
Maybe that’s why I’ve always found it to be more of a comfort show…
? I’m spiraling again. Right now, wasn’t the time to analyze myself.
I need to move forward with this information.
Fuuuck! What about my mother?! The woman who prioritized work or fluffing throw pillows over attending her own daughter’s art show.
Appearance was everything and I never seemed to do anything right in her eyes.
Theo was the favorite. Even when my GPA was higher and I never got in trouble at school, my mother still only recognized his accomplishments.
Maybe it was a form of reverse psychology because he really did turn his grades around near the end of high school.
Mom was especially proud when he graduated from Boston College with a degree in journalism.
When I admitted I wanted to go to school for fashion design, I felt like an utter disappointment.
It’s funny… I can actually see her rigid routines, mannerisms, and drive being excellent characteristics for a mob wife.
She’s just overbearing enough to pull it off… but my dad? I just can’t picture it.
Andrea extracts me from my wandering thoughts. “After the incident, business was conducted, “differently.” Your family went into hiding, without actually leaving the city. Shortening your last name and continuously moving your home every couple years to stay safe.”
I just thought my parents hated being stagnant and the nonstop moving was such a pain.
My life might as well compare to a daytime Spanish soap opera.
No less intelligible and cleverly dramatized.
Comic relief aside… my folks up and left , relinquishing everything right after my brother’s death.
Apparently, they’ve always been running from their past, while doing a shit job of including us.
Without my permission, hot tears descend onto my chilled face.
What stings the most are the lies. Humorously, I can hear my mother’s voice in my head, telling me how omitting something isn’t a lie but deception.
When I was around twelve years old, she caught me in the bathroom applying one of her deep ruby lipsticks.
“I found it!” I embellished. Which was true, but I left out the part about me purposely going through her vanity to procure it.
“If you become good enough at deception, you’ll start fooling yourself,” my mother told me.
I never understood what she meant until I grew older.
Whether you label it a deception or a lie, the results are always the same.
Trust issues and a lifetime of “what ifs” because you're too scared to take chances.
Using the front of my nightshirt as a makeshift handkerchief, I wipe at my streaked face. “That means my uncle is a Lombardi as well.”
Andrea tentatively nods, because I think she knew I needed the confirmation.
Why would my uncle lie? Does Dax know what I’m supposed to find?
Why won’t he just tell me! Everyone seems to know more about my family and past than I do.
So why am I tasked with collecting the data and writing a thesis?
I’m no investigator… I went to college for fashion design for crying out loud!
Thinking back to a time when things were straightforward, my brother was alive, and the house was filled with laughter…
I don’t recall my uncle coming around much when I was a kid.
I’ve seen more of him in the past couple of years than I ever did back then.
He was the only family I had left. My parents pleaded with me to move out of the city, but I refused.
My life was here. My apartment, my best friend, and…
Theo. Theo’s memories are still here. I wasn’t going anywhere.
I perceived my uncle as a very busy man, but I still had hope that when the holidays came around, he’d show up.
Occasionally, I even put out an extra place setting just for him at the table.
All the same, he never showed, at least not when I wanted him to.
Only coming around during odd times actually.
Like bird watching with the goal of witnessing a bald eagle land in front of you.
It’s never going to happen, but if you did see one, it wouldn’t be on your terms. Notably, he was there after I woke up in the hospital.
My father never spoke ill of his brother, in fact, he would retell tame versions of the no good they would get into, back in their day.
One time, I remember them arguing… it was late at night.
They were downstairs and I was supposed to be in bed.
It wasn’t too long after my accident, but I was able to put my own hearing aids in after a lot of practice.
I crept down the stairs and stood quietly just outside the parlor door.
I even held my breath so I could listen better.
Uncle Nicholas was yelling about something not being fair.
I just chalked it up to being something about grown-up stuff; real estate, money, or work.
Now I know it probably had something to do with the family business, the Mafia to be exact.
Moses on a motorboat, my daddy is a full-fledged Tony Soprano!
Andrea carries over my cold mug of inspiration and sets it down before me. She must have noticed me staring blankly at the wall for quite some time, while drowning in my own thoughts. I sip from its disappointing contents, ahead of setting down the drink and rubbing at my temples.
“Okay!” I finally proclaim.
Andrea puts a hand to her chest in response to my sudden outburst.
“Sorry…” I force a smile, understanding that she too must be on edge. “But why would my uncle be lying?”
She sits next to me, with her third cup of jet fuel since I emerged this morning. How is she not jittery as hell? “That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out,” she reveals. Continuing with the theme of deception, I see.
Apparently, we’re both veering around the question…
about how she knows so much. I lean back playing along, while remaining transfixed on the whiteboard.
Andrea replicating my motions. I so wish Theo was here.
He loved this shit. Figuring out things way before it should be humanly possible.
Playing the game Clue with him was the worst!
I stand to study the board closer. The names we have displayed and how all the lines in the middle connect. The papers off to the side with “My start date at the Black Sheep” correlating to “Brodi’s disappearance” on one and “Officer Kent,” “Creepy Craig,” and my “uncle” on the other.