14. Federica
FEDERICA
Dinner begins with my mother smiling at Valerio like he personally invented manners.
It’s almost impressive, really. She looks at him, and her whole face softens into the version of Elena Berardi people get when they have money, status, or a kind word about her son.
“Valerio, please,” she says, gesturing to the chair beside mine. “Sit. We’re so happy you could join us.”
Happy as clams.
That is the phrase my brain supplies, because apparently I am seventy years old under stress.
Valerio pulls out my chair first.
My mother notices. Of course she does. Her eyes flick to his hand on the back of the chair, then to me, then away again with a tiny pleased smile. As if I have finally stumbled into worth because a powerful man moved furniture in my vicinity.
I sit before my face can start a war.
Valerio takes the chair beside me.
He looks terrible.
Not to my parents. To them, he looks handsome and polished and dangerous in the socially acceptable way.
To me, he looks like he has slept maybe two hours in the past three days and hated both of them.
There are shadows under his eyes. His jaw is tight.
When he reaches for his water glass, I notice the faint split across one knuckle.
I remember that same hand on my face two nights ago and my skin gets hot.
I look down at my plate.
Great. Perfect. Nothing says emotionally stable future bride like blushing into the soup course because your arranged fiancé kissed you against a kitchen counter and then fled like the room was on fire.
“So,” my father says. Paolo Berardi likes to start every difficult conversation with so, as if the rest of us are shareholders on a quarterly call. “Valerio. We hear you’ve been busy.”
“That’s one word for it,” Valerio says.
My mother laughs. Not because it’s funny. Because he’s Valerio. The best friend of her golden boy and the heir to a fortune.
Camillo sits across from me with a purpling bruise under his left eye.
My father does ask. “What happened to your face, son?”
Camillo touches the bruise. “Nothing. Just a stupid thing.”
“He defended a woman from a mugger,” my mother says, glowing with pride.
I nearly choke on my water.
Camillo’s eyes dart to mine.
A mugger.
Sure. Why not. Maybe the mugger carried loan documents and a compound interest problem.
“How brave,” I chuckle.
My mother’s smile tightens. “There’s no need for that tone, Federica.”
“What tone?”
“The one you use when your brother receives attention.”
I set my glass down carefully.
There it is. Second course, first open wound.
Valerio goes still beside me.
My mother turns to him with a soft, embarrassed laugh. “Forgive her. Federica has always been a little competitive with Camillo. I never understood why. They are apples and oranges, really.”
Apples and oranges.
Meaning Camillo is the heir, the investment, the golden son with business dinners and heroic black eyes.
I am the fruit you remember at the back of the fridge after it has gone soft.
Valerio looks at my mother. “I agree.” My stomach drops. Then he adds, calm as winter, “Federica and Camillo have very little in common.”
I press my lips together so hard it almost hurts.
A snort would ruin the moment. A snort would be immature. A snort would also be deeply satisfying.
I swallow it.
My mother misses the insult entirely. Camillo doesn’t. He looks at his plate.
Dinner continues.
That is how it always goes in this house. One cut, then conversation. Another cut, then bread. Small enough to deny. Polite enough to make me look dramatic if I bleed.
I have mechanisms for this.
I keep my back straight. I answer with a calm tone. I take small bites even when my stomach has turned into a fist. I smile when the room expects a smile. I fold my napkin in my lap and count the threads along the edge when I feel tears getting too close.
Twenty-three threads on the left side.
Twenty-four if I count the loose one.
“You look lovely tonight,” my mother says.
“Thank you.”
“The dress is much better than some of the things you choose for your work events. Simpler suits you.”
“Does it?”
“Oh yes. Some women can pull off dramatic.” She glances toward Valerio with another little laugh. “Federica is prettier when she doesn’t try so hard.”
The fork in my hand starts to feel heavy.
Valerio’s attention shifts to me. I feel it without looking.
I keep cutting my chicken. Cut. Cut. Cut. Tiny pieces. Perfect pieces. Pieces small enough to control.
My father clears his throat. “And the event planning is still going well?”
“It is.”
“Good,” he says. “Busy season for parties, I suppose.”
“It’s corporate launches, charity galas, weddings, private auctions?—”
“Of course, of course.” He waves a hand, already bored. “Logistics. Your mother always says you were good at lists.”
Camillo shifts in his chair.
I look at him. Just once.
He looks away.
My mother reaches for the wine. “It’s good she found something practical after college didn’t work out.”
There it is.
The sentence lands so softly nobody else would hear the crack of it.
College didn’t work out.
As if college and I had a mutual disagreement over coffee.
As if my funding hadn’t been cut with a family meeting and a speech about priorities.
As if my father hadn’t told me Camillo’s future carried more responsibility and my mother hadn’t patted my hand like I was a child being asked to share a toy.
I feel twenty-one again for half a second.
My throat tightens.
“College worked out fine,” I say. “As I remember it, the only snag was tuition.”
My father’s eyes sharpen. “Federica.”
One word of warning.
My mother laughs lightly for Valerio’s benefit. “She likes to tease us about that. The truth is, she was never as suited to economics as Camillo. Numbers made her anxious.”
I look at my plate.
The threads blur.
Numbers never made me anxious. Numbers were clean. Honest. They added up. They told the truth if you knew how to read them.
People made me anxious.
Rooms like this made me anxious.
My mother made me anxious with a smile and a salad fork.
“Besides,” she continues, “everything turned out for the best. Camillo needed the degree. Federica needed something more down-to-earth. Better suited to her skill set.”
Valerio’s hand closes around his knife.
I see his knuckles whiten.
I want to touch him. Ridiculous instinct, dangerous, and yet.
I want to put my hand over his and say, don’t. I can take it. I have taken it for years.
That thought is the saddest I have had all night.
My mother’s gaze drops to my plate. “Sweetheart, leave some bread. Why the rush to stretch your new dress at the waist?”
I freeze.
It’s stupid. It’s such a stupid comment. Tiny. Ordinary. The kind of thing mothers say all over the world and pretend is care.
But it hits the bruised place in me that has spent years translating cruelty into concern because that is easier than admitting your mother knows exactly where to press.
I put the bread down.
Slowly.
My eyes burn.
I count threads.
Twenty-three. Twenty-four. Twenty-five if I cheat.
Valerio slams his hand on the table.
The sound cracks through the dining room.
Every glass jumps.
My mother gasps.
Camillo goes pale.
My father’s chair scrapes back half an inch.
Valerio stands.
He does it slowly, which somehow makes it worse. The whole room changes shape around him. He is no longer the charming guest my parents have been flattering through dinner. He is Capo Greco, and the air remembers it before anyone else does.
“I will hear no more of this,” he says.
His voice is low.
My heart is beating so hard I feel it in my throat.
My mother blinks. “Valerio, I’m sure you misunderstood?—”
“I understood perfectly.”
Silence.
“This isn’t how I wanted to say it, but I guess you leave me no choice.
” He looks at my father first. “Your daughter is my fiancée. She will be my wife on Sunday. If anyone at this table speaks of her career, her body, her intelligence, or her choices with anything less than respect again, they will find their names crossed off the guest list.”
“Wife?” Mom brightens for a second before the threatening edge of Valerio’s tone sinks in.
My father doesn’t miss it, though. His face darkens. “Now, see here?—”
“No.” Valerio’s palm stays flat on the table. “You see. I have listened to your wife insult Federica for the length of this meal while you sat there and allowed it. That ends now.”
My mother’s mouth opens wide in shock.
Nothing comes out. I wish I can make the same remark she does whenever I do the same thing. But I can’t. I don’t know why. I had craved for revenge but now that the opportunity is here, I don’t even take it. Instead, I dwell on the fact that I have never seen her speechless.
I should enjoy it more.
Valerio turns to her. “Apologize.”
Her eyes widen. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“Valerio,” Camillo starts.
Valerio cuts him a look so sharp my brother shuts up mid-breath.
Good.
Great, actually.
My mother presses a hand to her chest. “I only meant?—”
“I am not interested in what you meant. I am interested in what you said.”
A long silence follows.
My father looks from Valerio to me, then back again. He is calculating. I see the moment he lands on the correct answer. The Greco name at this table outweighs pride. And having a daughter married into the Greco family—that outweighs any other need.
“Elena,” he says quietly.
My mother’s face tightens like the apology has a bad taste.
Then she looks at me.
“I’m sorry, Federica.”
Two words.
Thin. Forced. Late by a decade.
It still stirs something in my chest.
My father clears his throat. “As am I.”
I nod because if I open my mouth, the sound that comes out might humiliate me.
Valerio reaches for my hand again. His warmth seeps into me. I had no idea he could still be this warm. That the ice king Capo Greco still remembers how to melt when it counts.
“We’ll be taking our leave,” he says.
Nobody argues.
He gives my hand the smallest tug. My body follows.
My napkin falls from my lap to the floor.
Twenty-five threads, probably.
I leave it there.
Valerio leads me out of the dining room, past my silent brother, past my silent parents, past every version of myself that has ever sat at that table and swallowed pain politely.
At the front door, my breath catches.
I hate that he heard it.
Of course he hears it.
He pauses with his hand on the knob and looks down at me.
His face is still hard. His eyes are not.
“Are you all right?” he asks.
No.
Yes.
Maybe for the first time tonight.
I tighten my fingers around his.
“Take me home,” I say. Home. The taste of that on my lips. I can’t believe I now call that cage a home.
“Home,” he asks.
“Yes. Home,” I repeat.
His expression softens, as he opens the door. “Let’s go home, then.”
I walk out of my parents’ house, my hand in his, without looking back.