11. Francesca
It was odd how comfortable I had grown in this place in the last few weeks since my mother had been hospitalized. Everyone in the oncology wing knew me and called me by my name. They even knew my favorite Jell-O flavor—cherry, of course.
I stopped by the desk and leaned against the counter. Martha was the nurse on call today. It was safe to assume I had become friends with all of them. The best part—the only good part about coming here every day—was these people.
“Hey, Martha.” I greeted her and placed a Tupperware container on top of the counter.
“Darling,” Martha beamed when she saw me. “Please tell me those are your famous blueberry muffins.”
“The one and only.” I chuckled when she placed her hands over her chest. “I brought some for you and the girls,” I said as she approached me and opened the lid.
The scent of freshly baked muffins filled the air. Martha grabbed one and then called for Jenny who was passing by. The two of them ate a muffin each and sighed taking their first bites.
“Where did you learn to bake like that, Frankie?” Jenny asked as she savored her second muffin.
“I had a lot of free time on my hands, so I decided to take some classes.”
Paolo disliked having me bake, he thought it was beneath me, but since he was gone most of the time, I used those moments to learn from our cook, Erica. She taught me most of what I knew, and it became a form of therapy. Those hours when there was nothing but the dough before me, the voices in my head would silence and I would simply exist in that moment. There was no anxiety, no pressure. Just me, Erica, and whatever we were cooking or baking for the day.
“Well, girl, if you keep bringing us these treats, I’ll be rolling out of here like a ball.” I chuckled and then picked up the Tupperware and offered it to the other two nurses who passed us by. “How’s my mother?” I whispered, as though she could hear me from all the way here.
“In a mood,” Martha warned. “Refused to eat and she yelled at Dr. Conrad twice.”
I sighed and closed my eyes for a few seconds. Most days were bad, but then there were some that were completely terrible. Mamma never seemed to be in a good mood, and lately, the only days she did smile were when my brother came along. Those days were rare, but I knew he was trying. With my father on his ass, it was hard to spare a few minutes to spend with my mother.
“Wish me luck.” I smiled and the two nurses smiled back. They knew how hard Mamma could be, but still, they were great professionals.
When I entered the room, my mother was sleeping, but the soft noise must have alerted her because her eyes shot open, and she turned to face me. It was still a shock seeing the bright Pucci scarf around her bald head.
“Savio?” My mother’s weak voice snapped me from my magazine.
“No, Mamma, it’s me, Francesca.” I corrected her.
“Oh.” Her blue eyes settled on me.
“Jesus, please, settle down, no need to be so excited.” I watched the machines just to make sure everything was okay. Not that I understood much of what was going on, but at least her heart was beating.
“I’m not,”she countered dryly.
“Truthful as always.”I sighed and headed toward my usual place beside her bed.
Dr. Conrad said things could and would get worse, he also warned me that my mother could lose some of her memory. Which explained why she was calling for her dead son? It pained me every time, to remind her Savio wasn’t coming, but at least she would quickly forget that, too.
I picked up the food tray and inspected what they had brought up for her to eat. Mamma never ate much, but with chemo and the strong medication, she needed more food in her body. I often cooked for her, but she refused that, too. She was a hard woman to please.
“Mamma, you have to eat something.”
“I’m not hungry,” she rebuked like a petulant child.
“Well, you’ll have to eat it anyway.”
“Cazzo, Francesca, I’m not hungry.” That was also new. The swearing and the cursing. They were getting more common as the days passed, and I seemed to annoy her more.
“One banana, and I swear I’ll leave you alone.”
“If that’s what it takes for you to leave, then I’ll take all of them.”
“You’re a ray of sunshine.” I kissed her cheek and gave her the banana, and she swatted me away.
The doctor had told me her mood would be one of the first thing to be affected. He didn’t know I was already used to them. I had been the one closest to her when growing up, therefore, I had been the subject of my mother’s hateful words all my life. Even now, I did my best to ignore them. I knew she was passing through a hard phase, she needed someone to unload her rage on, and if that helped her feel better, then I would be here for her.
She ate her banana slowly and it was obvious she didn’t want it. After a few bites, I took it from her and finished the thing myself.
“When is Savio coming?”
“He won’t be coming today.”
“And Marco?”she asked hopefully.
“It’s just me, Mamma, like always.” I tried to sound enthusiastic about it, but I knew she wouldn’t be. Her boys were her world, always had been.
“Don’t you have a life?”
“I-I…” Her question took me by surprise and I was actually speechless. “My husband passed away, Mamma.”
“I know that, Francesca, I am not senile,” she snapped. My jaw dropped. Then stop asking me about your dead son. “Shouldn’t you be out there instead of in here?”
“I have nothing else to do,” I answered honestly. No life to go back to other than this.
“That’s sad, Francesca,” she stated, and I had to agree. “You’re young, you should be out there looking for a husband.”
I sighed loudly. It wasn’t the first time she had said such a thing. My mother didn’t know that Donato already had someone lined up for me to marry when my mourning period was over. He was that fast.
“Yes, Mamma,” I agreed and turned my attention toward the new tulips I had brought yesterday.
I arranged them quietly and felt my mother’s eyes trailing me the entire time as I did so. Like cooking, they offered me a kind of bliss that I could only find in drugs and alcohol. Since my pills were almost over and my stash was gone, I had to content myself with these little things. Which ended with me cooking too much food every day and buying so many flowers my apartment looked like a florist shop.
Mamma was right, I needed something to do with my life.
“Has your father come to visit?”Mamma asked when I finally stopped fussing about the flowers and sat by her bed.
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s a no, then. I figured he would be too occupied with his whore.” The venom in her voice was the same as when I was twelve years old.
“Why do you even care? You don’t even love him, it’s a blessing that he ignores you.”
My mother looked at me as if I had punched her in the face and as if I had spoken a blasphemy.
“Is that what you thought of your husband? Is that why you let him humiliate you as he did? Parade you around like a cheap whore.”
“Please, Mother, I’m not cheap. You and Daddy raised me to be an expensive whore.” I threw back at her, and my mother gasped in full shock.
“Isn’t it? Wasn’t that what he called me? A whore. You let him do it. Your own daughter.” My blood was boiling, and I don’t know where that anger came from. Oh, wait, yes, I knew. From the fact she was actually mad at me, for my father calling me a whore and treating me like I was the trash stuck to his shoes.
She scoffed. “You don’t understand.”
“No, Mamma, I don’t.”
We were back to our silence, and I flipped through the pages of my magazine, not really looking at them. I felt her staring at me, making it harder to concentrate. I settled the magazine on my lap and looked at her.
“I do love your father,” she said simply. Love. As in present as in still loves and not loved in the past. “Don’t make that face at me, I know what you are thinking. I know the man that he is, what he’s done?—”
“Including ruining my life,” I pointed.
“When you love, Francesca, when you really love, you can’t help yourself. You don’t pick and choose the parts you love about a person; you love them for who and what they are. I know you have hated me for it and maybe you always will, but because I love him, there are things that I will always forgive him for.”
“He did despicable things, Mamma,” I reminded her.
“Yes, he did,” she agreed. “You’ll learn one day, that to love is to forgive. That to love is to understand your lover’s limitations and not hate them for it but to help them through them.”
“Yet he never changed,” I grumbled.
I stared at my mother dumbfounded by what she was telling me. What she said was right, a person had to change because they wanted to, and in that moment, sitting with my mother in a hospital room, I realized I had to change, too. I blamed her and my father for so many things in my life. I even blamed Cassio and Paolo, but I never stopped to look at myself. At the damage I had created. The thought sat like a heavy stone in my stomach, and it followed me through the day.
“Honestly, I feel like I am talking to myself,”Marie said snapping her fingers and bringing me back to reality.
“Sorry, I got distracted.”
Marie gave me one of those looks where she doubted what I was saying but wasn’t going to press me about it. We were having coffee at a small little place near her apartment. We’d just come back from a walk at the park, and Reginald was curled at my feet. I secretly wished I were him.
“Is Vitelli coming?” I nibbled on a piece of my doughnut, not really hungry for it.
“No, he had work to do today, he’s been busy lately,” Marie said. “It’s all Cassio’s fault.”
I couldn’t agree more.
“Frankie, what’s going on?”She picked up a piece of her chocolate croissant and nibbled on it.
“What?” I settled the doughnut on my plate, and picked up my jasmine tea, to take a sip. The better question was what wasn’t going on. “I kissed Cassio,” The words jumped out of my mouth. So much for forgetting that.
Marie slowly placed her croissant on the table and stared at me. “Excusezmoi?” Her jaw dropped and then when she picked it up, she added aghast. “You what?”
“Well, he was the one to kiss me first, but then I kissed him back.”
“I knew it.” Why did she sound so gleeful? “Explain, and don’t think about leaving anything out.”
“There is nothing much to say, one moment he was there and then he kissed me.” I sipped my tea leisurely.
“Frankie, that’s shit. Feed me more. I need more!”
“Shhh.” I widen my eyes commanding her to behave. My cheeks were already blazing, and I was mortified that I’d kissed Cassio when it was supposed to be the last thing we did. I was supposed to hate him!
I didn’t know where to start, there were parts of my life which Marie didn’t know. Parts like Arabella Moretti’s death, my engagement to Paolo, and my relationship with Cassio. I’d kept those things hidden in an attempt to lessen the hurt. Except four years had gone by and the wounds were still festering. Why couldn’t I move on?
“Cassio and I used to date… in secret,” I confessed.
Marie’s eyes widened. “Oh, GOD.” Her jaws dropped. “Wait, why in secret?”
“I was already promised to Paolo, our engagement had been set, but then I met Cassio, and I wasn’t going to be married for years, and I thought...” I sighed deeply. “I thought nothing was going to happen.”
Marie nodded in understanding. “Except it did.” She pointed out.
“We fell in love, or I did,” I explained. “We dated for two years, and Cassio made me believe he was going to fight for me.” I shrugged like it didn’t matter. Like what I was saying wasn’t like stabbing myself with a sharp knife. “Then one day he broke up with me.”
“You’re shitting me.” Marie was in shock.
I shook my head. “He said he didn’t love me and that we were a mistake.” To this day I can still remember the words Cassio had said to me. They had been tattooed in my brain, and I was never going to forget them. Not even if I tried.
“What an asshole,” Marie pointed with gusto. “He dumped you just like that?”
I shrugged again. “As I said, I was promised. I thought he loved me enough to save me, but apparently he didn’t, and I was too blind and stupid not to realize it.”
Marie looked at me as if I were a lost puppy in need of a home and some cuddles. She reached for my hand and squeezed it. Then suspicion showed in her almond-colored eyes, and she dropped my hand. “So why did he kiss you?”
Good question. Why? Why did Cassio kiss me?
“Does this have anything to do with that guy at the party?” Marie inquired connecting the dots I hadn’t seen myself. “Was he jealous or something?”
“Of me?” I laughed. “Please, as if.” I stared at the yellowish colored tea and wracked my brain trying to understand what happened that night. “It’s hard to know,” I confessed. “One moment he’s acting nice, and then the other, he’s pushing me away.”
“Hot and cold?”
“Cold. Freezing cold.” I remembered the way he looked at me, always with those cold pine-green eyes. Except, that day he kissed me, there had been heat in them, so much heat it burned my insides.
A strange ache settled in my heart. I couldn’t allow that. “It’s been four years. I should have forgotten him,” I said to the tea, not being able to look at my friend.
“Clearly you haven’t,” she pointed out what I didn’t want to admit myself.
After psychoanalyzing everything about the kiss, Marie allowed me to change the subject. I was tired of trying to understand why he’d kissed me, or why he saved me from Gianluca, or why he saved me from jail, or why he took me to his house? Or why he did all those nice things? If he hated me so much, why was he always there when I needed someone?
Cassio had let me go all those years ago, and it was my fault for bringing him back into my life once more, but I was supposed to be a one-time deal. We had agreed on never seeing each other again.
Yet here I was, with a massive headache, as I’d tried to figure out what to do next. Staying away from Cassio was the only choice I had. I just prayed he’d stay away from me as well. I couldn’t deal with another problem right now, and Cassio was certainly the largest of them all.