Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
ONE YEAR LATER
ORIETTA
Iwas back. No matter how hard I tried, it was a habit I couldn’t break. Worse. The frequency of my visits had increased. Luigi knew it, but he never admonished me for it. The only other person who knew of it was my therapist. I was okay with both of them knowing. They knew so much worse about me.
Lia was clearly having a tantrum. Unhappy about something Mamma was asking of her. Even standing outside, just before midnight in the dry August air, I could feel the tension strumming inside her coiled body. I wanted to yank out the thing that was bringing her so much pain.
Whatever Mamma was asking of her became too much, and her hand wrapped around the pasta dough roller and smashed it against the wall.
My chest constricted. Lia was prone to violence when she was pushed, but she’d never done it in front of Mamma.
Her face was crimson with rage. Mamma’s paled on the other side of the counter.
After a beat, Lia stormed out of the room and left her alone, and Mamma broke like a vase clattering to the floor.
Her hands came to her face, and her shoulders shook with sobs.
I didn’t even know why it bothered me. But it did.
Annoyingly, wetness pooled down my cheeks, and the salty taste was in my mouth again.
The urge to go and comfort her crawled all over me. At the same time, I worried about her reaction. So much time had passed. Thoughts of how she would react thrilled and scared me at the same time. So I stayed fixed with my back to the tree. It was easier this way.
Except it wasn’t. It annoyed me to see her crying.
I had to make her stop. I’d have to call Daria or Vitale.
But that wasn’t something I could do. I couldn’t call them and speak to them.
Or message them. It was too soon. The ground was slipping beneath me, and everything was moving too soon. I wasn’t ready. Was I?
I dug out my phone from my back pocket and punched out the name on my favourites list. She picked up on the first ring. I didn’t bother with a hello. There were some things I’d never change about myself. “How do I know if I’m ready?”
She wasn’t even surprised at my midnight call. “You don’t wake up one day feeling ready, Orietta.”
“Well, then how?”
“You just notice that the fear isn’t driving the decision anymore.”
But I was afraid. Afraid to face the pain I’d inflicted for all these years. Her voice on the other end droned on with a long-winded explanation, but I drowned it out to a buzz in my head.
My gaze shifted back to the window, and Mamma was still crying. Agitation coiled in my veins.
She was pissing me off. She needed to stop it. Now.
Without realising it, I was rocking my body against the trunk.
“What do you feel?”
“I feel…” What was I feeling? “Panicked. Like I can’t breathe. Suffocated. I want to comfort her.”
Where did that last part come from? No, I don’t.
“Can you walk me through what’s happening?”
I couldn’t do that. Mamma was such a private person. I wasn’t going to break that by talking about it with her. She wouldn’t want anyone to know about her private moment of helplessness.
“You picked up on the first ring.”
She let me change the topic without asking me why. That’s why I liked her. I did what I wanted with her, and everything was okay. Just like Luigi was with me.
“That’s my job.”
“It’s almost midnight, and you’re supposed to be on holiday. I am your priority.”
She was quiet at the other end.
“Aren’t I?” I pushed, but she remained quiet. “You could have forwarded the call to the hotline. You didn’t. Who made me your priority?” When she still didn’t respond, I insisted. “I’m not hanging up until you tell me.”
She sighed, and I could almost see her little wrinkled forehead fold into an extra crease. “You have a lot of people who love you, Orietta.”
“Who?”
There was an intense need to know. I already knew one. “My husband?”
“That one’s a keeper for sure.”
“Who else, Erminia?”
“There’s no one else I can name.”
And I had my answer right there. The only person not only my therapist but the entire town would be terrified of getting into trouble with was the don himself.
I didn’t even know why I took sick pleasure in Vitale threatening Erminia to be available to me 24/7.
It made me feel all warm. Like I was a priority.
Made me feel at home. To have two men look out for me when I’d never known anything like it before.
I dropped the call without a goodbye. She’d already helped me more than I had hoped. Mamma had stopped crying, and she was wiping the already clean countertop.
Without even realising it, I had typed out a message and hit send.
Mamma’s sad. Lia had one of her tantrums.
The answer was almost immediate. Like I was a priority on her list, too.
Don’t worry. I was just about to call her.
My gaze lifted, and on the other side of the window, Mamma startled when her phone rang. Her entire demeanour shifted when she picked it up, and soon she was smiling.
Just about to call her. Right. Making calls to Ada close to midnight was something she made a daily routine of.
I couldn’t remember when I’d started messaging her.
It was somewhere after Vitale’s wedding.
I’d never met her in real life. But she’d become one of my sisters when I couldn’t bring myself to speak to my actual sisters.
I was glad Vitale had married her because that woman was truly part of the family. Even mine.
The door didn’t even close fully before I bombarded him with my question.
“How is Mamma?”
I’d held it out for a full day while he had gone to the main house and waited until he was back. Ahana had told me she was fine. But I wanted another report. From someone else.
Luigi took off his coat and hung it up before coming over to me and kissing me full on my lips. Unlike on any other day, I ignored him. I was on the verge of something. I couldn’t tell what, but I was. Things were shifting. Everything moving. My insides twisting.
“She’s fine,” he murmured before walking towards the kitchen.
I followed behind him. “How is Mamma really doing?”
I didn’t even know why I still called her Mamma when she hadn’t birthed me.
It had been far easier to stop calling Carlo Papà.
But Ada… I couldn’t get myself to call her anything else other than Mamma.
After months of sitting on a couch across from Erminia, I had resigned myself to the fact that I’d probably never be able to call her anything other than that.
“I think she’s a bit sad.”
I knew it.
“Because Ahana doesn’t live with her anymore.”
He gave me a weird look. “She moved out a long time ago.”
“Doesn’t matter. Vitale should move back home.”
My husband turned around, but I knew he was rolling his eyes. “Your brother doesn’t share his wife. Not even with his mother.”
“My brother is an obsessed, jealous prick.”
“True,” Luigi agreed without a second’s pause.
I frowned behind his back. He also looked out for me. So I hadn’t really meant it.
“Maybe Daria should visit more often.”
Luigi looked up from the pot on the stove he was sniffing. “Maybe you should tell her that?”
“No.” I shook my head adamantly. “Lorenzo is the real obsessed, jealous prick.”
He cocked his head and ran a thoughtful thumb along his jaw. “Not Vitale?”
“He’s my brother. I have no affinity with Lorenzo.”
“Good.” His eyes gleamed with jealousy, and a thrill ran through my body at that. “I agree with you.”
“Why is Mamma sad?” He dipped his hand into the pot, took out a chunk of chicken, and popped it into his mouth. It was a good thing I didn’t marry him for his manners because he had none. I shoved him away from the stove and grabbed a plate to serve him. “It must be because Lia’s been acting out.”
“Among other things.” I paused, spoon hovering above the half-filled plate. His eyes were on mine. Giving me an answer I didn’t want to hear. But I also kind of did.
“What else is there?”
“She’s missing her eldest daughter, piccolo porcospino.”
The spoon vibrated in my hand, but I forced it to dip and bring the sauce to the plate. It took too much energy from me. I couldn’t do it. Could I?
“You think?” My mind was so full of hesitation that I was surprised I’d gotten the words past my vocal cords.
“I know.”
When I brought my gaze up to his, he was a blurry vision.
It was a lot to handle. The Orietta I knew almost two years ago would have channelled it into a ball of rage.
But not the Orietta I was now. That was when it finally hit me.
It wasn’t panic anymore because of everything between us.
It was because I missed her, and I didn’t know how to get past it after all this time.
But the more time I let pass, the worse it would become.
I couldn’t let that happen. Not this time. Not ever.
I wanted to tell him I was going to do it.
I think I was. My hands itched to pick up the phone and make that call.
But I had to explain my thoughts to the man in front of me first. I owed it to him for all the time he’d spent going through everything with me.
For all the times I’d gotten ready and not gone or picked up the phone and not called.
But he was already there before me. “Do you want me to stay?”
This man, who’d silently stood next to me, letting me fight my battles while supporting me at the same time. Except this battle, I wanted to go in on my own because it wasn’t a battle anymore. I shook my head.
Warm hands squeezed mine, and my phone was set in front of me. His footsteps faded away softly when he walked out of the room, and I flopped onto the floor, cradling the ice-cold phone. This was it. This time, I was really going to do it.
My fingers rattled like the last autumn leaves in a winter storm, but somehow, I managed to punch the number I’d wished to call for so many months.
She didn’t even give me the luxury of listening to the endless ringing. Didn’t give my heart time to settle into a rhythm. One ring was all it took before her voice was filling my lungs. “Orietta?”
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.
“La mia figlia.” Her words were full of the confirmation I needed. It filled my insides like warm honey. I was warm and cold. Full and empty. It was a lot. It was too much. I didn’t know how to handle it. I still hadn’t learned yet. Except this time, I wouldn’t push her away.
With her, it felt like I was home, and I was safe.
It felt like I was inside the kitchen. Black and white tiled flooring, the smell of fresh food, and behind the stove, the woman who’d opened up her arms and caught me when no one else had wanted me.
So I burst out crying, and soon, we were crying together.
Vaguely, I wondered if she was in the kitchen, a sobbing mess on the floor just like I was.
I knew that somehow she would be. I had hurt this woman over and over again, yet she still loved me.
I knew it. Even if no words had passed other than salty tears and years of agony.
The only difference was that I’d opened up my tunnel vision so I could see clearly. And what I saw was her at the end of it. I couldn’t see her yet. Face to face. I wasn’t there yet. But this was a step in doing it one day. Soon, hopefully.