Ricardo
Chapter Twenty Four
“Dante has had a difficult life,” I say.
Julia is quiet for a moment.
Then her gaze moves around the study. The carved shelves. The leather chairs. The antique desk that belonged to my father before it belonged to me. I had it shipped here after he died and we moved to Chicago.
There is old expensive art on the walls, a thick rug beneath her feet. The view beyond the windows, a gated drive and old money made newer by blood and patience.
When she looks back at me, there is a faint challenge in her eyes.
I give her a twisted smile. “You of all people know better than to look at expensive walls and assume a child was happy inside them.”
Her expression shifts into one of hurt.
A direct hit. I regret it immediately, but she does not flinch away from it.
“No,” she says quietly. “I know that very well.” Then her chin lifts. “But having a loving father helps.”
My jaw tightens.
My lip throbs at the reminder.
Julia folds her arms, but there is nothing cold in it. She is upset. Tired. Frightened, perhaps. Angry with me because anger is easier than the fear that Dante may not forgive her.
I understand that.
I also understand she is not entirely wrong.
“You think I am too forgiving of him,” I say.
“I think you have decided he gets to hurt you because he has been hurt.”
For several seconds, I say nothing.
Julia’s expression softens a little, but she does not back down. That is one of the things I admire most about her. Her kindness does not make her weak. Her fear does not make her dishonest.
“It is more complicated than that,” I say.
“It always is.”
I look at her.
She holds my gaze.
“What happened with his mother?” she asks.
My chest tightens. I should've known she would understand.
Under that thick mane of red hair, Julia's brain is always running.
Dante's mother. The thing beneath the thing. The wound under every argument tonight.
I turn away from her and walk to the window again. Outside, the drive is empty now. Dante’s car is gone. The house has settled back into silence, but the silence feels different after he has left it. Angrier. Younger.
“Her name was Liliana Castelli,” I say.
Julia does not move.
I can see her reflection in the glass. She stands very still near the chair, her hands now lowered to her sides.
“I was twenty-one when I met her. She was beautiful. Reckless. At that age, I mistook chaos for courage and charm for character. She was alive in a way I'd not experienced before.”
Julia says nothing.
“I loved her before I understood her,” I continue. “By the time I realized she was using cocaine, I was already in too deep to be sensible or rational.”
Julia’s face changes in the reflection to one of sadness.
“I tried to get her help,” I say. “Doctors. Clinics. Private arrangements. People who could keep things quiet. She laughed at me. Told me I worried too much. Told me she could stop whenever she wished.”
The old anger is still there. The helplessness.
Duller now, but alive.
“But she could not,” Julia says softly.
“No.”
I keep my gaze on the window.
“Eventually, I ended it. Or tried to. I told myself I had done everything I could. Then, a few weeks later, she came to me and told me she was pregnant.”
Julia’s breath catches.
Dante.
The only good thing to come out of that ruin.
“She was still using,” I say. “Still lying. Still disappearing for hours and coming back with powder in her blood and promises in her mouth. And suddenly it was no longer only her life. It was my child’s life.”
I hear my own voice change.
Lower. Harder.
“I went to my father.”
Julia’s reflection blurs slightly as my eyes lose focus.
“He handled it.”
“What does that mean?” she asks, though I suspect she knows enough to dread the answer.
“Francis Conti had ways of handling things that weren’t what you’d call ‘the right way.’ But they got the job done.”
In my mind, I can picture Liliana screaming at me as those doors close behind her. “Liliana was admitted to a private rehab center outside Naples, and she stayed there until Dante was born.”
Julia is silent for a long moment.
“You forced her.”
I don't bother to deny it.
“Yes.”
I turn from the window and face her.
“I will not dress it up for you. I will not make it sound better than it was. She hated me. She screamed at me. She called me names for months and cursed me. There was a point she was kept strapped down because she was on suicide watch. She was watched twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week until she gave birth.”
Julia’s eyes shine.
I continue before she can speak.
“Dante was born healthy. That was all I cared about by then. I have no regrets.” I finish it up. “My father secured full custody for me.”
Her throat moves as she swallows.
I wait for the judgment.
I have earned some of it.
Instead, she asks, “What happened after? Did she ever see him?”
The question cuts.
“Yes,” I say. “Supervised initially.”
Julia’s face tightens.
“She was sober then. Or I thought she was. I wanted...” I stop, irritated by the weakness in the words. “I wanted Dante to have a mother if it was possible. I wanted to believe some part of Liliana could love him enough.”
My hands curl at my sides.
“At my father’s house with people nearby. She cried the first time. She told me she would be better. She told me she would do it for him. For me. For us.”
The lie is old, but it still cuts.
“But she didn’t.” Julia’s voice is sad.
She knows how this story ends.
“Somehow she got her hands on cocaine, and I found her high with Dante asleep in the next room. It was the first time I had entrusted her with a little bit of space. More fool I.”
Julia closes her eyes.
“That was the last time,” I say. “The last time I saw her. The last time she saw him. From that moment, Dante was mine. Mine to raise. Mine to protect. Mine to love enough for both of us.”
Julia opens her eyes again.
“Dante doesn’t know any of this?”
“No.”
She opens her mouth to speak, but I continue before she can.
“He knows I was young. He knows I got a woman pregnant. He knows I brought him into the family because I believed he belonged with me. He knows his mother could not be part of his life.”
“But he does not know why.”
“No.”
“Ricardo.”
“What would you have had me tell him?” My voice sharpens. “That his mother chose cocaine over him? That she broke the promises she made over his head the very moment she could? Without a single second thought. He was in the next room, Julia. He was a helpless infant, and she was out of her mind.”
I can’t continue. I can’t go back to that moment again, the moment I've pictured a thousand times. The moment where anything could have happened, and thank God nothing did.
Julia says nothing.
I look away.
“When he was small, I could not tell him that. When he was older, I could not find a way to say it without sounding as if I were putting blame on her. I couldn't do that to him.”
Julia stares at me for a long moment.
“Oh,” she says quietly. “I see.”
I do not like that tone.
It is too knowing.
“What?” I ask. “What do you see?”
She steps closer, her eyes fixed on mine.
“So you’ve always taken on the role of the bad guy in Dante’s life.”
My brows draw together. “What do you mean?”
“I mean you let him think you took him from his mother because you were the better choice.”
“I was the better choice.”
“Yes,” she says. “You were. But that isn’t the whole story. You let him think it is.”
I go still.
Julia’s voice remains soft, but there is no gentleness in the point she is making.
“By not telling him the whole story, you let him come to the conclusion that you were just arrogant. Possessive. Very ‘Conti.’ You let him believe you made the decision because you could, because you had the power and the name and the family behind you.”
I don't like the implication. I narrow my eyes.
“What he believes now is easier than the truth.”
“So you think,” she says.
My jaw clenches.
She does not retreat.
“If Dante knew the truth,” she says, “he would have to live with what his mother did. That is horrible. I understand why you wanted to spare him that. But he would also know what you saved him from.”
“I did not need him grateful.”
“No,” she says. “You needed him protected. But in doing so, you allowed yourself to become the bad guy in the story. You let yourself become the part he could resent.”
The words strike with shocking force.
I turn away.
Julia follows, stopping a few feet behind me.
“He got to be angry at you instead of destroyed by her,” she says. “Because anger is easier than hurt.”
My eyes close.
“Basta.”
“I’m not trying to hurt you.”
“You are succeeding anyway.”
“I know.” Her voice shakes now. “But I think you need to hear it.”
I breathe through my nose and keep my back to her.
She continues, quieter.
“And now tonight, he came here furious and heartbroken, and you did the same thing again.”
“He was in pain.”
“He was wrong.”
I turn back sharply.
“He can be in pain and still be wrong,” she says before I can speak. “He can be your son and still be wrong. He can have had a difficult childhood and still be wrong.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you stand there bleeding like you were proving something?”
Anger moves through me, fast and instinctive.
“I was not proving anything.”
“You were accepting punishment you think you deserve.”
My hands flex once at my sides.
Julia’s eyes fill, but her chin stays lifted.
“You let Dante hit you because somewhere inside you, you still think part of this is payment. For Liliana. For custody. For the truth you kept from him. For being with me when you knew how he'd feel about it.”
“That is enough.”
“No.” Her voice breaks, but she continues strong. “Because you said I make myself small to protect people, and you were right. But you do this too. You make yourself guilty so everyone else has somewhere to put their pain.”
I stare at her, my jaw clenched.
No one speaks to me this way.
No one alive, perhaps, except Mario.
Now Julia.
She looks terrified as she says it, but she says it anyway.