24. Vivi
VIVI
More tears burn the back of my throat, but I don’t let them fall. Don’t want anything to ruin this impossible moment.
“Say it,” Giovanni says.
“What?” My voice is waterlogged.
“Fuck them. Say ‘Fuck them’.”
My lexicon of curse words is practically nonexistent.
Which isn’t a surprise given where I grew up.
But as I form the word on my tongue—for only the fourth time in my life, all over no more than four weeks—I realize I like it.
Like the feel of the hard ‘ck’ as it hits the back of my throat.
Like the burst of catharsis that happens when the profanity jumps out of my mouth.
“Fuck. Them,” I say, slowly grinning. “Fuck them.”
“Exactly,” Giovanni answers. “Fuck them.”
He leans back. So do I, resting more comfortably against the pillows. Both of my hands are still in his, and the atmosphere around us has shifted. Charged with an energy I can’t define.
“You were saying,” Giovanni prompts.
“Right. Our perfect day. As I was saying, my parents weren’t the warm and nurturing kind.
They liked to take us out, dress us up, and put us away again.
But Millie’s mom—she was the best. Never stingy with hugs, always helping with bumps and scrapes, tucking us in at night and sitting with us if we were scared of a thunderstorm.
She was fun. She didn’t mind if our art supplies went everywhere or if we tracked in mud from the garden.
She told us that making messes is a part of being alive.
That there’s nothing wrong with it as long as we clean up after ourselves before the end of the day. And she taught us how.”
I release a bittersweet sigh. The memories are a double-edged sword.
Joyous, jagged. “She was the best. Millie was too. Bright, bubbly. Fun. Like really fun. She knew where all the best hiding spots were in the house—she had two years on me, remember. Two extra years to find them. She knew the best spots in the garden, too. That was Mille. She knew stuff. How to braid colored threads into our hair and how to do handstands and what a Petoskey stone was.”
“A what stone?”
“What?” I gape, face stretched in exaggerated disbelief. “Is it possible I know something the great Giovanni Marchetti doesn’t?”
“What?” Giovanni mimics, mocking. “Is it possible Viviana Marchetti is actually teasing me?”
There’s a subtle warmth in his voice. It sinks low in my stomach.
Burrows there. I’m progressively running out of energy, but I grin.
Bright and, yes, teasing. “Petoskey stones are part pebble, part fossilized coral. And really common in the areas around Lake Michigan. Millie taught us that, too. She found some that day—our perfect day. Our parents were away, and Millie’s mom took the three of us down to the beach.
We ran barefoot, dug in the sand. Swam in the water. Hunted for shells. Ate ice cream.”
“Found stones?”
“Yes, found stones. Three of them. One for me, one for Elena, one for Millie. My sister and I didn’t know what they were until Millie put them in the water.
They look like normal rocks when dry, but when they get wet, all these hexagonal patterns appear, the fossilized remains of a rugose coral.
You can make the pattern permanently visible if you polish them.
Millie was going to show us how to do that, too, but she didn’t have the chance. ”
“Why not?”
“I made a mistake. The night we got back from the beach, I ruined everything.”
“You were ten, Vivi. How could you have possibly ruined everything?”
Giovanni’s expression is part confusion, part concern, and I hate that I have to confess what I’ve done. That he’ll know my worst, darkest secret.
But it’s too late to turn back.
If I don’t tell him now, I never will, and it doesn’t feel right leaving Millie and her mom’s story unfinished. I was careless with their lives before. I don’t want to be careless with their memories, too.
“When we got back from the beach, Father was in a really bad mood. He’d had a bad day. He didn’t like that we were messy. He was angry that he couldn’t find Mille’s mom when he wanted her. He was just…ugh. Really, fucking grumpy.”
Giovanni gives my hands another squeeze. “Excellent use of the word fucking,” he whispers.
“Thanks,” I whisper back. “Anyway, Father was mad, and he sent us to our rooms and told Millie’s mom that he had a job he needed her to do right away.
So, she followed him. Nothing odd about that.
Except, she didn’t come back. She missed bath time, and story time, and bedtime.
Millie and Elena fell asleep on their own, but I couldn’t.
I wanted Millie’s mom. I wanted Theresa. I went looking for her.”
“And you found her?”
I shake my head. “I heard her.”
Ice washes down my spine. My fingers go numb in Giovanni’s hands.
“She was begging. Pleading. In my father’s office.
On the ground. Face down. Her skirt was messed up.
Her shirt, too. And Father was on top of her, pushing against her.
” I shake my head, unable to dislodge the image even now.
“Like…” I realize, “Like Tino in the video you showed me.”
The ice in my bones flashes hot before freezing again. The realization dawning on me. “He was fucking her.”
Giovanni has gone very still. “He was raping her. Touching her against her will.
I close my eyes, my chin dropping to my chest, heartbroken. “You’re right. That’s what he was doing. I didn’t have the word for it then, but I knew he was hurting her. I knew she wanted him to stop but he wouldn’t.”
The tears are falling again, but this time Gio doesn’t catch them.
Instead, he scoops me into his arms, blankets and all, and pulls me onto his lap.
For an instant I stiffen, then, as the heat of his body seeps into mine, relax.
Lay my head on his shoulder. Listen to the rhythmic beat of his heart, trying to match mine to his.
“I ran away, back to my room. Hid under the covers. Theresa found me. Told me she was okay, told me that it was a game that had gotten out of hand. She told me not to worry. And she told me not to tell anyone.”
“Oh, Vivi.” He knows. I can tell from his voice he knows what happened next.
It doesn’t make it easier to say. “But I did,” I whisper against his neck.
“I was worried about her, worried that she’d be hurt, so when I woke up the next morning, I got dressed, put my little stone in my pocket, ready to polish it with Millie after breakfast, and found my mother.
Told her everything. I expected her to be mad, but I also expected her to get help. She didn’t do either.”
“What did she do?”
“She fired Millie’s mom on the spot. Had some of my father’s men throw their stuff into garbage bags before shoving the bags, Millie’s mom, and Millie into a van, and sending them away.”
I curl into a ball on Gio’s lap, squeezing my knees against my chest as if it will make it easier to stay in one piece.
“I tried to stop her, I swear I did. I knew I’d messed up.
That I should’ve just kept my mouth shut, but I didn’t know everything would get so much worse.
When I realized that my mother wasn’t going to bring Millie and her mom back, I lost it.
Shouted, begged, pleaded. When that didn’t work, I tried a different tactic.
I threatened my mother. Told her if she didn’t bring Millie and her mom back, she might as well send me away too. ”
“Oddio.” Giovanni pulls me even tighter against his chest. “Holy shit, Vivi.”
“Turns out I gave her the excuse she and Father had been waiting for. They wanted to send me to the convent anyway, to make sure—and this is a direct quote—I ‘stayed pure for my husband.’ They were worried that the messy and playful behavior they saw in me as a child would turn to disobedience as a teenager. When I literally interfered in their affairs, it was the last straw. They sent me away with nothing but the clothes I was wearing. They told me if I was good, if I didn’t cry, and I followed every instruction the nuns gave me, if I was obedient, I’d see them all again when I was older.
That was the deal. I had to be the model daughter in order to get my life back. ”
Drained, I lapse into silence. Giovanni’s muscles are locked around me, and he’s rocking me ever so slightly. A subtle back and forth that slowly calms my overwrought nervous system.
My eyes are closing on their own when I hear him ask, “Do you know what happened to them after? Millie and Theresa?”
“They died.” My vocal cords glitch, a self-defense tactic. My body protecting me from what I know I have to say. “They’re both dead. I killed them.”
Gio’s voice is hollow as he echoes, “You killed them.”
“As good as. I’m responsible for their deaths. There was a crash. The van that took them from our house got into an accident halfway across the city. Someone ran a red light, plowed into them. Totaled the van. No one survived.”
“Oh, fuck. Bella. I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you.” The sentiment tastes flat, meaningless. “It’s my fault. I set the ball rolling… If I hadn’t seen what I’d seen, told who I’d told, none of it would’ve happened.”
“You can’t think like that, Vivi. You were a child. How could you have possibly known?”
“Yes, I was a child. But I also knew the type of people my parents were—are. I should’ve known going to my mother would only backfire. I just wanted to help so badly. To protect the people I loved.”
Gio whispers something against my hair. Shapeless sounds of comfort. I can’t make out the words, but I press my ear against him, shocked at how safe his body makes me feel.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I register movement. Gio is lifting me, putting me back in bed, pulling the covers up.
I’m so close to passing out, my senses muted, when I feel pressure against my mouth.
Giovanni’s lips.
They’re soft, lingering. His hand slips against my jaw, thumb caressing my cheek as he kisses me again. The smell of his skin fills my lungs, drugging me as I drift to sleep.