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Mrs Capizzi bristled at my silence. She looked over at Rosa and spoke to her, although the words were clearly meant for my ears.
“What is the matter with this girl? Why haven’t they brought her up well? She should know to respect the elders. You should answer when someone speaks to you.”
ANTONIO
I would rather dine with the Mexicans than enter my home. My mother's car parked outside spelt out too many doom scenarios to name one. Some days, I thought Papà was the lucky bastard. Death, it seemed, was the only escape from Maria Capizzi because keeping an ocean in between definitely hadn’t worked out.
I followed the sound of her loud voice to the kitchen, just in time to hear her insulting Divya.
“That’s enough, Mother,” I said even before I walked into the room.
Divya looked upset while Rosa was bristling and holding on to her wooden spoon as if she just might clop it on my mother's head. I might help her with that. The only winner in the room seemed to be Maria Capizzi in her element again.
She turned and walked over to me. All men loved red lips, they said. Except me. The sight of red lips was enough to make my dick shrivel a silent death. “Really Antonio. You need to screen your servants more. The way this new one talks back. My, my.”
“That’s enough,” I said tightly. Cora must have sensed the tension in the room because her cute little lips trembled before she burst out crying. Divya rushed over to carry her while her grandmother just stood and watched.
What else was new?
“Divya, I think it’s better you take Cora up. I need to get rid of an intrusion.”
I didn’t like the way she was being talked to. I wanted her out of the room before I put a hole in my mother’s head.
“An intrusion? Who is an intrusion?”
I ignored my mother’s words as I let my eyes trail over Divya’s body, watching her collect Cora’s food and pick her up. I was sure the dress she was wearing was shorter than the one from yesterday. Was she wearing a bra underneath? I couldn’t tell.
“Antonio, I was —”
“If you don’t shut up now, I am going to embarrass you in front of the servants, as you put it, and it won’t be in Italian,” I said stonily to my mother in Italian.
She looked taken aback by my sharp words but kept quiet until Divya fled the room with Cora. If there was anyone who hated my mother as much as I did, it might be Rosa. It didn’t surprise me that she followed Divya out of the room.
The kitchen smelled of tomatoes and garlic. A smell that could soothe me on any other day. Today it didn’t do anything to cool the annoyance running through my veins.
“What do you want?” I got straight to the point.
“You are my son, can’t I —”
“Cut the crap. Your visits to America coincide with a plan of yours. You don’t visit unless you have an agenda, or you need something from me. So, which one of them is it now?”
“Is it true? Your no-good ex-wife is suing for custody?”
“Yes.” No point denying it. She was going to find out anyway through someone in the family. Italians and their gossip.
I walked over to the drink’s cabinet. I needed to numb my senses.
“You should never have married her. I told you, of course. But no. Antonio Capizzi thought he was too good to listen to his mama. Look where that got you, huh? A no-good, Russian whore.”
“Really, Mother, you are talking about the mother of my child.”
“As if you would have better words for that blonde bitch. Vladislav is a good man, but he made a huge mistake by spoiling that bitch of a daughter. He should have never proposed this connection, and you should never have accepted it. You were meant to marry one of our own kind.”
“Should have, could have. What’s the point now? Marrying for an alliance is no strange news to you. It’s no secret that there was no love lost between you and Papà. Although … why the sudden interest in Cora, anyway? I have never even known you to even hold your granddaughter, so this sudden change is … forgive me … baffling.”
“Oh, shut up,” she snapped. “I called Roberto’s office. He has become too big for his own shoes. He wouldn’t discuss the case with me. What is the comeback?”
“Roberto is a professional. Obviously, he will not discuss the case with you since you are not his client.”
