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I bit my tongue. If I had been around, Salvatrice wouldn’t have to make a sacrifice to send our daughter to ballet classes, for fuck’s sake. I ate the rest of my meal in silence. Salva looked at me under her lashes every five seconds; she obviously wanted to say something, but didn’t. Maybe it was for the best. I needed to digest some things before being able to speak without saying something stupid.
When Romina was done, she asked for permission to take Max and go back to looking for fishes in the sea and that gave Salva and I an opportunity talk.
“Roman, say something.”
That was fucking easy to say.
“She hates me. My daughter hates me.” Plain and simple.
“What are you talking about? You’re slowly becoming Remy’s hero. All she could talk about all morning was about the nice man and his dog.”
“And you think that’s good?” Unable to stay quiet anymore, I pushed the chair back and got up, walking to the opposite side of the deck. I watched the charming city of Portofino in the distance, where the colorful buildings that line the shore were guarded by forested hills.
“I’m sorry,” Salva said from behind me. I’d never heard her utter those words so many times as she did in the last twenty-four hours, but it didn’t bring me any satisfaction.
“She’s going to look back in a few years and the only thing she’ll see will be an absent father. You have to send her to school early to afford those damn dance classes?”
“It’s not only about that. Yes, they’re expensive as shit, but Portofino is small, Roman. There aren’t any dance schools here, so I have to send her to Genova. It’s an hour away and I can’t take her, but if she starts school, which is also in Genova, Remy will benefit from their transportation.”
“Fuck that. Don’t send her to school yet, she’s five. If Romina is an overachiever, public school won’t do much for her anyway. She needs private tutoring. I’ll find you a driver to take her to Genova and back.” This bullshit was about to stop. “I’m gonna need you to find a lawyer.”
“What? Why? What do you want to do?” Her voice was anguished with worry.
“Relax. I will call my people in New York tomorrow to have some documents drawn up. Romina needs to be written into my estate right away and we need to agree upon child support. I will need a bank account where I can transfer you back pay for the last five years.”
She looked completely disarmed by my words. The semi-shocked expression on her face didn’t faze me at all. It seemed like this was going to be the new normal for Salvatrice and I. Nothing made sense and everything was too much.
“Roman, you have no obligation…”
What a total load of crap. I didn’t give her the chance to finish.
“My obligation started the second I came inside you and we made that child. I’m obligated by the law, I’m obligated by my conscience, and not only that. I get that your worst nightmare is me being close with my daughter, but I have some very shitty news, Salvatrice. I plan to be a big part of her life and it starts with paying for those fucking ballet lessons.”
Every time I heard Romina speak about dance classes with longing and impatience, something in me died. I could have given her that so easily.
Salva let out an exhausted breath and went back to her chair to sit down. This was obviously taking a toll on her, but I wasn’t doing so great either. I went to sit next to her, waiting for things to calm down while looking over at Romina. The girl was oblivious to what was happening, she was too busy teaching Max something about little fishes.
“I think I should be grateful.” Salva spoke. “You are very rational and calm about this.”
“About what?” Rational and calm were the last things I was feeling.
“About me keeping Romina from you. I never thought you’d find out, but when I let my mind wonder about what would happen, things didn’t play out so… civilly.”
“Civil? What did you expect, Salva? A bullet in the back of your head for disobeying me?”
“Well, yes! Yes, that’s what I expected.” Her eyes grew wide in fear, almost like she was still waiting for the punishment to come. I did a lot of shit in my time and I covered twice more for the famiglia, but there wasn’t one thing I did to deserve her fear.
Shaking my head, furious at how ridiculous she was, I pulled out my gun and threw it on the table in front of her.
“Here, how about you keep the bullets. Would that make your nerves calm down?”
“Jesus, Roman, take this thing away. Why did you bring it?” Her words were so weak, I barely heard her above the sounds of the yacht.
“For the love of God, woman, you think I brought a gun with the intent of hurting my child or you?” I wasn’t only hurt, I was offended. “I don’t hurt women, Salvatrice. Never. So you can calm the fuck down.”
“My mother was a woman.” She spit back.
“I had nothing to do with her death, nor did anyone I was associated with, if that was eating at you. That’s not how the Nucci family works and I would have told you that six years ago if you would have had the decency to ask. How could you think you were in danger around me?”
