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Daddy’s little failure.
The words are branded in me, the pain never subsiding.
Maybe Salvatore is right. Maybe I don’t have any business trying to stand next to a man like him, but at least I tried to stand with him.
It was more than he was willing to do for me.
I don’t sleep. I just hurt, all night—an emotion so deep, it aches in my chest. Crying over him makes me feel stupid, but I can’t stop it. The rotten cherry on top of it all.
It’s the longest night before morning light slips into the bedroom. Salvatore does not. He doesn’t even come to see me before he leaves. I don’t remember falling asleep, but when I open my eyes again, some part of me knows that he’s gone.
Either he will come back or he won’t—but it won’t have anything to do with me.
There’s no joy in being able to wander the house without him here. There’s nowhere to go and no one to see.
I find Vera watching a movie with the kids, Nate clutched in her lap. I wonder if she’s let him go even once in the past couple of days. For a few moments, I linger on the threshold. If she’s in her usual mood to talk shit about Salvatore, we might actually have something to bond over, but I don’t know if it’s a bond I want.
She gives me a long, searching look. In a way, we’re mirrors of each other. Exhausted, our hair a mess and shoulders slumped. I wonder if it’s obvious that I’ve been crying all night.
When she whistles lowly, I guess that it is.
“Anything I can do for you, princess?” she asks.
The offer surprises me, but I don’t take her up on it.
“No,” I say. The rasp in my voice surprises me, an embarrassing betrayal. “Can I…?”
“Misery loves company.” She nods toward the seat. “I haven’t thanked you,” she finally admits, running her shaking fingers through Nate’s hair. “Don’t know how you really thank somebody for what you did—”
“You don’t,” I assure her.
Nate seems oblivious to both of us as we talk over his head, engrossed in the movie.
“Is he okay?”
She glances at me, the light flickering over her face.
“Nobody in this house ends up okay,” she says. “That’s just how it is.”
I shake my head. She sounds just like him. As if no one in this house has any choices of their own.
“…I know that look,” she chuckles, reading my expression. “You angry at him?”
“Something like that.”
“Well. It was only a matter of time.” I wince at how unsurprised she sounds, as if Salvatore was always destined to disappoint me eventually. The same way he disappointed her.
Vera orders us coffee. I think, in her own way, she’s trying to make me feel better.
Once we’re caffeinated, and Nate is on his second rewatch, Vera asks if I want to talk about it.
No gossiping.
Who has a rule like that unless they have something to hide? Still, I can’t bring myself to betray him even in that tiny way.
“No,” I whisper, even though I’d like nothing more.
“Suit yourself. But if you change your mind, you know where to find a sympathetic ear.
