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“Vera’s just drunk and letting her kids run wild in the meantime.”
“She sounded a little bit more than just drunk.” She hesitates, obviously torn between wanting to ask and thinking better of it. She sits down on the end of her bed. “What happened between the two of you? Not just out there, I mean…in general.”
“You mean why does she hate me?”
I throw one of the purses out of my way and sit next to her.
“I can’t speak for her. I don’t know if she hates you or not—”
“She does.”
There’s no question of that, no chance for misunderstanding. Vera’s made sure of that over the years.
“Then sure. Why does she hate you?”
It’s not a complicated answer.
“Her husband died. Nate and Lana’s father. He had good connections, met Vera in law school, came from a political family. I wanted him involved. He wanted to be involved. The only person who didn’t approve was Vera. You can imagine which one of us won him over in the end.”
Contessa winces softly.
“And then he died because of it,” she surmises.
“.22 to the back of his head in a parking lot outside of his law office. Staged to look like a mugging.”
Contessa frowns, quickly swerving away from the details.
“It doesn’t sound like you made him get involved,” she reasons.
As if reason would mean anything to someone like Vera.
“No. But if you ask Vera, I may as well have.” I brush past it. “It doesn’t matter. The point is, he’s dead. And in some way, that’s my fault. Vera will always see it like that. She swore she’d never come back here, but right now, she doesn’t have another choice. So, she’s making it everyone’s problem.”
“I’m sorry,” she says softly.
“For what? I don’t need Vera to forgive me. We were never close to begin with, and I never asked for it. The women in this family, I don’t know what it is, but they mourn for life. No one tells them they should, but they always do. Something in the blood, maybe.”
Her attention drifts down to my shirt. Her fingers trace the buttons on it as she thinks, pursing her lower lip.
“Talking about Vera won’t fix anything. All of us are like this, in one way or another. Me, her, my brother.”
“Brother?” she asks, her touch skipping in surprise.
“Nico. He’s in prison,” I tell her quickly, waving off the so-called revelation. “Let’s just say, he isn’t getting out on good behavior. You’ll never meet him, and as a rule, the family doesn’t talk about him.”
“Why?” she asks, searching my face as if looking for damage. She doesn’t find any.
“Because he isn’t our problem anymore. There’s what Vera and I are—irrational in our own ways, and then there’s what Nico is. What Vera feels for me, Nico feels for everyone. He wasn’t good for the family.”
I see Contessa’s eyes waver a moment, more questions bubbling up in the quiet. Maybe she feels that way, too. Not suited for her own family. But it’s not the same.
“I want you to stay away from Vera, at least for now.”
“I’ll stay out of her way,” she promises me.
Her touch reaches the lipstick stain, smearing red across her fingertips.
For a brief moment, the image of Donny’s broken nose and split lip flashes before my vision. It could be either one, really. Lipstick or blood. It’s the second shirt I’ve ruined in as many days. I push her hand away, annoyed, a headache building behind my temple.
