Just then the nurse comes in, smiling and cheerful even though it’s three in the morning.
“Oh, Mrs. Bellanti. You’re awake now,” he says. “How are you feeling?”
Candi looks annoyed that we’ve been interrupted. “Not great, but I’m sure that’s to be expected.”
The nurse nods and checks the monitors and IV. He taps on a small iPad and then asks Candi to lie back against the pillows for one more blood pressure reading.
“You have a couple blood tests first thing in the morning—well, later this morning. And if everything checks out okay, you should be able to go home,” he says.
As soon as he leaves, Candi turns back to me. I can’t quite read this new expression on her face. Rubbing her eyes, she looks at me and quickly inhales.
“I don’t know how to tell you this except to just say it and, well, to show you.”
She pats the bed and it takes me a second to realize she wants me to sit. That’s not going to happen. Whatever she’s about to tell me doesn’t seem like it’s going to be good, and I’m not the kind of man who likes to take bad news sitting down.
“Armani, please. Sit by me.”
I do as she asks. She slides the picture she’s holding into my hands and I realize it’s a photo I’ve seen before. A memory comes to me, from the day when it was taken. Christmas. Us kids were hanging ornaments on the tree. My mom had told us to smile, but I didn’t feel like smiling because my dad was drunk and screaming obscenities at her from his armchair across the room. My sister Liliana is there, and it looks like she’s up to no good. Per usual. Even with her being photographed in profile, I recognize that sassy little smirk of hers. Was that look a reaction to our father’s tirade?
“Where did you get this?” I haven’t seen this picture in years.
“I found it. When I was helping Frankie with the baby’s scrapbook. Look, it doesn’t matter where I found it. What matters is that…”
A surge of anger goes through me, making my hairline itch. What is she trying to do? Why is she resurfacing these memories? Remembering that she’s injured, I will myself to calm down. I’m not really mad at her, anyway. It was a knee-jerk reaction to seeing my sister’s face. My memories of her are long buried, but with this photo in my hand, it’s almost like I can hear the sound of her voice and her laughter again.
Candi takes a deep breath. She looks at me with concern, her brows knit. “Armani, just listen and…please don’t overreact, okay?”
I nod, finding myself waiting expectantly, curiously, for her to speak.
“Armani, this little girl, your sister? It’s Juliana. MyfriendJuliana, the one who’s marrying that Russian mobster.”
“What?” My brain does not compute.
“Juliana is…she’s Liliana. She’s your sister.”
6
ARMANI
I dropthe photo like it stung me, staring at Candi as it falls to the floor.
What kind of trick is this?
“My sister is dead,” I tell her coldly.
She searches my face, but all I offer her is a hard glare.
“Armani, look at the picture,” she pleads.
“I already did.”
Even that brief glance was enough to resurrect memories I’d long ago walled up inside. I was a child when my mother and sister died, and I didn’t have resources to learn how to deal with that properly. So I did what anyone who grows up with the overwhelming weight of grief does. I constructed walls inside walls inside walls to hold the pain back. I’m not letting that out, not ever. How could Candi do this to me?Whywould she do this to me?
Candi throws off the blankets and swivels, so her feet hang over the side of the bed. I try to stop her, but she pushes back at me with one hand as she slides to the floor. She retrieves the photo and then sits back on the bed, holding it out toward me. I have no choice but to look.
“I’m telling you, this child, this young girl, is Juliana,” she insists. “I can prove it to you. Just listen—”
“Stop! You have no idea what you’re talking about. What kind of nonsense has Sergio planted in your head?”
