Page 48 of Mafia’s Dirty Secret

They’d had sex, was that it? He’d got what he wanted, then her mother died, so now he was off like a shot to get away from the grieving woman? That pissed her off a little bit. He could have waited until she’d recovered a little bit, couldn’t he?

“Or is this his way of letting me down gently? Stilted conversations and no text messages?”

Another thought crept in, one she hated, but still, it dug into her brain. Maybe he’s married and can’t really talk to her when he’s with his wife? He’d told her once to Google him, so she picked up her phone and opened the web browser. She put in his name and found quite a few people who matched.

The first one was the one that mattered though. His picture was there, and it had some information about him. His birthday, his single marital status, and the fact that he had no children. He apparently worked for his family, but there was no real information about them, just links that linked to new pages full of useless information. Shipping was the one thing she could understand. They were involved in shipping.

That could be anything though. Cars, goods from around the world, anything really. It could even be that they shipped goods out of America, not into it, she thought. The good news was, Google said he wasn’t married.

So, what was his problem then? Was he in meetings when she called? New York was an hour ahead of Louisiana, but she tried to be aware of that. And he didn’t say he was busy, he just didn’t… talk like he normally did.

His responses were all staccato, yes and no, with no questions, only responses. She didn’t like it, but she couldn’t really say that, because he never gave her time. It would end with, “listen, I gotta go”, then he’d hang up.

His emotional distance hurt her so much she didn’t even want to call him now. She had enough pain to deal with. She put the phone down and decided it was time for that yard sale.

She’d started to clear out her mother’s room and had made headway with the clothes. That was all on hangers and up on a moveable rack. She’d kept some of her mother’s vintage dresses, heels, and a few other things. She’d started to feel less bleak without her mother there, and her normal logical brain had started to kick in.

She pushed the rack out to the living room and started to box up other things. All the drugs went into the toilet, and down the drain. Marie decided she could use some of the lotions and creams her mother had, and the pillows she put into space-saving bags and sealed up. She put those in her own closet. She didn’t want to think about it right now, but the pillows still smelled like her mother, and one day, she might want that back.

All the extra sheets and towels that Marie knew she’d never use went into another box, as did a few of the knickknacks her mother hadn’t broken. Marie didn’t want them, they only reminded her of the ones that had been broken. She didn’t want that, so she put them in the yard sale box.

Then Marie thought about some of the pictures on the walls. People Marie didn’t know and didn’t care about. The frames might get a dollar or two, so she put them in a box, and before she knew it, she’d taken down pictures, got rid of other knickknacks, put away decorative glass her mother had collected, and had even put in a few of the plants she’d watered religiously but hated.

The house felt emptier, with each box she stacked in the living room, but it kept her busy, so she didn’t want to stop. She ignored the sound of empty echoes and kept going. It didn’t matter how many rooms seemed bigger now, without all that junk her mother had put in them. If she was busy, she didn’t think about Matteo coming home and telling her they were finished. Or wonder about his cryptic last words to her at her mother’s funeral. She was too busy dusting off empty shelves and dismantling bedframes to think, and that was just fine with her.

Once it was dark, and she was too tired to move, she took a shower. She stood in the bathroom, alone, with all the doors locked. She’d locked the front and back door, and the door to the bathroom, but she still felt spooked as she looked at the fogged-up mirror over the sink. It was a tiny room, but she’d used it her whole life.

For a moment, panic overtook her, and she stared at the door. She couldn’t go out there, what if someone had quietly broken in? Everybody in town knew she was alone now, even if they didn’t acknowledge that her mother had died. Or that she even existed. What if there was some crazy out there that wanted to get to her?

“Stop being so paranoid, Marie, there’s nobody out there.” Just saying the words out loud made her feel stupid. She rolled her eyes at herself and opened the door. She didn’t want to admit it, but she felt relief when there wasn’t a crazy killer on the other side.

She went to her mother’s room and picked up one final thing to keep for herself - the television. All she could get were the free-to-air channels, but she’d watch repeats of ‘Frasier’ all night if that’s what it took to get to sleep. She’d also kept some of her mother’s sleeping pills. Just in case. She had a feeling she’d need it, so she made herself a cup of hot chocolate, went back to her room, changed into her pajamas, and put the television on.

She looked at the pill for a while before she took it. She didn’t want to get addicted to them, but it wouldn’t hurt for one night, would it? She took the pill quickly, swallowed it down with her hot chocolate, and then settled down in the bed. The TV was on, some program she didn’t know played loud enough to drown out other noises that the AC didn’t hide. Her bedroom door was locked, and she stared at the ceiling.

She could do this. If Matteo left her, she could learn to live on her own. Eventually, she’d stop being so afraid, too. She hoped. Her heart would break into a thousand tiny pieces, and she’d probably die from it, but if she lived, she could totally do living on her own. She knew she could. As long as he didn’t tell her he was her cousin or some weird stuff like that first. Then she might die of shame.

What was that part about wanting to talk to her about her mom’s past? It nagged at her until she fell asleep, just as clueless as the day of her mother’s funeral. He’d be home in a couple of days. Then she’d find out. Whether she wanted to or not.