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Everything she had said to him was true, but she wasn’t sure yet if she regretted saying it. All she knew was that if she didn’t go home now, she’d add to Mama’s suffering, so she set her feet on the familiar course to her own back door.
The two blocks home passed quickly. All the thoughts that had kept her walking that afternoon were gone, still, mum. Numb. Ice? No. A different kind of numbness, one more like a charred patch where a fire had burned itself out.
Once she gained their small yard, she breathed a grateful sigh to see no family members out enjoying the last of the day. With any luck, she’d be able to sneak through the kitchen and up to her room without garnering any attention.
Luck was not with her that day. “Sabina Maria Mancari! What were you thinking? I have called Enzo’s office, I have sent your brother all over Little Italy—where have you been all day?”
Sabina halted in the middle of the kitchen, the room rife with the heavy scent of saracena, the Sicilian olive oil that Cook used in abundance. Her mother blocked the exit. Papa loomed behind her. His face lacked the consternation on Mama’s but nevertheless showed concern.
How touching.
A few of the embers stirred to life in those charred remains, and a wind blew across them, fanning them. She focused only on her mother. “Mi dispiaci, Mama.”
“You’re sorry?” Mama glowered and planted her hands on her hips. “That’s all you have to say for yourself after worrying me sick? I think I deserve an explanation as to why you disappeared for over six hours!”
The flames licked up again. Sabina moved forward, slipping past both parents and gripping the banister. “Then ask your husband. He always has all the answers.” She started up the stairs.
“Giorgio?”
Papa was apparently not ready to answer Mama’s questions, either. “Sabina. You will not treat your mother this way.”
As if he got to talk about how one should treat Mama. She charged into her room and slammed the door. From below she heard her parents’ voices, though she couldn’t make out the words. Not surprisingly, her mother’s footfalls soon sounded on the stairs, and the door opened as Sabina flopped onto her bed.
Mama closed the door softly behind her, her expression now one of caution. “Your father said only that you’re angry with him. Talk to me, cara.”
Sabina pulled a pillow onto her lap and wrapped her arms around it. “Let’s just say I won’t be running any errands to Papa’s office anymore.”
Mama let out a long breath and perched on the edge of her bed. “What did you see, Sabina?”
She averted her face, latching her gaze onto the purple glass of her old oil lamp, kept handy for power failures.
“It will be more painful for both of us if I have to start guessing.”
That was probably true. Still, she couldn’t talk about this, not with Mama. She couldn’t look into her beautiful face and say she’d seen Papa’s other woman.
Mama laced their fingers together. “Well, I imagine if it were anything else, you’d tell me, so it must have been Ava.”
Sabina’s head snapped back around, her fingers tightened. “You know—?”
“Of course I know, cara. How could I miss something that’s been going on for twenty years?” Mama used her free hand to brush a waved lock away from Sabina’s face. “I’ve accepted it. That doesn’t mean I like it.”
Did she know that the woman haunted their neighborhood? Was that something she should know? Sabina averted her gaze, studying the familiar print of her bedspread instead. “He told her he loves her. Called her his treasure, just like he calls you.”
Mama’s lips tightened, but her posture remained unchanged. “I imagine he does love her, after all this time. He would say that doesn’t detract from his love for us.”
“He did say that, when I burst in and called him on it.” She shook her head, exhaustion weighing down on her. “It doesn’t matter to him—but it matters to me.”
Mama leaned over and pressed a warm kiss to her forehead. “Mafiosi live by their own rules, picciridda. A mafioso’s wife has little choice but to follow. But his daughter—his daughter is free to choose her own way. I told you before I wanted to keep all this from you, but perhaps this is the better way. You can see it for yourself and understand why I want better for you.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and made no objection when Mama slowly caressed her hair. “It hurts, Mama. To realize that the Papa I thought I knew isn’t the same man when he walks out of here. To think that he raised me to be a God-fearing lady, but then he goes out and makes his living from sin.”
“I know. But you should be glad your own children will never know that pain. Enzo is the same everywhere he goes.”
He was—because he knew he had to fight to be, every day. She peeked her eyes open again, watched the pain flicker over Mama’s beautiful face. “You know about her—do you know her? Have you…met?” Did she realize that the woman she greeted easily in the aisles of Holy Guardian Angel was the same woman who entertained her husband on nights when he wasn’t home?
Mama’s face went hard. “There are some lines even your father knows not to cross. He is hers in the Levee. He is mine in Little Italy. There is no meeting of those worlds.”
Sabina let out a slow, quiet breath. Perhaps Papa knew that line—but it seemed Ava didn’t. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to tell her mother that. “It’s just…she talked about us like she knew us. About how the wedding was soon and…”
