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At least, for this evening, she knew he wasn’t with us anymore.
“You’re a wise woman. What kind of advice do you need?”
My mother had been the wife of a crime lord for years. When my father died and Gabriel took the helm, she was able to relax and raise her youngest child with a lot less pressure than she had when my father was alive. A lot less pressure than what she had to deal with when she was raising me and Gabriel. I never saw her ask anyone for help. My mother possessed strength and grace in abundance. I had yet to find those qualities exhibited in anyone else quite the same way.
“Not advice for me,caro. Advice to be given. I pray to my Alessandro to give me words to share with my children, to help me guide you now that he’s gone in the same way he used to help me when he was alive.”
“We need all the help we can get,” was all I could think to say.
“I’m fortunate to have such a family.” She patted my leg as she smiled at me. “You are all good children. You take care of me and of each other. You are hard-working.” She grimaced. “Well, you and Gabriel are.”
One corner of my mouth ticked upward, not a complete smile, but as close as I’d come to one in a long time. My mother loved Lilly as much as any woman loved her daughter, but she was growing weary of her little princess’s laziness. Lilly came out of college with a fashion degree then did nothing with it except shop and blog. A few years ago, when blogging became the new big thing, she started a fashion blog. I guess it was a good way for her to spend her time, but she didn’t manage it well, from what I could tell. It was a hobby rather than a job. She still spent the bulk of her day doing her hair, face, and nails and posting selfies online.
“Maybe you should try to talk to her while you’re home. She’ll listen to her older brother.”
“Sure, Ma.”
I agreed right away, knowing that I wasn’t going to do any such thing. I loved my sister, too, but I wasn’t her caretaker. I set her up with a bank account to which I added funds every month. I provided the house she lived in, the food she ate and the car she drove. I didn’t need to be involved in dictating how she spent her time. That created a burden, an attachment that I didn’t need. Or want.
“What she really needs,” my mother continued, pausing dramatically, before looking up at me, “is a husband.”
“I’m not touching that,” I said honestly. “She’ll find someone when she finds someone.”
“Don’t you knowsomeone?” she asked. “Someone you can introduce her to? She dates, but always these men... I don’t know where she finds these... What would your father call them? Pussies?”
Hearing my saint of a mother say “pussies” almost completed the smile that had been tugging at my mouth since I walked in the door. I met one or two of my sister’s dates over the years and that’s exactly the word I would use to describe them. Knowing that my mother felt the same way was reassuring. My judge of character wasn’t so stained by my line of work that I wouldn’t know a pussy when I met him.
“I’m sure the right guy is out there. She just has to find him.”
Personally, I think Lilly preferred dating weaker men and “the right one” wasn’t going to fall into her lap. She lived with two dominant males, dominant males who spoiled her, but still.... She liked being around men who caved into her and fawned over her. She didn’t want someone who would really challenge her, though that was exactly the kind of man she needed.
As long as that man, whoever he was, didn’t step on my toes or get in Gabriel’s way, it was immaterial to me who he was. Or if he even existed. She could be single until she was eighty and it wouldn’t bother me. But I knew what was on my mother’s mind.
“Grandbabies,” she sighed. “I would like to have some grandbabies soon.”
It all came together for me. Gabriel thought she didn’t know, but she did. She had to know her own mind was betraying her and whether the process was slow or rapid, she knew it was occurring. My mother was facing her limits with grace, but she didn’t want to do it with regrets.
“You know,caro,there is no better feeling in the world than holding a baby in your arms. And the smell,” she smiled at the memories, “the smell of a newbornbambino...Caro, there’s nothing in the world like that.”
I wanted to smile at her, but these were her memories, not mine. While I was glad that she had them and was able to reach out to me with them, the concept was lost on me. I’d never held a baby, let alone one new to the world. Knowing the horrors inflicted upon children across this planet – I couldn’t understand what she was trying to tell me. I didn’t have anything to compare it to. Every drop of empathy I’d ever had was long gone.
I lost track of what she was saying as I stared at the green carpet covering her bedroom floor. I wanted to change it years ago, but she wouldn’t let me. I looked around the rest of the room. Nothing had changed since we moved in after my father died. We moved into the new house six months after his death and my mother hadn’t changed a thing in her room since then. The furnishings were the same, the colors, the knick-knacks, the lamps... all of it exactly the same, in exactly the same place.
Except for one thing – the Madonna and Child painting I had sent her. The only new item added to the room in over a decade.
Why? She could have put it anywhere in the house, anywhere in the group of rooms we called her suite. She had a bathroom, a small kitchenette she never used, and a sitting room where she could find some peace and ignore the rest of us if she chose to. She didn’t use it very often. She wasn’t reclusive and maybe it was overkill when I remodeled the other rooms. Maybe she didn’t need them, but I ordered the design and left town while the work was done. It was Gabriel, not me, who ordered the architect and designer to leave her bedroom alone. I came home and found that the work I had ordered hadn’t been done as designed. Lilly thought I’d be mad, but I didn’t care.
Gabriel explained it to me, told me why he made the changes. That originally Ma was okay with everything but when it came to her bedroom, she stood in the doorway on demolition day and cried. Gabriel intervened. He said the architect was almost pissing himself with fear of not doing everything I wanted, but Gabriel can be a scary fucker, too.
I took a sip of my Scotch, said “Fine, if that’s what she wants,” and went to my study. I didn’t care one way or the other. I made a gesture for what I thought were all the right reasons. But it didn’t matter to me whether the carpet was green, blue or that she even had carpet at all. It did, however, matter to me that she was happy, so once again, Gabriel did the right thing.
“You’re a good son.”
I blinked out of my reverie. There must have been something in my expression that Ma misread if she thought I needed to hear those words.
I knew what I was supposed to say. “Thank you.”
“You know,caro,” she said, walking across the room to pull a red dress out of her closet, “Lilly isn’t the only one who should get married and give me grandchildren.”
