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I want to get up, to check whether by some miracle Gianni is still alive, but I can feel myself being dragged towards unconsciousness as the blood pumps out of my arm, soaking my clothes and creating a puddle on the concrete. Just before I go under, I hear sirens and layered on top of the shadows the blue lights create, is Cecelia’s face.
Five
CECELIA
With shaking hands, I stare down at the two lines, confirming what I suspected. I’m pregnant—with Michael’s baby. A baby conceived during our one intense night together, a baby conceived in love, at least on my part. I drop the pregnancy test next to the sink and look at my reflection in the large mirror above the vanity unit, cradling my belly. There’s the tiniest swelling, barely noticeable to anyone but me. That will change soon enough. I meet my own gaze, eyes permanently red from all the crying I’ve done these past three months. At least I know now some of the tears were down to the hormones but the rest of them… missing Michael is like a physical ache, a weight I carry with me at all times. I think of him, I dream of him, and now I have a piece of him inside me, growing into a child. Am I strong enough to be a good mother to this baby? I don’t know. Would he be happy to know he’s going to be a father? I don’t know the answer to that question either because I haven’t seen or heard from Michael or anyone from his household since the day he coldly sent me away. The very next day after our passionate union.
“One day you’ll understand my decision.” That’s what he said to me, his beautiful brown eyes looking through me. But I don’t understand it. I don’t understand it at all. Where is he? Why hasn’t he tried to contact me? I’ve been tying myself up in knots trying to make sense of it all because meeting him has quite literally changed my life, and I just can’t seem to let the memory of him go.
“Cece, are you coming outside? It’s a gorgeous day and Maria has set up lunch for us on the patio. Raphael is busy, so all the more for us.” A smiling Connie appears in the bathroom doorway. I forgot to lock it while I was taking the test, but it doesn’t matter because I was just about to seek her out anyway. I don’t keep secrets from my sister. Her pretty eyes dart straight to the test, as I knew they would.
“Is that what I think it is?” she asks, crossing the porcelain tiled floor to the vanity unit and picking up the plastic stick. “Cecelia! Oh my God!” Her face is a mask of surprise, but her eyes are already shining with emotion. She’s been by my side and comforted me through almost every tortured minute since I came home, and I know she’ll be feeling the same as me, that finally, here’s the sunlight after the storm.
She wraps me in a hug, her laugh tinkling in my ear, as we spin and squeeze each other.
“Wow, I’m going to be an aunt!” she says as we disentangle ourselves. She reaches for a tissue to mop up her happy tears and passes me one too. I take it and suddenly I’m sobbing, utterly overcome. Now that Connie knows too, it feels very real, and there’s something else I’m worried about.
“How am I going to tell Papa?” I cry as Connie puts an arm around my shoulder, pulling me to her. “He already refuses to talk about what happened to me. He won’t hear that Michael saved my life and cared for me. He thinks Michael kept me against my will. When he finds out that I’m pregnant, he’s going to assume the worst, that Michael forced himself on me!”
“Listen, Papa is going to be so overjoyed about becoming a grandfather! It may even prompt him to listen to what really happened to you in Naples. I know he’s been trying to block it all out, the thought of his own baby girl taken and beaten. He was so distraught, we all were, Cece. He feels like he should have done more to protect you, to find you sooner.” Connie smooths my unruly hair back from my tear-stained cheek.
“But it’s not his fault, and I’m okay now,” I say, dabbing my eyes and sniffing.
“Are you?” she asks with a kind smile.
“Well, maybe not right now, but I will be. I have to be.”
“You’re the strongest woman I know, little sister. Now, come on, let’s go and get some lunch. You’re eating for two now!”
After lunch I return to my bedroom to lie down. It’s as though now my brain’s got confirmation of my pregnancy, my body has given in to exhaustion. I know I need to speak to my father later, when he returns home, but I need to rest and regain some energy before I do.
I try to plan out the conversation in my head, predict how it might go, but it’s impossible. My ‘time away’ as Papa calls it is such a forbidden subject that I can’t imagine how he’s going to react to this extra plot twist, despite Connie’s reassurances that he’ll be overjoyed.
I remember the days following my return home from Naples. In total, I was only away for just over two weeks, if you count the extra days I spent in a safe house in Vomero following Michael’s banishment, but it felt like a lifetime had passed. Everything had changed, I had changed irrevocably, even without yet knowing I was pregnant, but Papa kept telling me I would forget it all, in time. I think he was trying to convince himself rather than me. He and Raphael had a few closed-door conversations about me in those first few weeks. I know because I eavesdropped on as many of them as I could get away with, desperate for snippets of information about Michael, but I never once heard them utter his name. If someone like my father with all his business connections couldn’t find anything out, then what hope did I have? Instead, I resigned myself to daydreaming about Michael turning up here at the house to claim me as his, to hear him profess his undying love for me, for my father to realize how instrumental Michael was in ensuring I was here, safe and well, rather than the cause of my mental and physical injuries as my father believed.
As my bruises faded and my scratches healed and the brutal evidence of my initial incarceration disappeared, life around me returned to how it had been before, and my father made it clear that we needed to look to the future, not the past. He put the same blinkers on that he had worn after my mother’s death. It was a closed topic. But now the future is going to be connected to the past in a way that he can’t ignore, a permanent reminder of Michael Luciano for us all.
“Hello, Papa.” I greet my father with a kiss on his cheek then sit down opposite his desk. He’s standing before it, moving papers, framed by the two tall windows that look out onto the darkening lawn. When Connie and I were little, we were never allowed into his office; Mama used to shoo us away from the door, warning us not to interrupt ‘Papa’s important business’. Ever since she died, he’s relaxed his closed-door policy and I enjoy visiting him in here, often losing myself in a book while he works. His suit jacket hangs on the back of his chair, a habit Mama used to hate. Despite having only just got home, he looks relaxed and approachable, a sure sign business went well. I hope this ambush of mine is received as positively.
“Cecelia,” he says, looking over at me with pure affection in his voice. “How are you, mia figlia? Have you eaten?”
“I’m well.” I smile. “And yes, Maria made Connie and I a huge lunch this afternoon.”
“Good. You need to keep your strength up.”
“Papa, can I talk to you please?” I ask, leaning forward on my seat, my hands under my thighs to stop myself fidgeting.
“Of course,” he says, sitting down and clasping his hands together on top of the desk, giving me his full attention.
I press my lips together, suddenly trepidatious, knowing that when I’ve told him what I need to tell him he may never look at me the same way again.
I stand up, needing to expel the nervous energy, and move over to the side window in between the tall bookcases. I sense Papa’s eyes following me and I see his brows furrow as I look back at him.
“Cece, what is it? You know you can talk to me about anything.”
I shake my head. “But I can’t, can I, Papa? You won’t let me.”
He sighs wearily. “Not this again, please, my beautiful girl. You’re doing so well now.” He crosses over to me, taking me by the shoulders, an urgency in his tone. “Must we keep harking back to that terrible time?”
