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“I’m still young,” she sniffed. “And you’re changing the subject.”
“What, you want to turn the subject back to something that’s upsetting you? I don’t know very much about marriage, Minerva, but I know enough to know that I shouldn’t aim to upset my wife.”
“I was willing to put my life at risk for her,” Minerva said. “I am willing to do that. I was willing to uproot my entire life for her. Tell me, do you think that that needs blood to be more intense? Is there anything more intense? I would fix everything in her life if I could. I would vanquish all of her enemies. All of them. I hate that she’s been exposed to threats. I hate that someone would harm her. Please, tell me, Dante, if you think her biological father loves her more than I do.”
“Enough,” he said. “This is a useless fight. The concept of family... It’s good she has you. That you’re willing to do that. For my part, I offer what I can.”
“They say blood is thicker than water,” she said. “I know they say that. But in my opinion blood can be dangerous. Blood can stain. It is not about the blood in your veins. The heart pumps the blood, after all. Isn’t the heart the most important thing?”
“No,” he said. “The heart is not most important. It is your brain that will serve you well, Minerva. It is your brain that you need.”
“Your brain?”
“Your brain is capable of great compassion. Of rationalizing what the safest and best thing is to do. Your brain was fully engaged, your sense of duty when it comes to humanity. To tell you the truth, I don’t believe even blood creates a family.”
“What holds my family together, then?” she asked.
He made an exasperated sound. “Your father has a strong sense of civic duty. Something that I will now employ, something I will pay back with Isabella.”
“You think civic duty is what holds society together?” she asked incredulously. “That is the most depressing thing I have ever heard.”
“Yes,” he said. “I do.”
“You think...Swiss Family Robinson survived and built a house on an island because of civic duty? Or did they... Did they put their hearts into it?”
“That’s more than a clumsy metaphor and Swiss Family Robinson is fictional.”
“We learn from fiction, don’t we? To see ourselves? The world? Our hearts?”
“Our hearts want things that are bad for us, Minerva. Witness your friend and Carlo. Carlo is another prime example of people who have corrupt hearts. Tell me, what can we count on to guide us with evidence such as this?”
“Love,” she said. And it was clear, simple and concise to her. That love was what separated these things. That love was what made people choose someone else over themselves. Time and time again.
“Love,” he said, the word a sneer. “Do you know what my mother loved?” he said. “Drugs.”
“I thought that your mother... I thought that she was a prostitute to help support you.”
“She was a prostitute to help support her cocaine habit.”
He looked out at the horizon. And there was something so bleak and desolate in his dark eyes that she felt wounded by it.
“Dante, I’m sure that she loved you.”
He shook his head, his lip curling up into a sneer. “Do you want to know one of my most vivid memories of my mother?”
“Yes,” she said, knowing for sure that she didn’t, because she could sense that there was nothing but pain in his next words.
“One of my very first memories of my mother was on her last birthday. I was eight years old. But I already knew how to cook for myself. I already knew how to cook for us. I had taken the money that she kept in our cookie jar, and I took it to market. With that I bought all of this, and I bought cheese. I bought bread. Pasta. I bought a feast, because I wanted to celebrate her birthday. There was cake. We never had cake. But it was for her, so I felt that it was okay. And when she got home, do you know what she said to me?”
He looked at her, his dark gaze unwavering. “She said, ‘You stupid boy.’ And then she slapped me across my face.”
Minerva clutched at her chest, her heart nearly folding in on itself. “No,” she whispered.
“Yes. She said that she was going to have to go out and earn more money on her back to buy what she really needed for her birthday. It wasn’t dinner with me, just so you know. It was more of her drug. She loved that more than she ever loved me. She took care of me out of a sense of obligation, and this is where I come back to duty, because thank God she did. Otherwise, she might have left me somewhere to die. Instead...”
He cut off his words.
“Dante,” she said. “I’m sorry. But you must know that’s not... That’s not how it’s supposed to be. Not in a healthy family.”
