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She and Stella erupt into giggles, their carefree spirits trying their best to lift mine, but as I let my gaze slide past them, glancing out over the harbor beyond our dockside restaurant, sadness floods the cracks of my heart, tainting the evidence that anyone else was ever there in the first place.
“So, what are you gonna do?” Stella asks me, sipping her water. “You’re not in school, your marriage is... in limbo. Are you gonna go after him?”
“He slept with our mom, Stel.” Ariana shoots her a look. “Big ick.”
Stella rolls her eyes. “It was, what, over a decade ago? It’s not like they continued their relationship, and he left Mom and immediately went to Elena.”
My nose wrinkles, although she has a point.
“If you love him,” Stella says, adjusting her glasses, “then you love him. Plain and simple. That doesn’t just go away, no matter the circumstance.”
Sighing, I push my food around on my plate, letting that sentiment soak in, searching for the truth within it.
What do I do with the love in my heart if I can’t funnel it into him?
When I go back to Nonna’s later, armed with tinfoil-wrapped angel food cake and an old iPad Ariana brought for me to hook up to the Wi-Fi, I strip down and lounge on the bed for a while, trying to find comfort in the silence, like Kal always seemed to.
But all it does is remind me he’s not around to help fill it.
The hurt and betrayal I felt from last night comes roaring back, searing my insides as they threaten to overturn every emotional development I’ve had in the last few months.
Rather than try to stuff them down like before, to curl into myself and fold in order to fit other people’s expectations, I let it all wash over me; sobs rack my body as I stare up at the ceiling, aching and grieving for me, for Kal, for my family.
It’s a strange sensation, grieving for what isn’t lost, but missing or absent. Part of me wants to acknowledge the accessibility of these things, while the other part knows I need time to make sense of everything.
That knowledge doesn’t really help, though.
So, instead of lying there and feeling sorry for myself, I slip from the bed, draw a bubble bath and drop in some of Nonna’s essential oils, then dig my journal from my overnight bag and write it all down.
* * *
I don’t hearfrom Kal the rest of the time I’m in Boston. A week passes, and then another, and still... nothing.
Every day that passes, I’m left wondering why he lied to me in the first place. What he gained from making promises and pledges, staining my heart with his darkness, when he didn’t even bother sticking around to see what became of it.
According to my sisters, Mamá’s been staying at her sister’s in Roxbury, not having been back to the house since the night of the recital. So, on the day I return to pack away some of the more sentimental items in my old bedroom, I’m a little stunned to find her sitting on the four-poster bed, flipping through the worn pages of Edgar Allan Poe’s complete works.
When I walk inside, she lands on The Tell-Tale Heart, not glancing up as I cross the threshold. I stand there, frozen, noting the faded yellow bruise dusting her right cheek, from where she said she slipped on a patch of ice on her way to the recital.
My heart skips a beat, knowing better, but trying not to read too much into that.
“You know, I specifically asked your father when you were born not to teach you Italian.” She smooths her fingers over the page, smiling sadly. “I knew from the second I laid eyes on you, that you were a force to be reckoned with. There was immediately so much strength and tenacity, and fire in your beautiful eyes, present in your lungs every time you cried. I worked overtime to undermine any potential advantage you could have over me.”
I don’t say anything, knowing she’s not looking for a response.
“I was jealous of a baby,” she says. “My baby, because I knew she was going to grow up with opportunities and beauty and grace I was never allowed. Everyone who met you was so captivated by this... aura you had. This brightness that drew them to you. And you were good at everything you tried; reading, writing, creating. Even gardening, which I never mastered. Sometimes it seemed like you’d just walk into a room, and plants would bloom.”
She turns a page, exhaling softly. “It felt like I was living in my daughter’s shadow, and your father certainly was never any help. He told you to jump, and you asked how high, desperate to be the perfect little girl in that man’s eyes.”
My cheeks burn, shame settling on my shoulders, weighing me down like a cement brick.
“When your father met Kal, we could tell he needed... well, a lot. His mother had just died, he had no other family. So, we took him in, made him feel like one of our own.” Swallowing, she finally looks up, meeting my gaze across the room. “I remember the first time I felt like maybe he was confused about his feelings toward me, trying to work through them, and I... took advantage of that. Soaked up all the attention he gave me, because your father certainly didn’t give me any. It felt good, after I had you and Ariana, to feel wanted again.”
“When I found out he’d decided to marry you, I just... couldn’t believe it. Not because you weren’t lovable, but here you were, doing exactly what I’d always been afraid of: taking everything that once belonged to me.”
“Is that why you pushed the kidnapping story? To punish me for something that wasn’t even my fault?”
She nods. “I thought if the world turned against your union, maybe he’d give you back. Even had your father send men out to rough you up, thinking maybe Kal would realize he was in over his head.”
