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Caterina
Ikeep repeating that over and over, like a prayer or a mantra, all the way down the aisle of the cathedral to my seat in the front pew. I force myself not to think of how, not that long ago, I walked down this same aisle all in white, with Franco waiting at the altar for me. How hopeful I’d been that day! I’d managed my expectations, but I’d still had hope for some happiness. For a good marriage, by mafia standards.
Now I’m walking to my seat all in black, the gold band on my left ring finger burning into my skin like a brand, one that I can’t wait to take off. It’ll be the first thing I do once everyone is gone tonight and I’m alone again.
Everyone wants to comfort me, tell me how sorry they are, to share how shocked and heartbroken they are at Franco’s death. It’s all I can do to nod and force myself through it when all I want to do is scream that he wasn’t the man that they—or I—thought he was. That he was a traitor, a murderer, that he deserved worse than he got. I picture the horrified looks on their faces if I told them the truth—if I told them about the way he tortured Ana, ruining her dancer’s feet forever, or the way he’d punched me in the stomach the first time I got my period after our wedding or rolled up my sleeve to show the bruises from only a few days ago. If I told them how he’d held me down, ordering me to shut up when I told him that I hadn’t been in the mood for sex one night, not more than a month after we’d been married.
When you give me a son, you can claim you have a headache all you want. Until then, spread your legs and shut up, princess. That’s all you were ever good for, anyway.
Do your duty.I’d heard my mother’s voice in my head that night. She would have told me to get it over with, that the sooner I was pregnant, the sooner he’d leave me alone.Men don’t like sleeping with their pregnant wives,she’d have told me.They’ll find someone else to keep them company, and you’ll be happy about it.
My mother had been very good at managing my expectations when it came to my future husband. But there’s no way she could have prepared me for what Franco turned out to be.
Finally, I make my way to my seat, clenching my hands together in my lap, forcing myself to look down at them as I wait for Father Donahue to make his way to the podium to start the service. I don’t look at the gleaming casket, surrounded by flowers, or the photos of Franco, smiling boyishly out from the frames. I especially don’t look at the one of us on our wedding day, the same hands that are wrapped together in my lap right now clasped in his. I know what photo it is. In it, I’m looking up at him, and he’s looking at me. When I first saw it, I thought the possessive look in his eyes was romantic. Now, I know that it’s psychotic.
It’s the look of a man who sees the path to power and influence in front of him. Not a wife, not a lover. A ladder.
“Brothers and sisters, we are gathered here today to mourn the passing of one of our own, Franco Bianchi.” Father Donahue’s voice, thick and rich with an Irish brogue, pulls me out of my thoughts. Sofia’s hand finds its way to mine, covering them, and I look up, startled. I hadn’t even realized she’d sat down next to me, Luca on the other side.
Carefully, I loosen my hands, letting her slip hers between them. It feels good to have a friend holding my hand. Comforting. It makes me think, just for a moment, that perhaps she was right. If I can just get through this, the funeral, and the reception afterward, everything will be okay. I can grieve on my own, alone, in my own way. I can put all of this behind me and start anew. I can decide, for the first time in my life, who Caterina Rossi ought to be.
I hardly hear the rest of the service. I don’t really hear Father Donahue give the floor to Luca. I’m barely aware of what Luca says, some manufactured speech about how Franco was like a brother to him, how unexpected his death was, how tragic. Those closest to Luca know the truth, of course but the rest of the sea of mourners in the cathedral will simply be nodding along, dabbing away tears with handkerchiefs, touched by Luca’s entirely fabricated eulogy.
I almost miss Luca calling me up to give my own. Sofia’s hand on my back helps me to stand, but I have a sudden rush of memory—standing up to speak at my mother’s funeral not all that long ago, and then my father’s just after that, and the grief that rises up to choke me and make itself known in a splutter of sobs isn’t fake at all. It’s real, and I clap my hand over my mouth, sinking back into the pew as Sofia’s arm goes around my shoulders, supporting me.
Distantly, I hear Luca making apologies for me, the grief-stricken widow. There’s a hum of sympathy, and Father Donahue moves things along just as Sofia and I had planned. I’m crying in earnest now, mascara tears running down my cheeks.
I manage to pull myself together as we head out to the cemetery. I feel a tight knot in my stomach as Franco’s casket is lowered down next to his mother’s. At least the gravesite reserved for him wasn’t next to the father whose name he shouldn’t have had, the father who wasn’t his at all. It was next to his mother instead, whose mistake with his real father started all of this without her ever knowing the consequences it would have.
I can’t help but glance across the cemetery towards the grave I know is somewhere over there, where the Irish are buried.Colin Macgregor.The man whose last name Franco should have had.
Would things have been different? If his mother had come clean?She’d have been killed, probably, Franco given to some other family in a part of the country far from the offending Irish. It might have started a war, depending on how furious the cuckolded Bianchi husband was. But probably not. My father wouldn’t have allowed that, I don’t think. It would have been a humiliation, but one that was taken care of quietly.
Instead, it had been allowed to spin out of control. All because of one woman’s lie.
It’s hard for me to blame her as much as I might once have, though. I know what it’s like now to lay next to a man that you not only don’t love, but outright hate. I never met Franco’s father, but I know it’s possible that he was a cruel man too, that Franco’s mother had been so desperate for affection, for love, for pleasure, that she’d made a mistake that could have cost her life. She’d been desperate enough to cover it up, too.
You can’t change any of it.I watch as they lower the casket down, my hands clasped in front of me.It does no good to look back. Only forward.I repeat it as I toss in the required handful of dirt, the white rose. I tell myself over and over again as I get back into the car to go home, a home that will shortly be full of people I’d rather not talk to, all expressing their sympathies for something that I’m grateful is over.
Just get through it. It’s almost done.By tonight, I’ll be free of it.
I’ve always been strong. My mother said I had a backbone of steel, but it’s been sorely tested lately. Soon, very soon, I’ll be able to let go.
What would my life look like without the expectations of men?
I can’t wait to find out.
* * *
The lineof mourners wanting to speak with me and commiserate with me all over again is as endless as it was at the cathedral. But at some point between theI’m so sorrysand the offers of cookies and tuna casserole, I manage to corner Luca in the living room by the fireplace, a little ways away from the clustered groups of guests.
“How are you holding up, Caterina?” He looks at me with those intense green eyes of his, peering at me as if he can see the absolute truth of what I’m feeling. Maybe he can. Luca knows me well—better than Franco did, even. He was close to my father, after all. He helped arrange my betrothal. At one point, I’d wondered if I was going to marryhim. I’d even asked my father about it before I knew that he’d been promised to someone else, someone he’d never expected to ever marry.
Sofia, of course.
I’m glad that Luca isn’t my husband. We wouldn’t have been well-suited for one another, even less so than Franco and I were. But now he’s in a different position altogether—one of power over me, as the don. And I’m more than a little afraid of what that might mean for me.
“As well as can be expected, I think,” I say diplomatically, looking around the room. “I’m ready for some peace and quiet.”
