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“You okay?”
“Yeah, just don’t make me laugh again. Is there something up, you sound off?”
“Have you heard anything from Ricardo?”
“Not since he turned up here. Why?”
“He’s not answering his phone when I ring him.”
“Maybe it’s out of battery.”
“It’s not just that. I had a call from his enforcer. He said that Ricardo didn’t want anything to do with me anymore.”
“Oh, honey.” He goes silent for a minute. “Maybe it’s for the best.”
“You sound happy.”
“Someone like that, a criminal, could they ever make a good husband?”
“Wow, thanks Dad.”
“I’m just saying, I’m not surprised if he’s not talking to you anymore. I know the type. Screw around and then move on.”
“That’s great, I feel so much better, thanks.”
“You should come back home,” he adds. “We can put all of this behind us.”
“What about the baby inside me, Dad? We going to put that behind me, too? Is that what you want?”
“No, of course not. We’ll raise it together. Me, you, and your mom.”
“I’ve got to go, Dad.”
“Are you going to come home?”
“Maybe, I don’t know. I’ll call you in a bit.”
I hang up the phone and then close my eyes. This is just great. Of course dad’s happy about this. He never wanted me to be with Ricardo.
But then neither did I, for a while at least.
Mom rings me but I just get the same story from her that I did from dad. Maybe this is for the best. Perhaps it wasn’t meant to be. I should come home and forget all this. I listen to her and make all the right sounds but my mind is elsewhere.
Are they right? Should I give up? Accept that he doesn’t want to see me anymore? Move back in with them. Go back to work like nothing happened. Pretend it’s all fine, ignore the growing bump that’s forever going to remind me of him.
I know why it hurts so much. It’s because I didn’t realize I loved him until he left. It took him going for me to work out what I should have known since that first encounter.
I love him. That’s why this is so painful. It’s also why my parents are right. I need to let go of him. It couldn’t work. I’m a shy insecure travel agent. He’s a mafia Don, steeped in the world of crime, his hands soaked in blood.
I’ve got what I wanted anyway. Alessandro has paid for his crimes. Justice has been served. My parents don’t have to worry about their medical bills. All taken care of. I’ve even got five hundred thousand sitting there in my account. A divorce settlement, I guess.
I decide to try and call him one more time. If he answers, maybe we can work something out. If he doesn’t, that must be fate’s way of telling me it’s not going to work out. That it wasn’t meant to be.
I hit up his number and wait. One ring. Two. Then a click. For a brief moment I think he’s going to answer but the recorded voice I’ve heard so often comes on the line instead.The mailbox of the person you are trying to reach is full. Please try again later.Then a click. The line’s as dead as our relationship.
I can’t believe he would end things this way but all the evidence is here. How else could I interpret things?
I’m going to stay here. He told me to stay here. I’m going to do it. Maybe he’ll come back to me. Maybe this is all some kind of test.
