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Now, all I had was my imagination.
And things in my head, yeah, they were getting pretty dark and ugly.
That was on my mind as I made my way out into the living room. It made me slow to process things. It seemed to take almost a full moment after smelling the rich scent of coffee in the air to realize that someone had to have put it on.
For a split second, I figured it had to be Renzo.
But then there he was.
Sitting on my shitty couch in my crummy apartment that I was a few weeks away from being kicked out of.
God, he looked so out of place.
How the hell, for even a moment, had I believed that he and I could work? We were from different worlds, he and I.
I didn’t know how he’d tracked me down.
It didn’t matter.
He was here.
And he wasn’t going to leave without an explanation.
I owed it to him after everything I’d done.
“Frank Lombardi,” he repeated, brows going up.
Of course he would be shocked.
By my connection to that Family as a whole, sure, but more so to that man. Someone sitting in jail for three life sentences for a drive-by he’d done a few years before my mother died.
The amount of true crime podcasts and blogs and videos based on my step-father’s crimes was astounding. He was mafia royalty in the eyes of enthusiasts. And, to an extent, within the Lombardi Family as well.
Because he’d been offered a deal back then. But he hadn’t taken it.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“Honey, you’re gonna need to play that back for me,” he said, shaking his head.
“Right, ah, okay,” I agreed.
Where did you start when talking about the story of your life? At the beginning?
That was, what? That my mom got pregnant with me when she was seventeen to her high school boyfriend who liked the idea of his football scholarship more than that of being a father and husband.
So, yeah, he bounced.
My mom had to drop out because her parents were of the “we raised you better than this” mindset, so they’d kicked her out as soon as they learned that the lines on the stick turned pink.
She didn’t tell me much about those early days of her pregnancy, but everything about her tight body posture when she did speak about it told me that it was a struggle.
I mean, of course it would be.
She’d gone from having a safe, comfortable life with adults around to worry about things like putting out the trash and how to write a check and finding ways to pay the bills.
I imagined that those days, alone in the world save for my growing in her belly, were full of a lot of tears, a lot of uncertainty and fear. And, yeah, maybe even a little regret. For the life she could have had if she’d insisted on a condom or had been on the Pill, or had simply waited like her parents had told her to.
She’d had a bright future. I could tell just by the old report cards and glowing test scores. She had planned on being somebody. She’d been leaning toward healthcare in those days. If not a doctor, then maybe a nurse. Something stable that paid reasonably well. Gave her some freedom to go out and enjoy her twenties, live it up.
Then, well, there was me.
And all the plans disappeared.
I didn’t remember those early days, of course. I couldn’t say how she’d managed to make it work. All I really remembered was spending some nights in the back booth at the diner she worked at, coloring on the kids’ menus, playing with my toys on the linoleum table surface, pressing music buttons on the tabletop jukebox, and eating lots of fries and grilled cheese and pancakes.
I remember lots of time with my mom then. Parks, libraries, museums.
Looking back, it was the free stuff we always did. But at the time, it was all just little adventures with my mom and me. As we, in a way, grew up together.
It was in that diner that my mom—still young and very pretty—caught the eye of an older, handsome, very wealthy man.
And, hey, I wasn’t going to fault my mom for looking at Frank and seeing a way out of her shitty life. Everyone did what they had to do to survive.
So my mom, well, she did Frank.
I was never a factor. Actually, I wasn’t even sure my mom told him that she had a kid in those early days. Back when she would leave me with the lady in the apartment across the hall from ours, and go out with her new boyfriend.
Now, I couldn’t tell you if she’d planned it.
Again, I wouldn’t even blame her if she did.
But all I knew was one morning, I walked into the bathroom to find my mom throwing up in the toilet. And then she did it every day after.
