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“What? What’s wrong?” When she didn’t respond right away I was about to push her again.
“It’s nothing. Really.” Claudia was an awful liar, but given the topic at hand my mind jumped to the worst case scenario.
“Are you alone right now?” I had to assume she was in her room but I wanted to make sure.
“Yeah. Why?”
I cleared my throat and said, “did father hit you? Has he hurt you?” She didn’t respond for a solid few seconds and I knew what her answer was going to be before she spoke. “Claudia.” I kept my voice soft and low, gentle.
She wasn’t a stranger to our father’s temper, had been struck by him in the past for disobedience. But I’d always been there to help deflect his anger, to take it on myself.
But I knew if she got struck in the last couple of days it had nothing to do with her acting out and everything to do with me. Which had more guilt and shame filling me, and even more resolve that as soon as I talked to Nikolai again I was demanding we get my sister out of there.
At this point I didn’t care if it started a war. I wanted my baby sister out of that house.
“Listen, this isn’t something that you have to worry about, not something I want you to even think about. You’re married now. You should be having an incredible honeymoon somewhere tropical and working on getting me a niece or nephew?”
Her voice was light, but it was forced. I knew Claudia well enough to know that the tightness I heard was because she was trying to put on a brave face, trying to make it so I wasn’t worried about her. Did she know I’d always want to protect her?
“Let’s not get crazy with a niece and nephew talk this early.” She laughed softly and it was genuine, music to my ears at that moment. “Listen,” I said softly and stood, walking up to the window and curling my free hand around the edge of my shirt. “I’m going to talk to Nikolai about having you come visit us.”
She started to talk but I cut her off, needing to get this out.
“I think it would do you some good to come here. That’s what father and I were talking about the day after the wedding. I wanted you to come stay with us, to keep me company. Heobviously didn’t like that idea.” I squeezed my eyes shut and breathed out slowly. “It’s not going to be easy. But I’m not going to stop until he gives in, and I know Nikolai is in my corner, yours too.” Although he never said as such, I knew he’d help me, knew he’d help Claudia because she was my family. Now his.
“It’s fine,” she whispered but I could hear the tightness in her voice, and knew she was about to cry. “Things are just tense right now. Once everything from the wedding settles down everything will be fine.”
Even I heard the underlining question in her tone. She and I both knew things weren’t going to get better. They weren’t before I left, and they certainly wouldn’t now that I was gone. She didn’t have a buffer between his anger, not with me away and Gio now coincidentally being sent away.
“Listen, you just hang in there and I’m going to talk to Nikolai. We’re going to figure something out. Even if at first you can only come for a short time, a small visit, we’re going to make it happen. Okay?”
I was on the verge of tears myself, picturing my sister dealing with all of this. She was so young, but had grown up so fast. Far too fast. If I didn’t get her out of there, the next three years until she was pawned off to a man of my father’s choosing would wear her down until she was nothing but a shell of a woman.
That or she’d destroy herself and her wild ways, getting back at our father any route she could.
“It hasn’t been all that bad,” she finally said on an exhale. “Francesca’s actually been coming over and keeping me company.”
Something funny happened in my chest, my heart starting to beat faster, my belly clenching.
“Francesca?” I didn’t say anything more. They weren’t friends, never had been. “When did this start?” It had to havebeen within the past few days, which seemed suspect as hell, but I kept that part to myself.
“At the reception, actually. I was sitting at the table alone as father and mother danced. I didn’t know where you had gone. I saw her walk into the ballroom and she looked so upset. So I tried to talk to her, to make her feel better.
I smiled to myself because Claudia was so good at heart. She might be a spitfire and have the stereotypical temperament of a feisty Italian woman, but she had the kindest heart of anybody I knew.
“So of course I started talking to her, asking her if everything was okay. She told me how she had some personal things going on, family problems. And the rest is history. We just kind of hit it off.”
I thought back to that night, what I had seen between her and Edoardo, how the “family problems” had nothing to do with why she was upset that night. But of course I didn’t say that.
“What have you two been doing?” I kept my voice conversational, but red flags were rising up in me, one after the other, my anxiety for Claudia increasing.
Claudia didn’t answer for a moment as I heard her brushing her teeth. The faucet turned on, she spit, the sound of her rinsing, and then she finally answered.
“Nothing really. She comes here and we just hang out in the library, or watch movies and eat junk food.”
“Sounds fun, like she’s keeping you busy.” I started worrying my bottom lip as I continued to stare out the window. “Does she talk about anything? Me?”
“You?” Confusion in her voice. “Why would we talk about you?”
