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Every breath she exhaled, I inhaled into my lungs.
She crossed her arms over her chest. She knew me. She knew it wouldn’t be that easy to change my mind. She was right. I wasn’t letting her go. She was my wife, and I fucking refused to live separate lives. That time was over.
Finally, she nodded. “You know I fucking do, but you won’t give me an ultimatum. You have no right.”
“I have every fucking right,” I said, my voice much lower and deeper than hers, but no less threatening. “You’re my wife.”
“Because you won’t let me go.”
“Your flesh and bones can’t lie to me. Your lips can’t lie to me. Your voice can’t lie to me. Your eyes can’t lie to me. You can’t fucking lie to me. You wanted to be there today. You wanted to marry me.”
“We’re already married! And you know why today was important!”
“I’m calling bullshit. Yeah, I know why you did it, but you wanted it, too. You wanted her to feel how much you love me. You wanted her to know that you’d always be here for me. Why? Because you do. You love me. You want to be with me. You couldn’t see your face when you were walking toward me. When you were saying your vows to me. You fucking miss me. You want me. But whatever’s eating at you is making you lock me out. Why now, Lucila? Why are you letting me in again? Why. Fucking. Now?”
She pushed against my chest, grunting when she couldn’t budge me. She kept telling me to let her go, pushing me harder and harder each time. I kept repeating my words, over and over, demanding to know what she was keeping from me.
Then something exploded inside of her. She pushed against me as hard as she could and started to sob. She was crying and hitting my chest with her clenched fists. I let her. I let her scream and cry and push me into the wall.
“You were supposed to be the one person who would never hurt me! You let yourself into my life, uninvited, and you made me trust you!” The words were almost manic. She could barely breathe, but the words kept pouring out. “You could have told me! You could have told me about Gallo. Instead.” She sucked in a breath. “You started running every time he called. You stopped coming home. You started smelling of blood. Every time you walked out the door, I’d memorize the way your fucking back looked! Because I had no idea. No idea—”
She sucked up a gust of air, trying to catch her breath. “—if that would be the last time I’d see you! But I had—the baby. I had the wedding. I kept telling myself things would get better. That you’d come back to me. You promised me. That day in Sonny’s kitchen. You said you wouldn’t mean to hurt me. I believed you. I trusted you. And then.” She started to cry so hard that I knew it was painful.
I’d done many dark things. But I’d never done to a man what she was doing to me. Death by a thousand cuts to the heart and soul.
“You didn’t show up for the wedding. And I started to bleed. It started coming fast. I got weak, and I cried for you. I was so scared. But you weren’t there. The only person in the world to ever make me feel safe—was gone. Again. My heart was bleeding out. I was bleeding out. And the baby. I lost him. I blamed you. I blamed it all on you. Because it was easy. Because you had hurt me so bad. Especially after I found out who you’d been working for—who he was in the streets—and where you’d been when you were supposed to be with me. On what was supposed to be one of the most important days of our lives. But.”
She stopped pounding her fists against my chest and gripped my shirt, like she might go down. I held her up, but I wasn’t sure how long I could. All the energy felt like it was draining from my body. Her pain was worth all my blood.
“The doctor told me, Lilo. She said something wasn’t right. We were supposed to go for the big ultrasound after the wedding. The one where they check everything important. And his heart, it—something wasn’t right. It didn’t develop like it was supposed to. It was all my fault. All my fault. I wasn’t eating as much as I should have. It’s my fault that my baby died!”
She collapsed into my arms and started to wail. I hit the wall and slid down it with her in my arms. All I could do was hold her while she cried. Cried everything out that she’d been holding in.
She never hated me for being late that day. She never hated me because she blamed me what for happened. She hated me because I hadn’t been there for her. She felt like I’d abandoned her.
I’d had no clue what she’d been holding in all these years.
The loss would never leave me. I knew it had been blood for blood. But I had no idea how deep her grief went or that she blamed herself. No wonder she looked at me with hate every time I would meet her on Sunday. She hated me because I stood so close to her, but she couldn’t fucking reach me.
“Lucila,” I said, turning her face up to mine. “Look at me.”
Her entire body trembled, and tears streamed down her face.
“It’s not your fault, baby,” I said.
“It is. It’s all my fault.” She closed her eyes, not wanting to look into mine. “That’s why I didn’t say anything to anyone. I…couldn’t admit it. That I’d done something so terrible.”
“Lucila,” I said, my voice hard enough to make her look at me again. “It’s not your fault, do you understand me? Sometimes no matter what we do, life is out of our control. It happens every day, to everyone. Someone right now is going through the same thing—someone who ate everything they were supposed to and took all the vitamins.
“And then there’s someone like the woman who gave birth to Minnie. Doing all the wrong fucking things and having a healthy baby. If Minnie would have been born unhealthy, that’s someone who could take the blame. Not you. You blame yourself because you love him that much—anything that happened to him happened to you, because you’re his mother. The best one he could have.”
The impact my mother made on my life hit me then. That was why she was always trying to get me to do the right thing. She’d told me once, “Whatever you do, good or bad, you do to my heart, Brio.” Lucila had that same instinct in her. She was nothing like Janis.
She took a shuddering breath. “I named him Brio.”
“No,” I said, my voice cracking. “He deserves better.”
“Just let it be,” she said, setting her head against my chest.
