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And Sofia and I deserved someone who would fight for us of his own accord, not just because we begged for it.
“Take care of yourself,” I murmured.
“Yeah, Ces. You too.”
“Let me know when you want to see Sofia. I’ll make sure we’re around.”
“All right. Thanks. And we can talk later this week. Figure out money for Sof, all that. I owe you a lot from years past.”
I nodded, though he couldn’t see me. “Right, yeah. Okay.”
“Good night, Francesca.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. God, this hurt so badly. “Good night, Xavier.”
After the call ended, I stared at my phone for a long time.
In the end, I got up and did something I hadn’t done in years.
One night, when Sofia was maybe six months, and we were still living in Nonna’s attic, my little girl wouldn’t stop crying. Nonna was on a trip somewhere with her friends, and my siblings all had work, thus leaving me alone at the house in Belmont with no one but a sick baby for several days. In addition to that, I was having a hard time breastfeeding and hadn’t slept in days. I had never felt lonelier—or angrier—in my entire life.
People think postpartum depression is just sadness, but sometimes, especially when you’re alone and trapped, it comes out as rage, plain and simple.
Sometime around two in the morning, I realized that if I didn’t give myself space to breaksomething, I was liable to do much worse.
So after Sofia nodded off at last, I took the baby monitor and marched out to the garage, mostly intending to scream my lungs out until my throat was sore. Instead, I spotted an open box of dishes—ugly flowered ones that I recognized as belonging to my parents when Daddy was alive and Mom was still halfway a mother.
Without thinking, I grabbed one off the top and hurled it onto the garage floor as hard as I could.
At the sound of ceramic splintering on the concrete slab, something inside me was set free. I grabbed another and did the same thing. And another. And another.
I worked through seven plates total until the warring ocean of feelings inside me had calmed to a mere pond. And then I took a deep breath and cleaned up the mess, then went back inside and curled up beside my baby to sleep until morning.
After hanging up with Xavier, a similarly vast ocean rocked inside me with a brewing storm.
I crept out of my bed and tiptoed down the stairs, careful not to wake Matthew or Sofia. This house’s garage was mostly packed with things Matthew was taking with him to Boston, but when I got down there, I found the same box I had brought with me when Sofia and I had moved in, piled in the back on a few other things I’d never had the space to unpack from Nonna’s.
There they were, the rest of the Mami’s flowered plates.
Just the sight of them reminded me of her horrible article. Which reminded me of every other horrible thing anyone had said to me over the course of the summer.
The crying started immediately, emerging in choked, painful sobs that clogged the back of my throat. Memories of the rest of the summer flooded through my mind. Xavier’s blue eyes blinking at me at the airport. His tender kisses that turned fiercely passionate in a second. Every touch. Every argument. Every betrayal.
Tears streamed down my face as I smashed plate after plate onto the ground.
Smash!That was one for kissing Imogene.
Smash!Another for my mother’s betrayal.
Smash!Smash!Two for Xavier’s temper tantrums.
Smash!Another for making me still miss him.
By the time I was finished, the box was empty. And now, so was my heart.
But I was back to being one thing again—Frankie Zola.
Third grade teacher and friendly neighbor.
