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A knock on my bedroom door had me jump to a sitting position, instantly feeling like I had been caught doing something wrong.
“Hang on!”
I grabbed my silk pyjama set, quickly pulled them back on and dived under the covers. It was too early to go to sleep but I often read or drew in my sketch book for hours before bed anyway. Grabbing my sketchbook off the side table, I sat back against the pillows.
“Come in!”
Mamma’s blonde hair poked around the side of the door and she gave me a loving smile as I looked up to greet her. She entered my room and shut the door behind her before making her way over to my bed, perching next to me.
“Everything okay, mamma?” I asked, closing the sketchbook to give her my full attention. She looked around my cream bedroom walls which I had decorated with colourful and expressive paintings, sketches and photographs to bring some energy to the room. Some were my own works but most were by artists I admire or who inspire me.
“It is so nice to have you home again, Elle. You bring so much colour and life into this place,” she smiled as she studied the makeshift gallery. Mamma was all about chic elegance and everything needing to be pristine and white. She loved interior design and often fixated on changing the decor of rooms in the mansion on a monthly basis. I think that’s where I must have got my creativity from, although our tastes were very different. Hers was subtle, classic and grand whereas mine was vibrant, eccentric and passionate. I believed art should provoke deep feelings and reactions. She preferred it to bring her only peace.
“As long as I keep my colour and life in this room only?” I teased and she turned to look at me, pretending to be offended.
“No! I would allow you to choose some art for maybe the… bathroom.”
I scoffed and shook my head as she leaned over and snatched my sketchbook from my hands. I tried to grapple forwards for it, but she was too fast. Accepting my fate, I huffed back into the cushions as she flicked through my pages of unfinished drawings.
“These are so wonderful, Elle. Why do you never finish them?”
“I lose interest. Or I am inspired by something else and start a new project. I don’t know,” I shrugged. “I guess nothing holds my attention for long enough.”
She shook her head with a secret smile, “It would drive me crazy… never seeing the finished result. I don’t know how you do it. You are so much like your papi. He was just like that. Always seeking the next best thing. I envied him so much. He looked at life with so much positivity and beauty. Everything around him was a moment to grab onto or a wonderful opportunity to make something out of nothing. He was so spontaneous and… fun.”
I swallowed my emotion with a sad smile as I watched her talk about her greatest love and my most favourite person in the world. I had always been a daddy’s girl. Losing him was the hardest thing I had ever been through. But while everyone else crumbled in our loss, I couldn’t. It wasn’t in my nature. I could hear his voice every day telling me to be strong. To be brave and keep looking for light even in the darkness. Maybe I was more like him than I realised.
“Are you okay, mamma?” I reached forward and squeezed her hand under mine. She placed my sketchbook on the bed and turned to face me with a bright smile.
“Yes. I am. I like talking about him with you. And with Sani and Raya. When I am strong enough, he shines through and I feel nothing but love.”
I smiled, relieved to see she was in a good place and happy to discuss this. “Good. That makes me happy, mamma. I like talking about him too.”
“He would be so proud of you, Elle. Of the woman you have become. He always said you were the strongest out of your siblings.”
“Really?” I asked, baffled by that comment. “Even Gio?”
She nodded, “Oh yes. Gio has had to learn his strength and what that means for him. You were born with it. A quiet inner strength that not many see but it’s there. It is the reason I have always worried about you the least because you are so resilient, darling. It is there in the way you look after and worry about everyone else in this family. It is there in the determination you have to follow your dreams, to go to university and be your own person. I know you aren’t happy to be back here Elle and you wish for a different life. I’m sorry I can’t grant that for you. As a mother, all I wish is for my children to be happy.”
“Mamma, I am happy,” I argued, feeling my chest tighten on her words. I didn’t want her to feel guilty about the way I longed to live. She shot me her ‘I’m not buying it’ look and I chuckled. “I am! Okay, so there are a few things that would make me happier, but I am hopeful that they will come. That my life will be how I want it to be one day.”
“See?” she beamed. “Optimism. Unwavering positivity in the complexity of our world.”
“I suppose,” I smiled. “But do you know what would make me really happy, mamma?”
“What is that amore mio?”
“Seeing you happy again. Maybe, in love?” I said carefully and her brown eyes widened before she looked away from me.
“My days for love are over, darling. I have known the greatest of love and that is enough to see me through.”
“Mamma,” I sighed and she stood up abruptly, strolling over to the window. “You are allowed to love again. No one will judge you for it.”
“I will,” she snapped, keeping her eyes glued on the landscape of the gardens.
“Papi would want you to. He would want you to be happy and fall in love again.”
She scoffed loudly and shook her head. Turning in her heels, she walked over to me and stroked my cheeks. “Oh, my sweet girl. No. No, your papi was many things. Possessive was one of them. All mafiosi men are possessive. They are a unique breed of man. You are right to be weary of them, Elle. For they are cruel, arrogant and dangerous men to the world. But if you are lucky enough to capture one of their hearts, they will never let you go. You will be theirs forever, even after death.”
