“Oh Jesus,” Daphne mutters. “Life was crazy with the four of us. I can’t imagine more.”
“Would you rather have been an only child?” Betty asks Daphne.
“Trust me, it sucks,” I add.
“It totally does,” Delilah says.
Daphne shrugs. “I guess not, but having three brothers tried my nerves sometimes.”
“I never wanted my children to feel what I did,” Betty says as she leans against the counter, crosses her arms, and bows her head.
“Ma,” Daphne whispers and covers her mouth.
Betty shakes her head. “I had a brother.”
The room is silent besides the garbled voices from the family room. My eyes are locked on Betty, and I see the pain etched on her face.
Daphne’s out of her seat, making her way around the island. “Ma, you don’t have to talk about this.”
Betty moves to her daughter and grabs her hands. “It’s important for you to hear this.” Betty turns to us, still holding Daphne’s hands. “For all of you to hear this.”
I brace myself because I know whatever she’s going to say is going to gut me. Utterly and completely wreck me in a way I hadn’t expected for a simple family dinner.
“It was important for me to have a lot of children. Growing up, I had a brother, Davin. He was older by a handful of years, but we were still close. I never once thought about life without him. I thought he’d always be there, you know?” She wipes the corner of her eyes with the back of her finger. “He had the most beautiful smile, and he was quite the ladies’ man. He just had one of those personalities where people were drawn to him.” She smiles, but her eyes hold nothing but sorrow. “When I was sixteen, Davin was out with his friends late at night. He did this often, but I remember waking in the middle of the night to my mother screaming downstairs. It’s a sound I’ll never forget.”
I’m frozen to my seat, unable to move as I stare at Betty and soak in her pain.
“In that moment, I went from having a brother to being an only child.”
My vision blurs in her sadness. I feel it in my heart and my gut so completely.
“Ma, you still have a brother,” Daphne tells her.
“He was born, but he’s no longer here,” Betty replies and squeezes Daphne’s hands. “My life never felt the same after that. I was so lost. I felt like everything I was changed in that moment. The only person who knew my secrets, my inside jokes had vanished. I never had a day without Davin in it until then. I didn’t know life without him.”
I wipe away my tears and bite my lip, trying to stop myself from sobbing. Delilah and Bianca are doing the same. None of us have heard Betty talk about her brother, what happened, or how it affected her. She rarely talks about her family, and I understand why. Her parents and only sibling have died. The pain she must feel even now, decades later, is so deep, it’s not something she can easily vocalize.
“When I had Angelo and looked at his sweet little face, I knew I never wanted him to experience the same pain I had. I knew I wanted lots of children because I never wanted my child to know how it felt being part of something amazing and then having nothing.”
Daphne pulls her mother into her arms and buries her face in her neck. “Ma, I’m so sorry.”
“I would’ve had ten kids if my body was able and your father would’ve kept his ass out of jail a little more. I never want you to have that hurt.”
“I won’t,” Daphne tells her as she rubs Betty’s back.
“I know you won’t, baby. I made sure of that, and now you have sisters.” Betty moves out of Daphne’s embrace. “You have a large family filled with love and children of your own. You all have one another, and that’s all that matters. There’s nothing more precious than family. I want you all to understand that too. There’s nothing more precious than the people you surround yourself with, both through marriage and blood. I never want anything to come between you girls and my boys.”
I understand exactly what she’s saying. The sting and ache I felt when Mitchell died were excruciating, and the only person who got me through those moments was Roger. He was the only family I had until I met Angelo. I’m not sure I would’ve survived without him.
“You can never have too many people in your life who love you. Remember that,” Betty says, dabbing her eyes with her fingers.
“We know,” Daphne says.
“I can never begin to imagine your heartache of losing your brother, Betty,” I say.
“Ma,” she reminds me.
I nod. “Ma. But I promise nothing is more important to me than my family. You girls…” I pause and collect my thoughts for a moment, trying to get my lip to stop trembling, but I fail and continue. “You gave me something I never had. Not even when I had a different life, I never had this.” I wave my hands toward the four women in front of me. “I never had a family that I felt had my back all the time. And not just a little family, but a big one so full of love and happiness that I ask myself every day how I got so damn lucky.”
