Why did he leave it there if not for me to end my own suffering—to get rid of that which had plagued me for years?
Marcello got up to go to the bathroom and I saw my moment. I walked over and lifted the crowbar and crept up behind Romeo. He was so clueless, just playing with his cars, crashing them into one another and squealing with delight at the evident pain he was causing the nonexistent drivers.
He was another Angelo in the making.
I’d end all of it. I’d see to it that Romeo couldn’t torture another soul. I’d eliminate the son who was so much better than me in my father’s eyes.
I lifted the crowbar above my head and prepared to bring it down over Romeo’s when my wrists were snatched from behind. I was spun around and I looked directly into my father’s hopping-mad gaze.
“How could you?” he growled at me. “He’s family. We don’t hurt family.”
Had he not done that for me? He looked me right in the eyes when he set the crowbar down. He left me alone with Romeo and Marcello knowing how I felt.
It was a trap.
It was the excuse my father needed to drag me down to our family’s dungeon and string me up and torture my young shell until I’d blacked out from the pain. I barely remembered any of that though, I’d tried so hard to block it out.
Unfortunately for me, it wouldn’t be the last of my punishment sessions with Angelo, and with growing severity, the torment they caused me physically and mentally was not something I was ever likely to forget.
2
Philippa
Iwaved to all of my friends as the school bus pulled away from my stop. The afternoon sun was glinting off the yellow paint and there was a roar of cheers coming from inside as my classmates got one step closer to being done with school for three months.
My best friend, Angelica, was hanging clear out the window, waving as if I was never going to see her again. “Bye Phili!” she yelled. “Don’t forget about my birthday party!”
“I won’t!” I called back. “Ten days!”
Angelica squealed. “That’s right! My mom will pick you up. Bye!”
“Bye!”
The hiss of the bus as it roared down the street drowned out anything else Angelica said, but that was okay. She’d been talking about her 9th birthday nonstop for the entire last month of the school year. By that point, I had all the details memorized down to the plates and napkins her mom was buying. It was her golden birthday, so I understood why she was excited. Her family was also much better off than mine and the party was shaping up to be bigger than most national holidays. The funny thing about it was, my 9th birthday was four days before hers, but no one even knew.
I was used to that though.
People rarely paid attention to me, and because my mom spent everything she had to send me to the nice private school, I was also frequently surrounded by kids who had much more than me. It wasn’t as if I was unhappy, but not fitting into my surroundings was something I experienced every single day of my life.
“Bongiorno, bella.” I looked over and my mom was walking up the sidewalk. She had a bright smile on her face even though her eyes were weary with exhaustion and her hair was a mess. She was gone for work long before I got up for school that day, and she’d be there long after my dad picked me up to bring me home.
“Bongiorno, mama,” I replied.
She reached down and lifted me off the ground and cradled me in her arms. “How was your last day of school?”
“Pretty good.” My mom turned as I walked and started to head back up the street. “Angelica talked about her party the whole day.”
People were walking up and down the sidewalk, some with dogs and others with kids. Although summer was only just beginning, the heat in Chicago that day was scorching. Someone had even busted one of the fire hydrants on the road and water was spraying all over the street with kids running through it.
“Oh yes. I spoke to her mom about it this morning. She said, if you’d like, you can spend the night the day before. Would you like that?” my mom asked.
“Yeah!” I said. “Can I?”
“Of course,” my mom said with a smile, then she snuggled her face into mine. “So long as mama gets all your time before that.”
I giggled. “Okay.”
“Oh!” Bernard, the man who owned the small convenience store on the corner stopped sweeping the front stoop and smiled as we passed. “Philippa! Summer break, huh?”
