Dina sits while Connor pulls out three cigars and lights them using the fire created by our mother’s last earthly remains.
Dina accepts the cigar and takes a puff. She does not cough like a dainty little lamb. She puffs another one. “Why are you burning her clothes?” she asks.
“Because I don’t want anything of hers in this house.” A pause. “She didn’t want us.”
Dina finishes her beer. “I didn’t want a baby when I found out I was pregnant.” She inhales sharply as if it pains her to say it. “Not at first. When accidents happen and women get pregnant, we go through a range of emotions, mostly shame. It’s worse because the doctrine tells us to be grateful. We’re supposed to love the baby instantly. Anyway, I didn’t feel that way. I was terrified. Young. He wasn’t around. But the baby came and when I held her, it was the best feeling in the world.” She pauses. “Of course, that’s how it was for me. I just want to say I struggled. I really did.”
“We are rape babies,” I tell her.
Dina sucks in a breath. “I had no idea.”
“Nobody did,” Connor says. “Until now.” He looks at me pointedly, telling me without saying anything that he can’t believe I shared our dirty family secret with this woman. I did. If I didn’t want her with us, I would have sent her on a cruise. He’s the one burning our mother’s shit in a pit.
I roll my eyes at Connor. “If you don’t want people to ask about your dead mother, why all the drama, prince? Hm?”
Connor flips me off. “When Massio forced her into marriage, everyone felt bad for poor Anabela Crossbow. Imagine how me and Dec felt when the whole city sanctified the mother whocalled us her little rape babies. Didn’t she, Dec? She called us her little rape babies. You know why Massio killed her?”
Dina shakes her head.
“Because she refused to take care of us and stopped giving a fuck about him. She would wake up, give us cereal, and call us her cute rape babies. In front of him. He would go into fits of rage and beat her, sometimes her and us. That’s why she’s dead. That’s why he’s dead.”
Dina wipes her tears. She approaches my brother and hugs him. I get up and walk away.
Chapter 22
This is dangerous
Dina
Connor smells different from his brother, his cologne woodsy, heavier. Or maybe it only strikes me as heavier than Declan’s because Declan’s energy is calmer, more stable. Or maybe it’s the topics we’re discussing.
“My mother left me when I was a teen,” I tell Connor when he sits down. She might still be out there somewhere, but Dad and I buried her after she disappeared. He visits an empty grave. That comforts him. Poor Dad never remarried, said she was the love of his life, and you only get one of those.
Sergei wasn’t mine. Maybe mine is Chi-chi. Maybe I only get to love my daughter.
I stand by the fireplace, looking for Declan inside the house. He might’ve gone to grab another drink.
Connor puffs on his cigar, making smoke circles as he exhales. “How old were you?”
“Fourteen.”
“Did she die or…?”
“She kissed me good night, went on a cruise, and never came back.”
“Abandonment.”
I think I need more than a beer tonight.
“Dec sent your family on a cruise.”
“Yes, he did.”
“How does that make you feel?”
I frown. “It brings back memories of my mom and prods my abandonment issues, but Chi-chi loves me and will return, as will my dad for the same reason. Thank you for asking, therapist.”
Connor smiles. He has a dimple. Declan doesn’t. “Do you remember her?”
