“We got married!” she blurted. “I told my mom and she pulled a knife on Nunzio and he’s bleeding and then she was screaming and…Oh God! I don’t know what to do.”
I looked at Nunzio and noticed for the first time that he had blood dripping down his arm.
He shrugged.
“You’re old enough,” Corrado said to Brooklyn. “You can marry whoever you want.”
She looked up at him, her eyes red, her nose swollen, tears flowing down her cheeks. “But she’s my mom, and I love her, too. I want her to accept him, to accept us.”
“Did you try talking to her?” I asked Nunzio.
He lifted his arm to show me. Even though I knew he meant he had tried, I still wondered…I couldn’t remember a time when he had spoken to me casually.
“Talking is not going to change her mind,” Corrado said, looking at Nunzio. “It’s going to take time.”
“How did this happen?” I said, sitting down next to Brooklyn and taking her hand. I moved the hair from her face, trying to dry some of her tears.
“I told you I liked Nunzio. I actually love him, but I was too ashamed to admit it. I mean, who falls in love with the first guy they really like? It’s like picking the first wedding dress you try on. How often does that happen?” She sniffed. “Then my mom…she wanted me to like the chef. The night I went out on a date with him, Nunzio showed up at my apartment after I got home. He told me how he felt. He told me that if I didn’t marry him, he was going to kill Michele.”
Corrado narrowed his eyes at Nunzio. For the first time, I saw something on Nunzio’s face that I never had before. Not shame, but something close to it. I did not think it was for what he had done, though, but for something else.
“You forced her into it!” I shouted.
Nunzio shook his head. “Explain better,” he said to his wife.
She waved a hand. “I mean, that came after a few things…it wasn’t like he said, ‘Marry me or I kill the chef,’” she said, making her voice sound like his. “Well, kind of. But I don’t want to get into what happened before that, okay? It’s personal. But the point is…I’ve been disowned! I thought…I thought if we were married ma would have to accept it.”
I took her chin and made her look at me. “She will. Corrado is right. Give her time.”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand. You didn’t see her face. I knew she would have a hard time accepting it, butnever, never did I think she would stab someone.”
“You must not know your ma,” Corrado said. “She’s a wild card.”
I shot him a look. He was not helping.
One of the guys cleared his throat at the entrance of the kitchen. “Adriana,” he said.
Corrado nodded. The man left and came back with a woman a minute or two later. Brooklyn shot up from her seat and stepped in front of her husband, trying to use her body as a shield. Nunzio moved her so she was beside him, so they were standing side by side.
The woman, Adriana, was attractive. She was tall, thin, with long, blonde, wavy hair. I could see, though, that life had taken a toll on her. She looked haggard in a way that made me feel as if her soul was tired.
“Ma,” Brooklyn whispered.
“Don’t.” She held up a hand. “Don’t even call me that. I’m nothing to you. You chose this life over me.”
“I didn’t!” Brooklyn screamed. “Daddy did! Not me! I chose love!”
“Love.” Adriana laughed, actually cackled like a witch. “You’ll see what you’re going to get in a few years. Love—there’s no such thing in this life. Do you think she—” she nodded toward me “—is going to get real love? Do you think her daughter will? You know how it feels! You were ignored, always coming after this life, and then he left! Like I figured out he would. One way or another.”
“You knew that when you married him!” Brooklyn said. “You made your choice.Please.Let me make mine. Things will be different for me.”
“Ha! What a fucking joke. You think things will be different? That’s what they make you believe when you turn them away.You’re different.He’ll say the right words and do all the right things. Make you feel like you’re the only woman in the world. This one—” she nodded at Nunzio “—probably did something to make you feel like the world revolved around you and only you.” She shook her head, almost in disbelief.
“Women who are not in this life look at us and think, ‘They know what they’re getting into!’ Yeah, some of us do from the start, but some of us don’t. But even when we do, not many women stand a chance against them. When they want something, they’ll have it. So let’s use some common sense. If men like them don’t stand a chance against each other half of the time, what makes those bitches think we can? You’re no better than them for doing the same thing to me. Judging me for doing the best I could. And you still didn’t learn.”
“But I love him!”
The words were like a slap in the face. Adriana visibly flinched. “Love him today. Hate him tomorrow. Mark my words.” She looked at Corrado. “Undo this.Please.”
