I started, my eyes blinking open to findRoman Holidaystill on. The mouth of truth scene. The scene in my place was different, though. Magpie was gone, and mamma sat next to me. Someone had covered me with a blanket.
“What time is it?” I yawned.
“Late afternoon.”
I nodded, sitting up.
She nodded to the TV. “I never liked this movie. The ending.” She opened and closed her hands. “It hurts.”
“LikeRomeo and Juliette?”
“No,” she said. “That was a war between two families that caused the destruction of two young lives. This—this ending is about duty and what it requires from us sometimes. The sacrifice of it.”
“Mamma,” I whispered. “If this is about last night—”
“It’s not,” she said. “Not really.” She looked at me and took my hand in hers. It was warm and soft and smaller than mine. “It cost papà a lot when you decided to dance in Paris. He knew you did it because you wanted to honor me, so he let go to a certain degree, but it cost him more than you’ll ever know.”
“I know,” I said. “I remember what Olivier Nemours did to you—to us.”
She shook her head. “You don’t know the half of it.”
I sat there and listened to her start from the beginning. How papà had sent her away to Paris to dance because he felt she deserved more than what he could give her at the time. How, after, she went to an underground club that Olivier Nemours owned to find out information about someone she’d known back then. She drank absinthe, and it had an adverse effect on her. She described the same feelings I had the night before, but hers seemed more severe. I’d understood the basics of the situation with Nemours, but I truly had no idea.
Standing, I took a walk to the window, looking out. Saverio and Evelina were walking around the property, talking. Every so often his eyes would roam to my place.
Everything mamma had just described—the trouble she’d caused, how many times my father would have given up his life for hers—was everything my nightmares were made of. We were them, in present time. The thought of my hands being bound and not being able to reach for Saverio…it twisted my heart in knots.
Last night, the connection between us had me putting him in more danger because of a selfishness to have him all to myself. To make sure he was all right. A selfishness that was hard to put into words, except for one: reckless.
I couldn’t control it. Not when he was this close. Not when I was a danger magnet like mamma.
Last night was just a taste of what was to come.
“Mia.”
“Hmm?” I turned around to find mamma staring at me.
“You’re not me. Saverio is not your father.” She stood up and came to me, gripping my shoulders. “This talk was to make you aware of how hard it was last night. Seeing a small part of history repeating itself. I love you so much. Papà loves you so much. This life is for you to live, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn something fromourmistakes. Everything has a purpose. History is no different. It’s to learn from. The people who come before us were here to teach us what to do and whatnotto do.”
Mamma moved the lace curtains back. Papà stood outside by a tree, in the shadows of the fading light.
“If it wasn’t for him,” she whispered, her eyes meeting his, even though he couldn’t tell we were looking at him, “none of my dreams would have come true. I would have rather lived through everything we did than spend a second without him.”
A second without him…it sounded like the last nail being hammered into a coffin.
A knock came at the door. Before I answered it, mamma grabbed my arm. She stared into my eyes, like she wanted to will her resolve into mine—to change something she knew was coming.
Guido stood on the other side. “Your grandfather would like a word,” he said.
“Guido—” I started. I wiped my hands on my raggedy old jean shorts. “About last night—”
He held up a hand. “You came home relatively—” he glanced at the five stitches on my chest “—unscathed. The night could have turned out much differently. I am glad it did not.” He checked his watch. “I will wait here to walk you.”
Saverio passed by with Evelina. They were walking toward the main estate.
“He’s been summoned as well,” Guido said, breaking my attention.
“Ten minutes,” I said.
