“It wasn’t easy on you either. We all cope the best way we can. But it just feels so nice to talk about everything. We stopped talking and it seemed like we all went to our own worlds.”
“Our own snow globes.”
“You always loved snow globes.” She grinned.
“Yeah.” I laughed some.
We locked arms and started walking again. Nazzareno, Min, and Brio followed.
Luci sighed. “It’s time for us to talk, Ava.”
“I thought that’s what we’re doing?”
“You know what we need to talk about.”
“I don’t want Sonny to ruin this, Luci. We haven’t connected like this since…a long time.”
“He’s not going to ruin it. If anything, the truth will, because it’s going to change everything you’ve always believed. It’ll take some time to accept, and it’s going to hurt before it gets better.”
“Does Sonny come out looking like Daddy of The Year after this truth? Because I’ve always been around, even if I did my own thing. No one can change my memories of the back of his head.”
“No,” she said, “he’s not, but Janis isn’t going to be the innocent little dove you imagined her to be, either.”
I stopped our forward stride and glanced at Nazzareno. I took a deep breath and blurted, “Do you know if she’s still alive?”
“Yeah, she is.” Luci hesitated. “Did that worry you?”
Only every second of every day, until I started burying it. Then it would crawl its way to the surface of my dreams at night and turn them into nightmares. I’d imagine her cold, hungry, scared, and not sure who to turn to. Bleeding out on the side of some road while faceless shapes left her to die alone in the darkness, her soft, begging cries as haunting as screams.
“I just never knew…what happened to her,” I said. “I worried about her.”
“I think we need to sit.”
“Are you feeling okay?” She didn’t look pale, but Lucila had anemia, and sometimes she’d just pass out.
“Yeah. It’s just…heavy, emotionally.”
Nazzareno, Min, and Brio caught up to us. We found a cute little outside coffee bar, and Nazzareno ordered us warm drinks before he offered to take Minnie to see a nativity scene in the piazza. Brio went with them. It wasn’t that far, and it seemed like they were taking shifts watching Minnie and watching us.
Luci’s eyes were on Minnie, but they seemed kind of distant. “Do you remember when we were kids, how sleepy we would get?”
The question surprised me. “Umm…kind of.”
“You were younger than me, but I remember. The teacher made a big deal about it.” She took a sip of her drink. She had a milk mustache.
It wasn’t the time for jokes, but I really wanted to make one.
She eyed me and licked it off. “I know you like a book, Ava Girardi, but now is not the time. Not when I’m pumping myself up for this.” She took another drink, this time avoiding the froth mustache. She sighed. “The thing is…not only was Janis having multiple affairs on Sonny when they were together, but to get to do it, she was…”
She looked away from me and took a deep breath.
“She was what, Luci?”
She turned and faced me. “She was drugging us.”
“Bullshit.” The response was automatic.
“It’s not, Ava. So many people suspected it, especially Molly, and when Sonny went after her because of it, things got heated. A man she was having an affair with was waiting outside of the house for her. It was the day I got sick and stayed home from school. The day she left. She left because one of her side pieces hit Sonny with his car, and she knew she couldn’t drug us anymore. She was done with us, Ava. She’d hit a wall being a mom and left—for good.”
