It was clear to see the old woman was sick. Underneath the scarf, she had no hair. And I wasn’t sure if life was playing an evil trick on me or what. After reading my mom’s diaries and finding out what had caused her to leave me, this woman had the same kind of sickness.
I wiped my eyes, but the tears were too big and too thick, and everything was too distorted to really take in the features of her face. I didn’t care. I wasn’t even sure why she was here.
“Big Joe told me you’d be here,” she said. “Stella, right?”
“Who are you?” I barely croaked out.
She extended her trembling hand, and I just looked at it. A second later, she took it back.
“I used to work with your mom.”
“Oh.” I took a breath. “Did I…know you?”
“Yeah, you did.”
I nodded, and the tears just fell to the ground like rain.
“Are you Stella?” she asked again.
“I am. I’m Nola’s daughter.”
A second seemed to stretch between us, and then her voice came out as harsh and biting as a slap across the face.
“You lying, evil bitch!”
She went to go after me, but she got Matteo instead. I tripped and fell right in front of my mom’s grave, too stunned to get up. The woman had turned into a feral cat. She was trying to claw at Matteo’s face while using her other arm to reach for me. To hurt me. Men ran from the cars and surrounded us, but Matteo gave them a sharp command in Italian—he didn’t want them to come close.
Why?
Why was he letting this crazed woman do what she was doing?
I got to my feet and yelled at her, “I am Stella! Why wouldn’t I be? It’s really me. Nola is—was—my mom!”
“You bitch!” She cursed me with such venom, I thought she was putting a curse on me. “My daughter is dead. Oh God.” She stopped fighting and almost melted in Matteo’s arms. She didn’t seem to have much strength. “My bestie boo is dead!”
A sharp wind passed, and the only reason I noticed it was because of the scent it carried with it. It was so familiar, so comforting, and I would have recognized it anywhere, even if the woman didn’t look a thing like my mom.
“Oh God,” I barely got out. “Who—” I had to clear my throat to get the words out. “Who told you that?”
“Henri!” she wailed. “Henri!”
“Henri is dead,” I said.
“Before,” she cried out. “Before. I went back to Paris looking for her, and he caught me before I got to the apartment w-w-where I’d dropped her off. He t-t-t-told me my baby was d-d-dead. And it was all my fault for bringing her there with such evil p-p-people.”
Oh my God.
I stood dazed, like the tender breezes passing were hypnotizing me, and when they picked up, I felt them move me, like I’d been caught in a zephyr. Matteo snapped something atone of the men, and in seconds, the man had the woman, and Matteo had me.
My eyes went straight to the woman, still wailing but not fighting, and said one word I thought I’d never say again to this broken woman. “Mom.”
It took a second, but she met my eyes.
And it was then.
In that minute.
In that second.
