“Henri did it to get back at Régine?”
“The bitch, yeah. I didn’t really care either way. I wanted a baby. And men like Henri didn’t come into the The Bunny all that often.” She smiled at me through tears. “I knew we’d make a beautiful baby, and we did. He seemed interested, at first, about being a part of our lives. I didn’t care either way. I just wanted him to send money. I’d always dreamed of being the soccer mom, you know? I wanted you to have a nice house to live in and a car with AC to ride around in.
“I didn’t ask him to be father of the year, since I was going to be mom of the century, but the money would have been nice. He was never dependable though. He’d send some sometimes and other times…I’d go stretches without hearing from him. But he had told me he had a nice place in Paris, and one day, he wanted us both to visit. He described it for me, and the dumbass told me where it was. I guess because it was in a rich section, and he wanted me to be blinded by the flash. That was why I decided to bring you to him. I thought he’d keep you busy for the summer and then I could go back and get you.”
“She found out about you.”
“Yeah, the bitch had ears behind her head, it seemed. I don’t know. I just know she showed up at our trailer. We had a fight. I used Tootsie’s car to go for a ride, and…when I pulled up to the trailer, I found it burnt. Not all the way to the ground, but enough to make it not livable. I was so thankful that a week before, I’d taken the things that meant the most to me out of it and brought them to Big Joe. Tootsie was a great girl, but she was hooked on drugs and looking for anything to sell. She got my watch. The twin to yours.
“Big Joe was there when I pulled up. He told me to go to the club and hide in his office. When he met me there, he said that woman was out to get me, and we shouldn’t correct the police when they think it’s me in there. Let them think I was Tootsie, he’d said. The police weren’t going to care about a stripper that much to dig too deep. He was right. Big Joe got me a new ID in Tootsie’s name.He knows people, you know? That was that. Except I knew that bitch was deranged the moment I saw her eyes. She has those eyes that don’t hide her cuckoo. I borrowed the money from Big Joe to fly back to Paris. I went to the apartment and banged on the door. Henri got all panicked when he saw me.
“He took me by the arm and drug me way down the street, then we got into a cab. ‘Why did you bring her here?’ he shouted at me as we drove. He went off on me in French, and I couldn’t understand a word of it. I shouted back, though, in English, that if he didn’t bring me my daughter, I was going to cut his balls off and then find her and cut her tits off. He turned away from me, covering his mouth, and said in a voice I’d never heard him use before, ‘You should have got in touch with me first. You have no idea who she is. What she is capable of.’
“I told him I didn’t give a fuck who she was. I wanted my girl. NOW. He shook his head and said, ‘I am sorry, Nola. She is dead.’” She looked away from me for a second, steadying herbreathing, it seemed. “I don’t remember the ride to the airport or even getting on the plane, or the connecting flight from Paris to New York, or how I got home after. It was raining in Louisiana when we landed. That’s all I remember. I kept thinking that any day, I’d wake up from the nightmare and you’d be watching cartoons while I made breakfast. That got me along for a while, and then I…soured.” She pointed to her head. “It’s back.”
I squeezed her hand. “You’ll get better. I’m here.”
She smiled, but it was sad. “If that’s not enough to make me get better, nothing is.” She shook my hand. “Why did Henri lie to me about you being dead?”
I cleared my throat. “I can’t know for sure, becauseRégine killed Henri, but I think he told you that because, in a way, I was dead. She…used me.”
Mom stiffened, and her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean,” she said slowly, “used you?”
I started from the beginning, able to tell my story after what Scarlett had done for me in her dance studio—helped me help myself. She gave me a start to free myself from the debilitating fear.
“Oh, my baby,” Mom said, pulling me close, kissing my head. “She fucking caged you like a circus animal.” It took her a few minutes, after we both acknowledged that was exactly what Régine had done, and she asked, “She made you dance like me?”
“I think…it saved my life, until Matteo came along and saved me.”
“Matteo,” she repeated. “Matteo Fausti.”
I looked up at her, and she moved my hair away from my face.
“So much like mine,” she whispered. Then she kissed me on the forehead.
“My husband, mom.” I sat up, looking her in the eye. “I love him—” The wordlovewas a simple term for what existedbetween us, but I knew it would take a better explanation than I could come up with after such a day, and time with us, for her to understand how powerful what existed between us was. “And I know you’re going to love him too.”
“We’ll see,” she said, and then we fell asleep holding onto each other.
Nonno and Magpie were the first to welcome us back to Italy when we arrived at theircastelloin their own city behind a stone wall that circled the perimeter. Magpie was so excited that mom was with us. She took my hand and squeezed, and said in a breathy whisper, “I am so happy for you, Stella Stellar! Now I know where you get it from…your mamma!”
Mom gave her a suspicious look at first, but after Magpie started chirping in her ear, I knew it wasn’t going to be long before they became friends. From the beginning, even Scarlett had sensed that I’d feel at ease with Magpie because she had a wild spirit like my mom.
Nonno had planned an excellent lunch for us, but first he wanted to take my mom for a walk around the property. She took his offered arm and looked at me over her shoulder. “You’re not taking me away from my girl, are you?” She turned her narrowed eyes on him.
Nonno kissed her hand and said, “Not for long, Magnolia. I would just like to speak with you privately.”
“Yeah, sure,” she said. She gave me another look. “I’ll be right back, Stella.”
Matteo slid his hand over my shoulder, and his warmth instantly put me at ease. I’d missed him the night before, and I was starting to crave more than just his touch. Even past thenight, when the sun shone so bright in the sky, the blinds had to be drawn; if we missed each other, we acted on it. I refused to starve the connection between us for anything or anyone. He felt the same. And my body felt starved for his mouth, his touch, for him to be buried deep inside of me, more than my stomach needed food.
“Me too,” he breathed against the pulse in my wrist.
True to his word, Nonno had mom back a minute before the food was served, and we mostly had a nice lunch. Mostly because mom was quiet unless spoken to, and her eyes seemed to be everywhere, like she was plotting an escape route.
Time, I told myself. She just needed time to get used to this world. I came from a different situation, but someone who was as free as my mom would have a hard time with the way the Fausti world worked. It was too structured, too guarded; maybe, to a certain extent, it was too controlled for her. And when she wasn’t thinking about escape routes, she was studying Magpie, probably wondering how a woman like her could stand being trapped in thiscastello.
I grinned at my plate, thinking that, even this walled city couldn’t keep Magpie in if she wasn’t for it. The man next to her, kissing her hand all throughout lunch, he was plenty wild enough for her. Lion wild. And that was a draw. Around these men, it never seemed like a dull moment, and “trapped” was what a womanwantedto be with them. In their arms, the world was hers.
