“Oh, my friend,” Catherine said, pulling her in for a hug.
“I’m pathetic,” she said.
“You’re not pathetic. Well. You are a little bit. Tell me what happened.”
“I demanded his love. And when he refused to give it to me I left him. Because I believe that he does love me. And I’m sort of just playing chicken with his fear now.”
“Well. It was strong of you.”
“What if he doesn’t love me? What if he doesn’t come after me?”
Catherine sighed, and brought her into the kitchen, where she immediately began to heat up the electric kettle. “Oh, he will come after you, my dear. The question is only in what capacity he will do it. Because he is not a soft man. Which means he’s going to chase you down.”
“He didn’t. He just let me leave.”
“Well. That means he’s more scared of you than you are of him.”
“But I don’t understand… I don’t understand how. I don’t understand why it’s so scary to him.”
“It’s scary to you too. But also he’s a man, so it’s going to take him longer to get there.”
“But I was brave.”
“Because women are. Think of everything your mom went through, and she still fell in love with your stepdad. Not just because it was advantageous to her. She really fell in love with him. And think about what Romeo put you through, but you still have a greater understanding of what your actual feelings are than he does. Honestly. Men have greater physical strength, but we…we have stronger hearts. And we have to, because if we didn’t, why would we keep falling in love with those creatures?”
“I’m being selfish. I could let them be comfortable. But then I wouldn’t be. And I just don’t think we can thrive that way. I really don’t. I think it would explode eventually, and it would be a mystery as to why. But I see it now. I see it clearly. I know why. Because if he keeps building walls, I’m going to keep trying to push them down. And he will resist harder, and… We can’t keep doing that.”
“No. But of course the man is going to want to see his baby.”
“Of course. And I want him to see his baby. I’ve never said otherwise. But…my mother lived for me. For years. I’m grateful. We were all happier when she began to live as a whole person. Well, except Romeo. All of this is such a sore subject for him, and I think it’s difficult for him to talk about, or maybe even understand.”
“You tried. And in the end, if that’s the best you’ve got, then it’s the best you’ve got. You tried.”
It was a lovely sentiment. She thought about it while she went to sleep in Catherine’s guest room. But she didn’t want to try and fail. She loved Romeo Accardi. With everything she had in her. And if after all this time, all this pain, all this pleasure, they couldn’t find a way to call it what it was, then she had failed.
She was strong. And she would go on. She would be the best mother to her son.
But part of herself would be lost. The part of herself that had fallen in love with Romeo all those years ago.
He was going out of his mind. She wasn’t there. He had gone all the way to New York to find her, had gone to her penthouse, and discovered that she wasn’t there.
It made him want to tear apart her home, but even he had limits. It made him want to lash out, at everyone. And everything.
This was love for him, unchecked. Painful. This was him. The absolute truth of who he was. And he despised himself.
He stopped right where he was standing, in her living room. And for a heartbeat he was silent. He was still.
And instead of fighting the feeling, instead of lashing out at everything around him, he let it roll over him.
This feeling that he had been running from all of his life.
Love.
He could remember the first time he realized that love had a cost. The first time that in order to get his mother’s attention he had to make her feel better. The first time he had heard his father say cruel things when his mother was in the middle of a meltdown. Oh, Giuseppe had not been able to be there for her. He had been cruel in her lowest moments, and that had always made everything feel complicated. Because sometimes Romeo felt that same cruelty, but he would never say it.
He believed in his heart that his father was a good man. But a complicated one. As his mother was a good woman, but a complicated one. And so it wasn’t as easy as saying that love the way they expressed it wasn’t real. It was the most real love that they were capable of with one another. And with him.
And what real love was Romeo capable of?
