"What do you want to know, Roxy?" he asks.
What do I want? Damien told me the basics: how he and my mother met, why she fled to the States, that he didn't touch her that night. My husband believes him, and even though it would be easier to doubt, I have to admit I don't think he's involved in that tragedy either. Maybe I'm naive because of this blood connection between us, but I can't see him capable of killing her like that.
"Why didn't you ever look for me?" is all my brain manages to formulate.
Maybe I was a disappointment to him too. Maybe he looked for me once, saw me, and just like my dad and the rest of the family, what he found wasn't enough.
He looks at me for a long moment, studying me from head to toe, and though I want to tell him to go to hell for not answering instantly, something in me aches to hear his explanation.
"Because I was a fool, Roxy," his voice trembles slightly. "In my mind, you had a good life with a normal family that didn't know violence, blood, pain, loss. When The Bloody Dahlia didn't claim any victims for a few months, I wanted to believe Elena was just another unlucky victim of a psychopath. If I had known..." His voice breaks.
If he'd known that all this time a serial killer was tracking me from a distance…
I understand he didn't want me to be another target for his enemies. I know from Damien what happened to his ex-wife, but all those years, I withered in that house. Not physically, but emotionally I buried myself so deep I didn't know how to claw my way back to the surface.
"You know, if she were here, she'd probably grab one of those ballet flats she loved and throw it at my head," he says with a laugh, lost in memories.
A smile spreads across my face because I know exactly which flats he's talking about. Her feet always hurt from heels, so she wore either low-heeled shoes or ballet flats everywhere, the kind where you felt every pebble on the street, but she loved them. Loved the feeling of almost touching the ground with her own feet.
"That's after she'd string together at least ten curses in alphabetical order," I answer, smiling with wet eyes.
"Absolutely," he replies, shaking his head.
I swallow the lump in my throat. I want to hate him, to feel something ugly toward him, but he's the only person, besides Henry, who truly knew her. Who probably knows she lovedlemon ricotta cookies, board games, and keeping her hair always styled in curls.
"Roxy, if I could, I'd turn back time," he tells me.
"But you can't. You can't erase the memories of dance recitals where no one from my family showed up. You can't erase the hours I spent creating a Taj Mahal model because it was Dad’s favorite monument, only for him to tell me I wasn't careful with the colors and details on the roof. You can't undo the hair I lost until I was twelve, from being grabbed and dragged by his wife.”
He stands with fists clenched at his sides, and from my left and behind me I feel the tension in the bodies of all the men surrounding me.
But I don't take my eyes off the man in front of me, whose eyes are glassy and full of such rage. But I know that rage is directed at himself and at those who should have taken care of me.
Squeezing Damien's hand, I continue.
"But you can give me new memories. And that's all I'm asking. You don't have to love me. You don't have to want me in your life. I even understand you already have a family and don't need everything I would bring right now into your lives..."
"I loved you before I even knew you existed. Your mother was the love of my life, Roxy. You're my daughter and you'll always find a place in my family, in my arms, in my life. I don't need to make room for you, because from the first moment, you had your place reserved—right here." And he puts his hand over his heart.
My chin trembles and I shake my head slightly. I can't stand sentimentality, but I searched for those three words from my dad for years. I elbowed my way in, I changed, I stayed silent, I kept my head down, and they never came, but with Marco theycome instantly, so naturally, as if it's not something you have to learn to do, but something you simply feel.
"I'd like to have coffee with you," I whisper.
I want to know him, I want to hear stories about my mother, I want to feel like I don't have to fight for a minute of his time.
"Anytime,amorino," he says softly.
A tear slides down my cheek. Henry calls me that sometimes, but never with this intonation. With this warmth.
"My mother used to call me that," I tell him as a second tear follows the first.
A smile spreads across his face and his eyes fill with emotion.
"That's what I used to call her," he tells me, and now I understand why she didn’t usecaraortesoro, which are more common.
His eyes suddenly harden when he says, "I heard about Marzena's attack. If you think you'd be safer at my house, my doors are always open to you."
I don't misunderstand his tone.
