Which doesn't make sense. Doesn't align with them being cold-blooded murderers capable of killing family. Capable ofbetraying the most fundamental bond that should exist between father and son.
But when I confronted them that night in the hotel lobby, when I stood there shaking with shock and betrayal and demanded to know if it was true, I saw anger flash across their faces. Not at the accusation. At the fact that I'd found out. Resignation that I now knew the truth they'd worked so hard to keep hidden. They didn't try to deny it. Didn't scramble for excuses or offer justifications that might make it palatable.
They just stood there and let me see them for what they are.
I can still see the look on their faces when I said I couldn't do this anymore. When my voice broke on the words and I told them this was a life I didn't understand, a world I couldn't navigate, a truth I couldn't reconcile with the men I thought I knew. That I just couldn't.
The memory sits heavy in my chest like a stone I swallowed and can't cough up.
"There's no need to call the police," I tell Jess again, forcing myself to meet her eyes. "I can't explain more than that. But the car is there for my protection. Not to harm me."
Jess crosses her arms over her chest, a defensive posture that tells me she's not convinced. She studies my face with the intensity of someone trying to read a language they don't quite speak.
"Are you sure? Because you always tend to see the best in people until it's too late. Until they've already hurt you and you're left making excuses for why they did it."
The words sting precisely because they're true. Because I've heard variations of this same concern from her before, in different contexts, about different people who disappointed or betrayed or used me.
"Do you think I'm a foolish naif?" I ask, defensive edges showing through.
"No." Jess sits down on the couch beside me, close enough that our knees almost touch. She's still in her work clothes, slacks and a blouse, her hair pulled back in a practical ponytail. "I don't think you're foolish at all. I'm not a psychology expert or anything. But I think you suffer from some sort of survivor's guilt."
I deflect with a weak laugh that sounds hollow even to my own ears. "Thanks for the amateur psychoanalysis. Should I lie down on the couch for this session?"
But Jess doesn't laugh. Doesn't let me deflect or joke my way out of this conversation. She's serious, her expression gentle but unflinching.
"Both you and Henry suffered a tremendous loss when your parents died. You were both just kids trying to make sense of something that doesn't make sense. And you overcame that trauma better than he did." She pauses, clarifies. "Not healthiernecessarily. Just more functionally. You learned how to keep going. How to build a life anyway."
I try to make excuses, try to explain away the comparison. Try to protect Henry even now. "I was younger when it happened. Only a kid. He was a teenager, almost fifteen. At that age, you understand more. The loss hits different. He suffered the most."
"There's no such thing as suffering the most," Jess says firmly, her voice taking on an edge. "Pain isn't a competition where someone gets to win the gold medal for most traumatized. You both lost your parents. You both hurt. The fact that you found ways to cope doesn't diminish what you went through."
She pauses, letting that statement breathe. Letting me absorb it even though every instinct I have wants to reject it.
"I think you feel guilty because you're happy. Or because you were happy, before all this. Because your life is more or less sorted out while Henry's isn't. While he's still struggling with gambling and debt and whatever else is going on that you won't tell me about. You feel guilty for moving on while he didn't. You feel responsible for his happiness when you're not. When you can't be."
The words hit somewhere tender, somewhere I've been carefully avoiding touching. A bruise I've learned not to press.
"You even do that at work," Jess continues, "When you worked at the restaurant, you couldn't see Marcus's behavior as harassment until it was way past too late. You kept making excuses for him. Kept trying to see the best in someone whodidn't deserve the benefit of your doubt. Kept telling yourself he didn't mean it that way, that you were overreacting, that it wasn't that bad."
She shifts slightly, her expression changing. "Speaking of Marcus, I have more details about what happened to him. You know, that incident I told you about on the phone last week."
I remember. She'd mentioned something had happened. Some attack at the restaurant that left him unable to work. I'd been too wrapped up in my own life to ask for details.
Her voice drops lower, becomes almost confidential. "Apparently it was mafia men. Can you believe that? Like something out of a movie. They showed up at the restaurant one day, right around closing time when most of the staff had already left. Walked right into the kitchen like they owned the place. While one of them held Marcus's hand down flat on the cutting board, the other one used his own chef's knife to cut off his thumbs. Both of them. Clean cuts. Professional."
She shakes her head, still processing the violence of it.
The information lands with a strange sense of recognition. Like I'm hearing confirmation of something I already suspected. Something I already knew in the part of me that's been connecting dots I didn't want to connect.
My chest feels tight. My hands cold.
"Mafia?" I ask. My voice comes out barely above a whisper, thin and strained. But I already know the answer before she says it.
Jess nods, leaning forward slightly. "Albanian, they think. At least that's what the police told the restaurant owner. They think they were trying to send a message."
35
LILY
