“Aurelio is your father.”
54
Giovanna
Tommy’s still got a hand on my dad, holding him steady against the wall, while I just stand there, staring. The words keep echoing in my head, and then, before I can process what’s happening, I start to laugh.
It bubbles out before I can stop it, and it won’t stop. I sound practically unhinged, even to myself. I double over, clutching my sides, laughter spilling out of me until I can barely breathe.
“Oh my God,” I gasp, straightening, wiping tears from my cheeks.
Tommy and my dad are both staring at me.
“Honestly, that isthedumbest shit I have ever heard,” I scoff, standing and heading into the kitchen with my coffee cup.
“It’s not a lie, Giovanna,” my father says quietly, swaying on his feet.
I shake my empty coffee cup at him. “You have done some fucked up things in my life. You cheated on Mom constantly. Youwere physically and emotionally abusive to both of us—that is, when you bothered to come around.” I slosh more coffee into my cup, making a mess, then immediately make it worse as I shake my coffee cup at him again. “But this? Making up some twisted story to justify killing my children? That’s a new low, even for you.”
My father just stares at me blearily, not reacting to any of the things I’m saying. Usually these accusations would cause him to leave, to say something shitty to me, to hit me. But he just says dully, “It’s true.”
“Oh, Jesus Christ, no, it isnot,” I say, jerking a kitchen cloth over the spill.
“Yes. It is,” he says again, quiet and certain.
Tommy is fixated on my father, like he’s staring into his soul. I know that look. He’s trying to read him, to tell if he’s lying.
I scoff and roll my eyes, forcing a laugh. “Tommy, come on. You don’t actually—”
Tommy turns to look at me over his shoulder, so slowly it’s painful. His eyes are wide, his jaw set.
Fuck.
No fucking way.
This cannot be true.
This.
Cannot.
Be.
True.
No one says anything, or if they do, I don’t hear it as my future collapses around me.
An hour ago, I was the happiest I’ve ever been in my life. Solid with the man that I love, giving him two beautiful babies in just a few months. And now….
I lock onto Tommy’s gaze like it’s a physical thing, like it’s holding me up.
Like it’s keeping me alive.
Because it is. He is. He’s everything to me. The only ally I have in this life. If we can’t be together—
“Aurelio told you that himself. In your apartment. Antonio was there, and your mother. You remember.” His voice is bland, flat. Like he’s reminding me we had mediocre pizza last night.
“He didnotsay he was my father,” I snap. “I think I would have remembered that.”
