The silence that follows feels like all the air’s been sucked out of the world.I can feel her shock, her anger, her disappointment across the whole country.I wish she’d say something.And I don’t.Because I know it will be terrible to hear.I haven’t admitted this to her before, I’ve barely admitted it to myself.But now it’s out there.And I do feel just a tiny bit lighter for having said it.Like all the weight of sadness and regret pressing down on my chest lost a couple of pounds.
“You can’t be serious,” she finally says.“After everything he did?”
“He did a lot to protect us too.Us and the rest of our family.Things just played out how they did.It could’ve been worse for us.”
She scoffs.“Speak for yourself.You’re not the one stuck in an old, rotting house with a madman.”
And there goes all my hard-won complacency.All my wispy little hopes and dreams that we’ll all come out of this on the other side, safe, whole, and happy.Happier even than we used to be.
I should never have told her all this.
“Is it very bad?”I ask and she just scoffs again.I feel the anger behind that as though she were standing right beside me.
“I’m sorry.”
She exhales loudly.“Yes, yes.We’re all very sorry, Gianna.”
I don’t know what to say to that, nothing I can think of would make it any better, so I don’t say anything.And in the silence, I feel her anger grow and grow.Her disappointment.My treachery.If there was vodka in that liquor cabinet I’d be drinking it straight from the bottle right now, forgetting all my good intentions of staying sober.
“We’ll get you away from him,” I say.“As soon as possible.I’ll make sure of it.I’ll talk to Matteo… to dad once I can… we’ll get you back.”
She scoffs again.“It’s not that bad, don’t go freaking out on me now.”
“What?”I ask breathlessly.Her words feel like what a balloon losing all its air sounds like.Like I’ve been knocked down while running.
“He’s very sorry that he shot me,” she says.“And he can be sweet when he wants to.Sometimes even a little interesting.But I don’t want him to be any of those things.He’s done too much bad to ever be redeemed.”
Hearing that, the heavy weight on my chest just lost a few additional pounds.
I feel that sun on my back that always precedes Matteo appearing even before I hear him calling out my name.
“We’ll all be fine, you’ll see,” I tell Chiara, then say my goodbyes before she can start explaining all the ways we won’t be all over again.
Matteo pops his head in the door of the TV room, just as I slip the phone into my pocket.“There you are.We’re going to see my sister now.”
He sounds nervous, agitated, in a hurry.But I think it’s just because he’s finally decided to go see his sister and not anything other than that.
“Get dressed,” He adds.
I look down at the black jeans and T-shirt I’m wearing.“I’ll go like this.”
“I’m taking you out for dinner afterwards, so you might want to put on something nicer,” he says.
“Or go like that.You’ll be the prettiest woman there either way,” he adds when I don’t reply right away.
I wish he’d stop saying good things like that to me.And I wish he’d never stop.
“I’ll be ready in half an hour,” I say and slip past him out of the room.
“An hour it is then,” he calls after me, laughing.
The empty, dusty rooms just swallow that laughter though.Eat it up.Make it more dust.But I want to be the one who returns laughter to this house.Just as much as I want joy to return to my life and the lives of my family.
And for the first time since all this started, I feel like I might have finally found the path that leads to that future.A tiny, narrow overgrown path, full of obstacles yet to be overcome.But the right path nonetheless.
Chapter21
MATTEO
