“You picked up on the first ring.”
She let me change the topic without asking me why. That’s why I liked her. I did what I wanted with her, and everything was okay. Just like Luigi was with me.
“That’s my job.”
“It’s almost midnight, and you’re supposed to be on holiday. I am your priority.”
She was quiet at the other end.
“Aren’t I?” I pushed, but she remained quiet. “You could have forwarded the call to the hotline. You didn’t. Who made me your priority?” When she still didn’t respond, I insisted. “I’m not hanging up until you tell me.”
She sighed, and I could almost see her little wrinkled forehead fold into an extra crease. “You have a lot of people who love you, Orietta.”
“Who?”
There was an intense need to know. I already knew one. “My husband?”
“That one’s a keeper for sure.”
“Who else, Erminia?”
“There’s no one else I can name.”
And I had my answer right there. The only person not only my therapist but the entire town would be terrified of getting into trouble with was the don himself. I didn’t even know why I took sick pleasure in Vitale threatening Erminia to be availableto me 24/7. It made me feel all warm. Like I was a priority. Made me feel at home. To have two men look out for me when I’d never known anything like it before.
I dropped the call without a goodbye. She’d already helped me more than I had hoped. Mamma had stopped crying, and she was wiping the already clean countertop.
Without even realising it, I had typed out a message and hit send.
Mamma’s sad. Lia had one of her tantrums.
The answer was almost immediate. Like I was a priority on her list, too.
Don’t worry. I was just about to call her.
My gaze lifted, and on the other side of the window, Mamma startled when her phone rang. Her entire demeanour shifted when she picked it up, and soon she was smiling.
Just about to call her.Right.Making calls to Ada close to midnight was something she made a daily routine of.
I couldn’t remember when I’d started messaging her. It was somewhere after Vitale’s wedding. I’d never met her in real life. But she’d become one of my sisters when I couldn’t bring myself to speak to my actual sisters. I was glad Vitale had married her because that woman was truly part of the family. Even mine.
The door didn’t even close fullybefore I bombarded him with my question.
“How is Mamma?”
I’d held it out for a full day while he had gone to the main house and waited until he was back. Ahana had told me she was fine. But I wanted another report. From someone else.
Luigi took off his coat and hung it up before coming over to me and kissing me full on my lips. Unlike on any other day, I ignored him. I was on the verge of something. I couldn’t tell what, but I was. Things were shifting. Everything moving. My insides twisting.
“She’s fine,” he murmured before walking towards the kitchen.
I followed behind him. “How is Mamma really doing?”
I didn’t even know why I still called her Mamma when she hadn’t birthed me. It had been far easier to stop calling Carlo Papà. But Ada… I couldn’t get myself to call her anything else other than Mamma. After months of sitting on a couch across from Erminia, I had resigned myself to the fact that I’d probably never be able to call her anything other than that.
“I think she’s a bit sad.”
I knew it.
