Page 45 of Mafia’s Dirty Secret

“No, honey, they can’t. She has a DNR, you remember?” Jane whispered.

“But… she was alive just a minute ago. This isn’t right. She’s…” Marie looked down at her mother’s face. It was slack now, peaceful, far more peaceful than she’d ever seen it before. “Gone.”

“Come on, Marie. Let’s let them do what they need to do.” Jane pulled her from the room, and Marie followed stiffly.

She was even more numb than she’d been the day before. Her mother was dead. She knew it was real, but it couldn’t be. She was alive only a few minutes ago, and now she was gone. She slipped away without a sound, gone before Marie could say anything. But what would she have said?

Marie’s world tunneled down to her own breath, her own heartbeat, as people brought papers for her to sign, as Matteo asked questions she couldn’t answer but tried to. A nurse came and asked what funeral home she wanted them to call, and Marie didn’t know. Jane provided that answer. There was only one in their town, so it was obvious, but Marie couldn’t think.

She made it into the car with Matteo, and she managed to get through the ride home. It was when she walked into the house that she finally collapsed. He was right there behind her, kneeling over her to protect her from anything, anyone, as the sobs finally tore free from her soul.

“She’s gone,” she kept repeating. In whispers and screams, the words came out. Her mother would never again be in this house. She would never call out for Marie, or eat the food Marie made her. She’d never ever see her mother’s eyes, or feel her touch. It was all done, gone, because her mother was gone.

And in the back of her mind, in some secret place that was swathed in guilt, was another word that she didn’t want to think about it, but it repeated, it clashed with the other words that she could speak. Free. She was free, at last, and it felt so wrong to think it. But she couldn’t help it. After all these years, she was free. So why did it feel so wrong? She clung to Matteo, curled herself into his body, and cried out the pain, the grief, the misery that had plagued her for so very, very long.

24

Marie looked around at the empty cemetery, a public cemetery because her mother had been ex-communicated from the Catholic church. She was alone except for the officiant. She didn’t know who the man was, didn’t know his name, though he’d said it.

She closed her eyes as his words droned on, hidden beneath the umbrella as the rain poured down over them both. The grave must surely be filling with water, she thought, as she stared down at the empty hole. Beside it was her mother’s casket. A plain thing, it lacked any sort of ornamentation and the only flowers on it came from Jane, Regina, and Matteo. Marie added a sprig of roses from the bush in the backyard, and that was the final token of respect from anyone that Ruby received.

Marie had put an obituary in the local paper and the Times-Picayune, so that if there was anyone out there, some long-forgotten relative that might want to attend the funeral they would know the time and place. Marie stood alone, though, and somehow that seemed to be how it should be.

Jane had been given a new patient to care for, as had Regina, and their lives would go on. Marie’s was paused, however, stuck in that same moment of grief. The sloshing sound of tires on a wet road intruded into her mind and Marie looked around. Matteo stepped out of the car, a black raincoat over his black suit, and walked to her.

Without a word, he put his arm around her, took over the umbrella, and stood with her as the unknown man droned on. Marie watched the man, in his late 40s, paunchy, with a balding head of black hair. His glasses kept getting splattered by rain, but he didn’t stop to dry them. He held a paper in front of his body in one hand, with an umbrella in his other hand, but he never deviated, and Marie suspected he knew the mournful words by heart.

The words finally came to an end, the man spoke a few last words of respect to Marie, and he left. Marie turned to Matteo, her eyes wide, the skin beneath them bruised with grief.

“What now? Do I just leave her? Do they leave her here and put her in the ground later, when it’s stopped raining? Or do I wait for someone else to come and do it now?” She had no experience with funerals. She didn’t have much experience with anything, come to think of it.

“They’ll do it, darling. Listen,” he paused, stroked her face with gentle fingers, his eyes full of something that she could only call mournful. Maybe something akin to regret? What was going on? He answered before she could ask. “I need to talk to you when you’re ready. I have to go out of town tonight, and I’m sorry about it, but I have to go. When I get back, there are things we need to talk about. About your mother. Her past, and well, we can discuss it later. I have to go, I have to pack, but I’ll be back soon, alright?”

“What? What do we have to talk about, Matteo? Can’t you stay, just tonight?” She didn’t want to admit it, but she didn’t want to walk into that house alone today.

She’d gathered her things up that day he’d brought her home, and then she’d run out of the house, once she’d finally been able to stand up. She’d been at his house the last three days. Now, she’d have to go back to her house alone?

“I can’t stay, baby. I’m needed in New York. I would stay if I could, I swear it, but I can’t.”

“Alright. I understand.” She blinked rain out of her eyes, or maybe it was tears. She didn’t know anymore. “Be careful. And call me.”

He left and she turned back to the grave. The flowers had fallen from the casket as the rain pelted down. They’d slid down into the grave and Marie’s eyes began to sting. This was how it ended then. This was her final moment with her mother.

“I’m sorry it was only Matteo and me, Momma. I guess you probably knew it would be, though. You lived your life trying to push people away. You couldn’t push me out, though, no matter how hard you tried. I did good by you, I was a good daughter, even if you never said it. I hope you’ve found peace, at last, Momma. Goodbye.”

She turned away just as the rain started to fall down even harder. The drive back to the house was strange for Marie. It was so familiar, the route, but the world had suddenly become a different place for her. She was alone.

She had Matteo when he got back from New York, but otherwise, there was no one to worry over her, nobody to care about what happened to her. That feeling only got worse when she walked into the house. The machines in her mother’s room were quiet now, turned off by someone. Probably Jane, or the paramedics that took her mother away. She didn’t know.

She stood there, in the doorway at the back of the house, and looked into the kitchen. She wanted to shut the door, speed over to Matteo’s house and beg him to let her stay there while he was gone. She knew she had to do this at some point, though. She knew she had to face the truth.

She kicked off her plain, black flats, and made her way through the kitchen. For years now, the kitchen had been her domain. Most of the house had, but she hadn’t changed anything. She’d left it as her mother wanted it, in case there was a miracle cure that came along and fixed her. In case her mother might be able to get up and walk into the kitchen again.

Every surface was clean and tidy. Everything had a place, and all was in order. She hated it, right now.

She moved into the hallway, thought about going into the living room to watch TV, but that room down the hall called to her. If she closed her eyes she could hear the oxygen machine that helped her mother breathe. She could hear her mother call to her, could smell her still, even though she was gone.

Marie walked into the room, turned on the light, and wondered what it would be like to sleep in this house now. Her eyes spotted the air conditioner, and she decided that if she had to stay here, for once, she was going to sleep comfortably.