Page 57 of Enzo

“How did this happen?” Mama asks.

“I don’t know exactly what happened.”

I’m none the wiser. I can’t contact Molly to ask her. But I find myself replaying moments from that night and getting angrier.

Mama pauses. “Did you go to the ball with her?”

I know what Mama is thinking. What most mothers with a single son in his late twenties might think. Is she your girlfriend? Is she someone special?

“I barely know her, Mama.”

“It’s just that …”

The way Mama pauses makes me nervous.

“Just what, Mama?”

“Journalists arrived at my door today, tesoro.”

Ice slides down my spine.

For a second, I can’t breathe.

No.

Not Mama.

Not again.

Something sharp and ugly claws its way up from the pit of my stomach. That same sick feeling. The knowledge that something I’ve done has reached beyond me and landed at the feet of someone I love.

Mama.

Again.

Just like before.

I was a child then, but I’m not one now. And yet the guilt feels exactly the same. It plasters over me, suffocating me all over again.

“Mama …” I sink onto the bed, rage simmering under my skin. “What did they want to know?”

“The usual. These people have nothing better to do.”

“But what specifically did they ask?” I press, my stomach churning with guilt as I try control my anger.

“About the past, Enzo, about your father and …”

I stand up, my breaths coming faster now. I try to slow down my breathing, but fail.

“How did they find your address, Mama?”

“I don't know, tesoro.” Mama sounds weary. “People have ways and means and the internet makes all of us accessible to everyone. But I thought your father had done everything he could to make those stories disappear.”

She sounds tired, not angry, just tired.

“I’m sorry, Mama.”

“I don’t want the past being brought up again. Not because of your father. I don’t care how it affects him, but because of you boys. You are seem to be getting along so well now, and I want it to stay like that. I don’t want the past coming back and causing division again.”