Page 70 of The Mad Don
“I had the cook make your favorite meals,” Lucia says. “You’ve been stuck in that awful study for days. You need something nice and hot.” She lifts the lid off the small pot, and steam rises off it.
Yana helps her dish out the food, and when she hands me the plate, our fingers touch. She pulls her hand back fast.
I chuckle. Yana brings out another pot and opens it. “This is for you,” she tells Lucia. “You need it.”
She puts it out for Lucia, who takes it with a smile.
“Tell us about yourself,” Lucia says to Yana.
“There’s nothing to tell.”
She says it mildly.
“What about your family?”
Yana takes a breath. “I have a brother. That’s all.”
“Oh.” Lucia lights up. “That’s so sweet. I’d love to meet him.”
“Me too,” Yana says quietly. “I saw him last when he was barely a teenager. I lost him.”
Lucia gasps.
“He isn’t dead,” Yana says quickly. “Just missing. I’ll find him soon.”
Lucia goes still. “That’s so horrible.” She turns to me. “Giovanni, why don’t you help her find him?”
“No need,” Yana says immediately.
I wipe a bit of porridge from the corner of my sister’s mouth.
“I’ll help her.”
My eyes meet Yana’s, and she looks away.
For the first time, I see it plainly: the sadness in her eyes over her brother. He is a wound she carries. Of course, he is. If I lost Lucia, I would lose my mind. She has lost hers for fifteen years.
“He’s lucky to have a sister like you,” Lucia says to her.
Yana changes the subject. “How was your childhood?”
Lucia goes pale.
Yana sees it instantly. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean —”
She does not know. Of course, she does not know. She assumed we grew up the way people in this world usually do. Sheltered from the evil of the world until we could profit from it.
Then I remember the dissociations; would reminding Lucia of our childhood trigger anything? I turn to Lucia, and I watch her face.
“I’m fine,” she says.
She turns to Yana, who is still apologizing with her eyes, and she forces a smile.
“Our father used to hurt us,” Lucia says. “A lot. We never knew our mother. She died when we were very little. All we had was him, and he used to hit us.”
I look at my sister. I was the one who got hit for stealing food when he starved us and tried to bring money home. She got hit for the times she put herself between me and his belt.
Yana looks shocked.
