Page 180 of Ricardo

“Somehow she got her hands on cocaine, and I found her high with Dante asleep in the next room. It was the first time I had entrusted her with a little bit of space. More fool I.”

Julia closes her eyes.

“That was the last time,” I say. “The last time I saw her. The last time she saw him. From that moment, Dante was mine. Mine to raise. Mine to protect. Mine to love enough for both of us.”

Julia opens her eyes again.

“Dante doesn’t know any of this?”

“No.”

She opens her mouth to speak, but I continue before she can.

“He knows I was young. He knows I got a woman pregnant. He knows I brought him into the family because I believed he belonged with me. He knows his mother could not be part of his life.”

“But he does not know why.”

“No.”

“Ricardo.”

“What would you have had me tell him?” My voice sharpens. “That his mother chose cocaine over him? That she broke the promises she made over his head the very moment she could? Without a single second thought. He was in the next room, Julia. He was a helpless infant, and she was out of her mind.”

I can’t continue. I can’t go back to that moment again, the moment I've pictured a thousand times. The moment where anything could have happened, and thank God nothing did.

Julia says nothing.

I look away.

“When he was small, I could not tell him that. When he was older, I could not find a way to say it without sounding as if I were putting blame on her. I couldn't do that to him.”

Julia stares at me for a long moment.

“Oh,” she says quietly. “I see.”

I do not like that tone.

It is too knowing.

“What?” I ask. “What do you see?”

She steps closer, her eyes fixed on mine.

“So you’ve always taken on the role of the bad guy in Dante’s life.”

My brows draw together. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you let him think you took him from his mother because you were the better choice.”

“I was the better choice.”

“Yes,” she says. “You were. But that isn’t the whole story. You let him think it is.”

I go still.

Julia’s voice remains soft, but there is no gentleness in the point she is making.

“By not telling him the whole story, you let him come to the conclusion that you were just arrogant. Possessive. Very ‘Conti.’ You let him believe you made the decision because you could, because you had the power and the name and the family behind you.”