Page 10 of Broken Trust

My suocera’s there before the word has finished leaving Mia's mouth. “Gia, you are ruining your sister's day.”

“Leave her alone, Mamma,” Nella says, shouldering in beside Gia with the flask still open in her hand.

Somebody bumps somebody, I don't see who, and the flask tips. Whiskey pours down the front of that gray dress in a long dark stain from the neckline to the hem, and for a second the entire party freezes. Then Gia starts to laugh, high and wild and nothing like her usual laugh, and Nella catches it and cracks up too, and the two of them stand at the gift table soaked and shaking while my suocera’s face turns the color of the lanterns.

“You will not embarrass me,” my suocera hisses at Gia. “Go and clean yourself up.”

That's enough. I'm going to put my jacket around Gia's shoulders and walk her out of this garden, and I don't care who watches me do it. I take one step, and my suocera’s hand is on my sleeve again, though she doesn't even look at me.

“Don't,” Suocera says, low and flat. “Carmela will take care of her. You go near her right now and every person here is going to want to know why.”

It works on me every time, and I hate that she knows it will. So I stand there and do nothing.

Carmela comes out through the kitchen door in her black dress and apron, takes one look at the girls, and puts an arm around each of them. She guides them toward the house, murmuring something that makes Nella laugh harder and Gia go quiet. Gia passes within three feet of me, and her eyes slide over my face the way you'd look at a stranger's coat on a hook before she keeps walking.

Behind me, Mia hands a gift bag to one of the aunts and sighs. “She's had such a hard year. The IVF does terrible things to your hormones. We just have to be patient with her.”

The women around her nod. Poor Gia. It goes around the circle like a plate of cake, and not one of them notices that the woman saying it is resting a hand on my child.

A waiter presses a flute of prosecco into my hand for the toast to the baby. I manage one sip before it turns sour in my mouth, and I set it down on the nearest tray. I can't drink here. I need a clear head for whatever comes next, because the moment Gia comes back out, I'm taking her home, sitting her down at our table, and telling her everything, the way I swore to myself in Mia's kitchen days ago and still haven't done.

Twenty minutes pass, and the shower rolls on without her. There are knitted blankets, a silver rattle stamped with the family crest, and a stroller that cost more than my first car. Mia holds each one up for the camera, and my suocera sits in her chair of honor as if none of it happened.

Then the back door of the house swings open and Gia walks out alone.

Gia’s in a pair of old gray sweatpants and a shirt washed so many times the print has faded to nothing, her face scrubbed bare and her hair scraped back tight. It's how she looks on a Sunday morning at home, barefoot at the stove, before she thinks anyone is watching. The women nearest the house turn to stare at her, and she stares right back until they look away.

Gia doesn't go back to the trellis. She stands at the edge of the patio with her arms folded, watching Mia at the gift table. She isn't drunk now, and she isn't laughing. She's quiet and steady, the way she gets with the company books when the numbers won't add up and she's about to find where the money went.

Then she looks straight at me, across the whole garden, past the aunts and the cousins and the waiters with their trays. There's no anger in it and nothing soft either, just a long, level look that goes right through me.

Fuck! She knows. My gut twists so hard I press a hand to my stomach. And as I stand there it comes together in my head, the dress, Mia's smile, the person I saw spying on us, and Mia claiming it to be her nosey neighbor.

Mia is watching me from the gift table, and half the family is watching all three of us while pretending they aren't. I don't care anymore. I take a deep breath and start across the grass toward Gia, praying I can find some way to sort out this fucking mess before it swallows every one of us.

7

GIA

Mamma chose the dress for me to wear. It was wrapped in Rizzo tissue the color of oyster shells, and what unfolded out of it was maternity. Soft dove-gray crepe, gathered high under the bust, cut to fall full and loose over a belly I don't have. A note sat on top in Mamma's slanting hand. So you feel part of it too, cara. And there I stood in my room holding a dress built to make me look pregnant, for the shower of the baby growing inside my twin.

So here I am at the edge of it in dove-gray, one hand holding the skirt full over my flat stomach, the other wrapped around a tumbler I've refilled past counting, and every last thing about today is wrong down to the light. The garden's done in three shades of blush, lanterns strung at heights that got measured with a ruler, the roses picked clean of anything brown, a long table of little iced things set out so prettily that nobody dares eat one.

“You need something stronger,” Nella says as she hands me her flask.

I shake my head.

“Look, it's cheaper than therapy, which is what we deserve after being brought up by Mamma.”

I take a swig off it. She's right. It is cheaper than therapy, and probably better. Nella doesn't drink. Only when she's around Mamma.

“You shouldn't let her bully you like this,” Nella says as she watches me take one swig while looking at Mamma and another when my eyes meet Mia's.

“I think she's fucking Dante.”

“Mamma or Mia?”

We both chuckle at the idea of them being in a threesome. The whiskey got to me too quickly. Nella's my older sister and my rock.