Page 27 of Broken Trust

“I'm aware of how old she is,” Mamma snaps.

That's when it clicks. I sit back and study my suocera, the pearls and the perfect lipstick and the hands still shaking in her lap, and everything falls into place.

“You saw this coming,” I say quietly. “That's why you pushed so hard.”

Her eyes flash at me, and, amazingly, she has no comeback ready.

Mia goes very still. “Mamma. Is he right?”

Mamma lifts her chin. “Somebody in this family has to plan ahead.”

“That money is mine,” Mia says slowly.

“And who do you imagine got it for you?” Mamma raises her voice, something I've never once heard her do. “Who hired the lawyer? Who sat in this room and made him sign? You'd have settled for a pat on the head and a plane ticket if I hadn't been here. The least you can do is split it with your mother.”

“Half?” Mia laughs, high and nasty. “You're dreaming.”

“I have never been more serious in my life.”

Everyone shoots up on their feet. Moretti is gathering his files and edging toward the exit. Conti looks like he wants to buy popcorn.

I get up and button my coat.

“Congratulations,” I tell them. Mamma and Mia are too busy screaming to hear me.

Conti follows me into the hallway, and the elevator doors close on the sound of Mia yelling that she's not paying for her mother's facelifts.

We ride down in silence. At the bottom, my lawyer whistles low.

“Thirty-five years I've been practicing,” he says, “and I've never seen anything like that.”

“Welcome to the Rizzos.”

“You realize you've just lost everything you own.”

“Yep.” I pull out my phone. There's a message from Ma, a photo of Rosa asleep on her chest with one tiny fist curled around Ma's gold cross. I gaze at it until the screen goes dark. “But I walked out with the one thing I wanted.”

Outside, it's started to rain. I sold the car last week to pay Conti's retainer, so I turn up my collar, walk to the bus stop, and head across the city to pick up my daughter.

17

GIA

The divorce papers sit in my kitchen drawer for months, beside the folder with my restaurant plans in it.

Avvocato Ferri drew them up for me in October, in his little office above the pharmacy in town. He charged me for two hours and gave me a discount because his mother buys my muffins every Sunday. Everything's ready. All I have to do is sign, pay the filing fee, and hand them over. But the fee is more than I make in a month, and every euro I earn goes into the tin above the fridge marked RESTAURANT in Nella's ugly handwriting.

So I call it being practical. A woman with nothing in the bank can't afford to be sentimental about paperwork. And that's true, mostly. The rest of the truth is that every time I open that drawer and see my married name typed at the head of page one, my hands go cold.

Winter comes up the valley fast. I bake through all of it. Christmas panettone for half the village, a christening, two first communions, a funeral lunch for old Signor Pace that runs until midnight because nobody wants to go home. In January I finally carry Mamma's diamond earrings to the jeweler in the city. He offers me less than they're worth, and I accept anyway, and I walk out onto the street feeling lighter than I have in years.

By the first week of March, the tin is full.

I count it three times at the kitchen table. Then I take the papers out of the drawer, sign my name on every line without letting myself dwell on it, and drive down the mountain to Ferri's office with the whole lot on the passenger seat.

“No second thoughts?” Ferri asks, looking at me over his glasses.

“I've been ready for ages. I just couldn't afford it.”