Page 68 of Mafia Bride
I need to be more subtle. Less like a child diving straight into questions. I’ve never been great at finesse, but I never needed it so much.
Seeing a spot of red between the leaves, I place my glass on the stone ledge and reach into the bush for the fruit.
“I used to be in charge of my aunt and uncle’s garden.” I pull out a thick, half-ripe beefsteak, shaped like two fused tomatoes. “After my sister died. I tended it just like she did. I liked watching things grow.” I drop my find into the bowl, and pick up my wine.
Loretta drops a plum tomato into my bowl. “I always let late fruit drop so there will be volunteers. Volunteers may not be where you want to grow—they may not be the variety you would have planted—but they’re always the strongest.”
This feels like she’s talking about more than just fruit. I finish the rest of the wine in a gulp.
“Santino,” she says, making it a point to look at the plants as if this is a casual conversation, but as soon as she says his name I know it’s not.
“What about him?”
“You haven’t given yourself yet.” She states it as a fact, because it is. She also says it as if it was ever up to me.
“He hasn’t taken it, and now I guess I know why.”
She pauses with her fingers cupping a tomato she was about to give to me, as if caught off guard with something she has to think harder about than expected, then she laughs and drops the last fruit in the bowl.
“I’m not why,” she says with a little shake of her head. Maybe she’s lying. Maybe there’s a half-truth where he’s fucking her, but not monogamously. But it doesn’t matter.
“Well, I offered.”
“What did he do?” Her concern is sisterly, and if it’s not real, she’s an incredible actress. I not only believe that as far as Santino and I go, she has my best interests at heart, but that she wants to help me.
“He said if he wanted me, he’d take me.”
“And you understood that to mean he didn’t want you?”
“Is there something else to understand?”
She nods not in agreement, but in acceptance that there’s plenty more to understand, and she’s going to have to be the one to teach me what I don’t know.
“Don’t forget your glass.” She takes the bowl from me and heads up the steps. I take my wineglass and follow, gathering the long skirt in my fist so I don’t step on it and land face-first on the stones. When we get to the terrace, she lifts a tray of antipasti with her free hand and goes into the kitchen.
Taking her cue, I grab the pitcher of water and my plate before joining her inside. She packs up the food, and without asking if I should or being told, I clear the outside table of the olive bowl, bread basket, and wine bottle. She puts the food away and I put the plates and glasses by the sink, take the dishtowel outside, and wipe down the table.
When it’s all inside, I rinse while she tells me which things go in the dishwasher and which are finished by hand. I arrange the former on the racks and stack the latter by the sink.
She starts the hand-washing and I stand by with a towel to dry.
This is what we do, and it’s done the same no matter whose house we’re in. It’s not until she hands me the first delicate glass to dry that the conversation continues.
“When you offered yourself to Santino,” she says as if we never paused, “you weren’t offering enough.”
I’m 100% sure Santino hasn’t told her a single thing about what I offered or how I offered it. Not only would that be disrespectful, for a man like my husband it would be awkward. Loretta must know from her short observation of him and me together, and her longer scrutiny of me alone.
“Well,” I rub a glass dry. “He was pretty clear on how much access he expected, and I said he should just do what he wanted…but he didn’t, so I can only assume he didn’t want to.”
Shetsks with a short shake of her head.
“That’s not consent.”
“If that’s not consent, I don’t know what is.”
“You invited him to rape you.”
That description defied semantic logic, and yet, I knew exactly what she meant. I hadn’t met him halfway or offered something I wanted to give. I’d only been willing to get it over with, knowing it would be as terrible as I imagined.
