Page 106 of Mafia Bride
“Yes. You do it between now and when I get my nursing license. I’ll support us.”
“I can cook and clean, then?”
“I cook,” I lay my hand on his naked chest without thinking about it, and keep it there when I do. “You clean.”
“Will I have the babies, too?” he asks and my body and mind are aware of what has to happen before anyone around here gives birth.
“Shush,” I say.
“Who are you shushing?”
“You.” I pick my head up to face him.
“Why is that?”
“You’re not taking care of babies.”
“No?”
“Conosco i miei polli.”
I know my chickens, and I know him.
The old Italian saying comes to me more easily than any modern sentence, and I don’t know why.
“Tale padre, tale figlia.”He has a half-smile as he says such a father, such a daughter and I know why I could spit out the saying about the chickens so easily.
“My father used to say that when my mother forgot where she put something.”
I get wistful thinking about the slices of memory I have of them. In the house paid for with dirty money. The grocery store that was a front for a criminal empire.
I flop back on the lounger with my wrist over my eyes to block out the afternoon sun.
“She’d be looking everywhere for her car key or a shoe,” I say. “And he’d know exactly where it was.”
“He said that about the men who worked for him.”
He knows my father better than I ever will.
“Were my parents happy together?” I ask, still staring into the darkness of my wrist, because it doesn’t matter.
“Yes.”
“I’m glad.”
“Why?”
I find the question valid, which could be an illustration of a compatibility between us that I’ve suspected and denied. It doesn’t matter if they were happy. I am who I am no matter if I was conceived in love or obligation. My first five years with them are all I have, and my memory of them has taken enough of a beating.
“Rosetta,” I say. “She thought they were perfect. I wouldn’t want her to die believing a lie.” I lean on my elbow, facing him. “Did I ever tell you the last thing I ever said to her?”
“You had a fight?”
I shake my head. “Even worse. It wasn’t cruel. I don’t even regret it, honestly. It was just, ‘See you later.’ In my Z’s front hall. I got back from school and she was on her way out. Bags packed. ‘See you in a month!’ she said. I was jealous she was going to Italy and I wasn’t, so I just said, ‘Okay, see you later,’ and went to my room.”
He pauses to see if there’s more. There isn’t. That’s all there ever was.
“You did not see her later.”
