Page 86 of Mafia Queen
“But—”
“Never, ever, ever say those lies again.”
“Siena Orolio told me—”
Nonna slaps Rosetta. I don’t know why. It’s loud. I cry before Rosetta does, but we’re both sobbing now, holding each other under Nonna’s kitchen table. I can’t make words.
What does Rosetta not know?
That Mamma and Papà are dead?
Or that they were killed by Papino’s brother?
We don’t have an uncle on that side.
My brother will kill for it no matter where it is.
Our father has two sisters. So if she’s got that wrong, then all of it must be a bad dream she had. A bad, upsetting nightmare. So no brother. No murder. Our parents are fine.
There’s a secret uncle if they’re dead, and I can’t let them be dead.
I am five. I collect data and store it in places so dark, I’ll never find it.
Nonna and the rest of the adults get called into another room on some serious and probably boring matter.
Red-faced, Rosetta sobs into my collar, a nest of hair on top of her head. I place a chubby hand on her shoulder.
“It was just a bad dream, Rosie.”
“It’s not.” She snaps her hand back, eyes scanning the room at floor level to see if we’re really alone. “It’s real. The sooner you learn that, the better.”
“Well, but Daddy doesn’t have a brother.”
She makes her hands into fists on the linoleum. “Half brother.”
I never heard of that. Is he cut in half? Long ways or across the middle? Does it hurt?
My two Nonnas come back in. I see their shoes first, then my father’s mother lifts the table cloth to find us. I can ask them, but they sit in the chairs and wait for us to come out. When we do, every question I have about my father’s family is washed away with the news they deliver.
Rosetta never tells me what she meant by half a brother, and so much changes that I never ask.
* * *
This crownI’m holding up was not meant for me. It was my mother’s. It is Rosetta’s.
I drop it back into the box and slap the lid shut.
The circle rises. They’re standing. Things will be said. I am not ready. All I can think about is Santino suffering.
With a quick turn and a lowered head, I walk away, up the stairs, and—without asking myself why—I go up another flight to the cupola. Knowing I’m trapped by mountains and men, I want to get far away from what just happened.
The glass is spotted with water-diamonds reflecting the floodlights and the moon—cold and damp against my palms. The rain should blind me to the city below, but it encloses us like a cocoon, fights the fire on the bridge in my stead, and falls on everyone equally. Me.Il Bocco. Damiano. Santino.
I need to scan this city like a hawk. I need to put my hands on the window and listen for his voice.
“Violetta,” Loretta says from the stairway.
“Leave me alone.”
