Page 2 of Secrets of the Brother
Never mind the very sight of him brought all those bitter memories flooding back. Weighing down my heart until I thought it would become unmoored from within my body, sending it crashing into my bones, breaking them like a loose anchor splintering weathered wood.
I clenched my jaw and stared straight ahead, willing the threatening tears not to fall. My nose itched. My eyes stung. My eyelids fluttered, the alternating flashes of bright sunlight and pitch-black darkness disorienting me. Swaying, I dug my fingernails into the edge of the table for stability.
I had the dizzying urge to faint.
Dark oblivion would be a blessed relief right now. A salvation from this living hell.
The cloying scent of carnation, bergamot, and amber preceded my mother’s approach. My earliest memory of her was the stench of Yves Saint Laurent's Opium perfume, which clung to her like a moth-eaten fur wrap.
It was why I hated the scent, or even the sight, of carnations.
She dug her claws into the soft flesh of my upper arm, holding me in place to hiss, “Stop making a spectacle of yourself, Bianca,” in my ear.
I bit the inside of my cheek, the pain centering me. “My apologies, Claudia.” I hadn’t been allowed to call her "Mother" in public since I was six years old. “Exactly how should one behave when attending a murdered sister’s funeral?”
She tightened her grip.
I winced but resisted the urge to pull away. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.
“For starters, you don’t slap the grieving husband in front of the priest and Don Cavalieri like some common trollop,” she snapped, her hot breath wreaking of menthol cigarettes and Amaro liquor. “And stop using that vulgar word.”
I lifted one eyebrow. “Trollop?”
“No,” she seethed through clenched teeth slightly smeared with crimson lipstick. “You know very well I meanmurdered,"she gritted out. "Your sister’s death was atragic accident.”
Yes, shetragically accidentallytripped into a man’s fists several times over until she died, and then shetragically accidentallyfell over a cliff.
The whole damn village, including my parents, knew who that man was, but no one was brave enough to utter his name out loud… including me.
I lifted my veil, tucking it up on the brim to better survey the sallow pallor of her complexion underneath the layers of contouring makeup, but avoiding her glassy eyes trying to focus on me.
“A bit early forMother’s Little Helper, isn’t it, Mommy dearest?”
“It’s a shame you weren’t charming enough to keep a man like Enzo Cavalieri’s attention. Then it would be you moldering in the ground"—she pressed a wrinkled handkerchief to her nose— “instead of my beautiful Renata.”
After twenty-three years, knife strikes straight to the heart like that should have stopped hurting. They didn't.
I inhaled deeply through my nose in a vain attempt to control my emotions before responding.
It didn’t work.
The corner of my mouth lifted in a smirk. “I’m sorry, Claudia. I don’t think he found Renatacharmingas much as he enjoyed my sister’scharms.”
Her eyes widened.
With a huff, she opened her clutch and fumbled for her cigarette case. Tucking a cigarette in her mouth, she let it dangle from her obscenely red lips, vainly trying several times to spark her lighter. “How dare you say such things about your dead sister. And at her funeral!”
I yanked the lighter from her hands and lit the cigarette.
It annoyed me that she was right. It was in poor taste.
There was no love lost between me and Renata.
A lifetime of her cruel behavior toward me, capped off by her ultimate betrayal, put an end to any sisterly affection I may at one time have foolishly harbored. But she was still family and I owed her at least that much respect.
I tossed the lighter back into my mother’s purse. “Why are we even here? That man”—I still couldn’t say his name— “killed her. Why did you and Father agree to let him and his family host the funeral? Talk about disrespecting Renata. How can you let him play the grieving husband like this?”
My mother blew a cloud of smoke in my face. “Shut your mouth. Someone will hear you.”
