Page 18 of Secrets of the Brother
She continued. “Your mother never loved your father. That’s no secret. But what you don’t know is that she did love someone else, desperately. I begged her to marry him instead. And before you start thinking this was some kind of rich girl, poor boy fairy tale, it wasn’t. He was rich. Not as rich as your father, few mortals are. Still, the boy had money. But your mother refused. Family. Duty. Loyalty. All that bullshit. She made her choice. She chose to bury herself alive in a life she didn’t want in the name of family honor, rather than choose love, and happiness, and passion. In the end, it made her bitter and resentful. Sound familiar?”
I gripped the glass in my fist so hard, I was surprised it didn’t shatter under the pressure.
My voice was hoarse and uneven when I spoke. “I may be my mother’s son, repeating her mistakes, but it doesn’t matter, not anymore. Renata is dead.”
“There’s something else you don’t know about your mother. A secret I’ve never told anyone, not even your father. I’m only telling you it now because I know all too well how secrets, even well-intentioned ones, have a way of biting you in the ass.”
She lit another cigarette and turned to face the piazza, hiding her face from me. “During the final months of your mother’s illness, your father and I became extremely close. I will admit I may have developed a tiny,fleetingcrush on him. I fell for that protective, strong-shoulder vibe he gives off so well.”
Without turning, she said, “Don’t give me that look. Your father is a very handsome, virile man. It was short-lived, and completely one-sided. I never acted upon it. Our relationship always has been and always will be platonic. Your mother accused me of having an affair with him, though. I denied it of course, and thought she believed me.”
She paused, taking a long drag from her cigarette and a sip of her grappa. She then cleared her throat. “So, feeling foolish for my little crush and thinking it was all resolved, I kept your mother’s suspicions from your father. Your mother and I then discussed her… end of life plans. I will not get into the macabre details, but I will say it was a dramatically different plan than what actually happened. We both knew that any other plan would lay a lifetime of false suspicion on your father and ruin his life, because it’salwaysthe husband who gets blamed.”
I flexed my tense shoulders, feeling the full weight of guilt and suspicion that had been resting on them since Renata’s body was discovered.
She finally turned to face me. “Then, one evening, when I had been called away to Rome, she went behind my back and convinced your father that it was time. She deliberately tricked your father into killing her, knowing what the fallout would be for him. After the funeral, I was going through a small box of jewelry she had left me. Tucked inside was a note she had written to me the day she died.”
Her eyes teared up as she took a deep breath. “It said,now you’ll both burn in hell.”
I pivoted away and gripped the railing. “Christ.”
There was a long, tense silence.
Finally, I looked over my shoulder. “You’ve never told Papà?”
“Never, and neither will you. Some secrets are better left rotting in the past.”
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because the stench of that rotting secret is ruining your future.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She stubbed out her cigarette. “Yes, you do. Of the two worst words in the entire world, one of them is regret. I regret keeping your mother’s suspicions a secret from your father. Who knows what might have happened then? How things might have turned out differently. I felt guilty and foolish, so I kept silent. Thinking I was protecting them both, or perhaps I was just selfishly protecting myself from embarrassment.”
We both stepped back inside. Gabriella replaced the stopper on her bottle of grappa. “Here is what yourelderlyaunt knows….”
I folded my arms and leaned against the window frame.
“I know you didn’t kill Renata.”
She lifted up her hand as I opened my mouth. “Don’t try and object or ask me how I know… I just know. I know that you feel a sense of guilt for unleashing that dreadful woman on your family and for Milana’s near death. You also feel foolish for believing Renata’s lies about being pregnant. You think it is your penance to bear the burden of everyone’s suspicion. A modern crucifixion.”
I shifted my stance, uncomfortable with how close to the bone she was hitting.
She continued. “What you seem to have overlooked is, in your family’s zeal to protect you against a murder charge and portray Renata as an innocent victim and not the homicidal bitch she was and thereby avoid a scandal, theactual murderer, possibly the third man who attacked poor Milana all those years ago, is walking free among us.”
I lifted my shoulders away from the window frame.
Fuck.
She smirked. “You men. Honestly, if you’d just make sure we women are in the room more often when you are making these schemes, we could avoid sloppy oversights like this.”
Fuck. She was right.
I was so busy beating myself up over my mistakes and convincing myself that I had to live with the consequences, regardless of if they were deserved, that I lost sight of the fact the real murderer was still out there… and still a threat to my family.
How could I have been so fucking stupid?
