by Cora Reilly
A soft knock made me sit up. “Yes?” I asked quietly. “Please don’t let Mother be throwing up again.” I wanted one night without the acid smell in my nose. I felt bad for the thought. How could I think something like that?
The door opened and Fabi poked his blond head through the gap before he slipped in. His hair was disheveled and he was in his pajamas. I hadn’t drawn the curtains so I could tell that he’d cried but I didn’t mention it. Fabi had turned twelve several months ago and was too proud to admit his feelings to anyone, even me.
“Are you asleep?”
“Do I look like I’ve been sleeping?” I asked teasingly.
He shook his head before he put his hands in the pockets of his pajama pants. He was too old to come into bed with me because he was scared of something. Father would have ripped Fabi’s head off if he’d found him with tears on his face in my room. Weakness wasn’t something Father tolerated in his son, or anyone really.
“Do you want to watch a movie?” I scooted to the side. “I can’t sleep anyway.”
“You’ve got only girl movies,” he said as if I was asking a huge favor of him but he headed toward my DVD shelf and picked out something he could tolerate. Then he sat down beside me with his back against my headboard. The movie started and we watched in silence for a long time.
“Do you think Mom is going to die?” Fabi asked suddenly, his gaze fixed on the screen. He had become better at masking his emotions in the last few months. It wasn’t long before he’d be like all the other men in our world.
“No,” I said with all the conviction I didn’t feel.
* * *
My eighteenth birthday was today but there would be no party, no birthday cake, no sung Happy Birthday. Mother was too sick. There was no room in our house for celebrations or happiness. There hadn’t been in a long time. Father was hardly home anymore, always gone on business, and recently Fabi had started to accompany him. And so I was left alone with Mother. Of course there was a nurse and our maid, but they weren’t family. Mother didn’t want them around and so I was the one sitting at her bed after school, reading to her, trying to pretend that her room didn’t smell of death and hopelessness. Aria and Gianna had called in the morning to wish me a happy birthday. I knew they’d wanted to visit, but Father had forbidden it. Not even for my birthday he could be nice.
I put the book down that I’d read to Mother, A Wrinkle in Time, her favorite. She was asleep. The noise of her respiratory aid, a click and rattling, filled the room. I stood, needing to walk around a bit. My legs and back were stiff from sitting all day.
I walked toward the window and peered out. Life was happening everywhere around me, but I was left to stand at the sideline. My phone buzzed in my pocket, startling me from my thoughts. I took it out and found an unknown number on my screen. I pressed it against my ear. “Hello?” I whispered as I walked out into the corridor as not to disturb my mother, even though noises hardly woke her anymore.
“Hello, Liliana.”
I froze. “Romero?” I couldn’t believe he’d called me, and then a horrible idea struck me, and the only explanation for his call. “God, did something happen to my sisters?”
“No, no. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I wanted to wish you a happy birthday.” His voice was smooth and warm and deep, and it soothed me like honey did with a sore throat.
“Oh,” I said. I braced myself against the wall as my pulse slowed again. I wasn’t sure what to make of his call. I didn’t want to see it as more than it was, didn’t want to have my hopes crushed again. “Thank you. Did my sister tell you it was my birthday?” I smiled lightly. I could imagine Aria doing that, hoping to cheer me up. Aria couldn’t help it. She needed to see us happy. She hadn’t talked to me about Romero in a while but I was fairly sure she knew that I still liked him.
“She didn’t have to. I know your birthday.”
I didn’t say anything, didn’t know what to say. He remembered my birthday?
“Do you have birthday plans?”
“No. I’ll stay at home and take care of my mother,” I said tiredly. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept through the night. If Mother didn’t wake me because she threw up or was in pain, then I lay awake staring into nothingness.
Romero was silent on the other end before he continued in an even gentler voice, “Things will get better. I know things look hopeless right now but it won’t always be like this.”
“You’ve seen a lot of death in your life. How can you stand it?”
“It’s different if it’s someone you care for who’s dying or if it’s business-related.” He had to be careful what he said on the phone, so I regretted having brought it up, but hearing his voice felt too good. “My father died when I was fourteen. We weren’t as close as I’d wanted us to be but his death was the only one that really got me so far.”
“Mother and I aren’t as close as many of my friends are with their mothers, and now that she’s dying I regret it.”
“There’s still time. Maybe more than you think.”
I wanted him to be right but deep down I knew it was only a matter of weeks before Mother would lose her battle. “Thanks, Romero,” I said softly. I wanted to see his face, wanted to smell his comforting scent.
“Do something that’ll make you happy today, even if it’s only something small.”
“This makes me happy,” I admitted.
“That’s good,” he said, but I caught a hint of hesitation in his tone. Silence followed.
“I need to go now.” Suddenly my admittance embarrassed me. When would I stop putting myself out there? I wasn’t someone who was good at hiding her emotions and I hated it.
“Goodbye,” Romero said.
I ended the call without another word, then stared at my phone for a long time. Was I reading too much into Romero’s call? Maybe he wanted to be polite and call the sister of his boss’s wife on her eighteenth birthday to gain some bonus points. But Romero didn’t seem to be the type for that. Then why had he called? Had it something to do with the way he’d looked at me at our Christmas party? Was he starting to like me as much as I liked him?
* * *
Two weeks after my birthday, Mother’s health deteriorated even further. Her skin was papery and cold, her eyes glazed from the painkillers. My grip on her was loose, scared of hurting her. She looked so breakable. Deep down I knew it wouldn’t be much longer. I wanted to believe a miracle would happen, but I wasn’t a small kid anymore. I knew better. Sometimes I wished I were still that naïve girl I used to be.
“Aria?” Mother said in a wispy voice.
I jerked up in my chair and leaned closer. “No, it’s me, Liliana.”
Mother’s eyes focused on me and she smiled softly. It looked horribly sad on her worn-out face. She’d been so beautiful and proud once, and now she was only a shell of that woman.
“My sweet Lily,” she said.
I pressed my lips together. Mother had never been the overly affectionate type. She’d hugged us and read bedtime stories to us and generally tried to be the best mother she knew how to be, but she’d almost never called us nicknames. “Yes, I’m here.” At least until Father would try to send me away again. If it were up to him Mother would be locked away from everyone she loved, only cared for by the nurses he’d hired until she finally passed away. I tried to tell myself it was because he wanted to protect her, to let a proud woman be remembered as she used to be and not only for her sickness, but I had a feeling that wasn’t his main incentive. Sometimes I wondered if he was embarrassed of her.
“Where are your sisters? And Fabi?” She peered over my head as if she expected to see them there.
I lowered my gaze to her chin, not able to look into her eyes. “Fabi is busy with school.” That was a blatant lie. Father made sure Fabi was busy with God only knew what, so he didn’t spend too much time with our mother. As if Father worried her sickness would rub off on Fabi if he got too close. “Aria and Gianna will be
here soon. They can’t wait to see you again.”
“Did your father call them?” Mother asked.
I didn’t want to lie to her again. But how could I tell her that Father didn’t want them to come visit our dying mother, that they wouldn’t even have known she was close to dying if I hadn’t called them. I filled her glass with water and held it up to her lips. “You need to drink.”
Mother took a small sip but then she turned her head away. “I’m not thirsty.”
My heart broke as I set the glass back down on her nightstand. I searched for something to talk to my mother about, but the thing I really wanted to tell her about, my crush on Romero, was something I couldn’t trust her with. “Do you need anything? I could get you some soup.”
She gave a small shake of her head. She was watching me with a strange expression and I was starting to feel uncomfortable. I wasn’t even sure why. There was such a look of forlornness and longing in her gaze that it spoke to a dark place deep inside of me. “God, I don’t even remember how it is to be young and carefree anymore.”
Carefree? I hadn’t felt carefree for a very long time.
“There’s so much I wanted to do, so many dreams I had. Everything seemed possible.” Her voice got stronger as if the memory drew energy from somewhere deep inside of her body.
“You have a beautiful house and many friends and children who love you,” I said but even as I did I knew it was the wrong thing to say, and I hated this feeling of always doing the wrong thing, of not being able to help.
“I do,” she said with a sad little smile. Slowly it faded. “Friends who don’t visit.”
I couldn’t deny it and I wasn’t even sure if Father was why they stayed away or if they’d really never cared about my mother in the first place. I opened my mouth to say something, another lie I’d feel guilty for later, but Mother kept talking. “A house that was paid for with blood money.”
Mother had never admitted that Father was doing horrible things for our money and I’d never gotten the impression that she cared much either. Money and luxury were the only things Father had always given freely to her and us. I held my breath, half curious and half terrified of what she would say next. Did she regret having had kids? Were we a disappointment for her?
She patted my hand. “And you kids…I should have protected you better. I was always too weak to stand up for you.”
“You did everything you could. Father would have never listened to you anyway.”
“No, he wouldn’t have,” she whispered. “But I could have tried harder. There are so many things I regret.”
I couldn’t deny it. I’d often wished that she had stood up for us, especially for Gianna, when Father had lost it again. But there was no use in making her feel bad for something that couldn’t be changed.
“You only have this one life, Lily. Make the best of it. I wish I had done it and now it’s too late. I don’t want you to end like me, to look back at a life full of missed opportunities and lost dreams. Don’t let life pass you by. You are braver than me, brave enough to fight for your happiness.”
I swallowed, stunned by her passionate speech. “What do you mean?”
“Before I married your father, I was in love with a young man who worked in my father’s restaurant. He was sweet and charming. He wasn’t part of our world.”
I glanced toward the door, worried Father would overhear us. As if that could happen. As if he would actually set foot into this room. “Did you love him?”
“Maybe. But love is something that develops with time and we never got the chance. I could have loved him very much, I’m sure of it. We kissed behind the dumpsters once. It was cold outside and it smelled of garbage, but it was the most romantic moment of my life.” A sweet smile was on her face, an expression I’d never seen on my mother before.
Pity squeezed my heart tightly. Had Father never done anything romantic for her? “What about Father?”
“Your father…” She trailed off. She took a few shuddering breaths. Even with the help of the oxygen tank, she was struggling to breathe. “He doesn’t have time for romance. He never had.”
But he had time for whores behind my mother’s back. Even I knew about them, and I was usually the last person who got wind of these kinds of things. I’d never heard him say a kind word to Mother. I’d always assumed he could only show affection behind closed doors but now I realized he probably never did. The only nice thing he ever did was to buy her expensive jewelry.
“Don’t get me wrong, I respect your father.”
“But you don’t love him,” I finished. I’d always been sure Mother loved Father, even when he didn’t return the feeling, but finding out that there was nothing between them somehow felt like a punch in the stomach. Aria and Gianna had made the best of their arranged marriages but now I realized that many weren’t as lucky and never loved or even tolerated their husbands. Most women in our world were trapped in a loveless marriage with a cheating and sometimes even violent man.
She sighed, her eyes sliding shut, her skin becoming even paler than before. “I always told myself there was still time to do the things I love, to be happy, and now? Now it’s too late.”
Would those words always feel like a punch every time she voiced them? “No,” I said shakily. “It’s not. Don’t give up.”
She looked at me with a sad smile. “It won’t be much longer. For me there’s nothing but regret. But you have your whole life ahead of you, Liliana. Promise me you’ll live it to the fullest. Try to be happy.”
I swallowed hard. All my life my mother had told me to accept my fate, to be a good girl, to be dutiful. “I want to marry for love.”
“You should,” she whispered.
“Father won’t allow it. He’ll find someone for me, won’t he?”
“Aria and Gianna made good matches. You don’t have to marry for tactical reasons. You should be free to fall in love and marry that special boy.”
An image of Romero popped into my head, and a swarm of butterflies filled my stomach.
“I remember that look,” Mother said softly. “There is someone, hm?”
I blushed. “It’s silly. He isn’t even interested in me.”
“How could he not be? You are beautiful and intelligent and come from a good family. He’d be crazy not to fall for you.”
I’d never talked to Mother like this, and I felt incredibly sad that it had taken cancer for us to be this close. I wished she’d been that kind of mother before, and then I felt guilty for thinking something like that. “He’s not someone Father would approve of,” I said eventually. And that was a huge understatement. “He’s just a soldier.”
“Oh,” Mother whispered. She had trouble keeping her eyes open. “Don’t let anyone stop you from achieving happiness.” The last few words were barely audible as Mother slowly drifted off to sleep. I slipped my hand out from beneath hers and stood. Her breathing was labored, raspy, and flat. I could almost imagine how it would stop any second. I backed out of the room but didn’t close the door. I wanted to make sure I would hear it if Mother called for help.
I headed toward the staircase where I almost bumped into Father. “Mother will be happy to see you,” I said. “But she’s just fallen asleep, so you will have to wait a bit.”
He loosened his tie. “I wasn’t going to your mother. I have a few more meetings scheduled.”
“Oh, right.” That’s why he smelled like a perfume shop and why his suit was wrinkled. He’d spent the morning with one of his whores and was probably on his way to the next. “But she’d love to see you later.”
Father narrowed his eyes. “Did you call your sister? Luca called me this morning to tell me he and Aria were on their way to Chicago to visit your mother.”
“They have a right to say goodbye.”
“Do you really think they want to see your mother like this? Your mother was once a proud woman, if she were still in her right mind, she wouldn’t want anyone to see her in this pitiful st
ate.”
Anger bubbled up. “You’re embarrassed by her, that’s all!”
He raised a finger in warning. “Careful. Don’t take that tone with me. I know you are under a lot of pressure but my patience is running thin at the moment.”
I pressed my lips together. “Are Aria and Luca still coming, or did you forbid them from visiting?” I didn’t mention that Gianna would be visiting as well. He’d find out soon enough and then Luca would hopefully be there to calm him down.
“They’ll be here in the afternoon. That’ll give Luca and Dante the chance to discuss business.”
That’s what he worried about? Business? His wife was dying and he didn’t give a shit. I nodded and left without another word. Half an hour later I watched my father leave the house again. There had been a time when I’d looked up to him. When I’d seen him in his black suit and thought he was the most important person in the world, but that hadn’t lasted long. The first time he raised his hand against Mother, I knew he wasn’t the man I thought he was.
* * *
Aria, Gianna, and Luca arrived two hours later. Matteo had stayed in New York. Not only because Luca needed someone he trusted there, but because Gianna’s encounter with Father would be explosive anyway. If Matteo were there as well, someone would die.
Aria and Gianna hugged me tightly in greeting. “How are you?” Aria asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s hard to see Mother so weak.”
“And Father acting like a jerk isn’t helping,” Gianna muttered.
Luca gave me a small nod. “I’ll wait in the kitchen. I still have a few phone calls to make.”
I had a feeling he only wanted to give us time alone with our mother and I was grateful for that. I almost asked him about Romero but then I stopped myself.
I led my sisters upstairs. When we stepped into Mother’s bedroom, shock flashed across their faces. Even I, who kept her company every day, was shocked every morning when I saw how broken she looked, and the smell was horrible as well. The nurses cleaned the floor and furniture with disinfectant twice a day but the stench of decay and urine still covered everything. It even seemed to cling to my clothes and skin, and clogged my nose when I couldn’t sleep at night.