by Fiona Murphy
No, it’s not what I want. It’s what I need to survive this. I watch as he turns around and leaves again.
Where is he going? I tell myself I don’t care. I did the right thing. Yet I can’t help but wonder if I screwed up all over again.
***
Regina
I have never been to a funeral before. Dressing for one is harder than I thought it would be. The first dress I pull out seems too sexy for a funeral. Once I see it, I grab it. It’s the dress I was wearing the night I met Dominic. He had declared it was a dress more fitting for a funeral.
Except when Dominic sees me, he shakes his head. He’s leaning against the couch sipping a tumbler of scotch. “Not that. You have more than a few black dresses. That one couldn’t have cost more than a hundred dollars. You’re about to be among women who have underwear worth more than that. People seeing you in that would embarrass Johnny. Wear the Christian Siriano one and black tights. You can’t go bare-legged in the church.”
With a sigh, I go back to follow his orders. I had loved the Christian Siriano, but I was worried it was too dressy for a funeral. It takes a few minutes to find plain black tights, not the silk kind that came with a garter belt. This time when Dominic sees me, he nods. Only there is no connection, his eyes don’t meet mine. He finishes the last of his drink, then, setting the glass onto the coffee table, he walks past me and presses the button for the elevator.
“Just so you know, today you’ll be meeting Luca Toro. Turns out he is Pop’s kid from a woman who did a run on him. She never told Pop, all of us found out yesterday.”
I’m stunned as he walks out of the elevator. What in the hell? I have to speed up to catch up to him as he gets into the back of the SUV. “What?”
His phone goes off with a text. He doesn’t look up from it as he responds. “Pop found out he has a son. We met him yesterday. That’s what I was dealing with when I finished with Johnny. Also, Pop wanted to invite you to dinner last night to meet him. When I came home it was to get you. I told him you were still too torn up about Johnny.”
“Why did you do that?”
He’s still working his phone. “Because I didn’t want you there.”
The words are so blunt it’s a blow to the face. It’s a short drive to the church. The same church we were married in two days ago. How could Dominic not have warned me? The car hasn’t even stopped and the tears spill over and out.
Dominic sighs, then presses a white handkerchief into my hand. Everett opens the door. Cameras begin flashing all around me. Before I can take it all in, Dominic is at my side, his arm around me, pulling me into the shelter of his body.
It feels like the funeral is never going to end. Johnny’s mother ignores me, as does his sister. Carlo, Tony, and Francis speak, as well as a famous actor I had no idea Johnny knew. I’m not sure if I’m grateful or hurt no one even asked me if I wanted to speak.
In the end I go with grateful. I’m such an idiot, I cling to Dominic with a pathetic greed. When I see Luca beside Tony behind us my jaw drops. Holy crap, he is a Sabatini, right down to the dimples. He nods at me with a smile, then his eyes are back to the front of the church.
The graveside service is slightly quicker yet still lasts almost an hour. Then it’s back to the building. The reception is being held in the club. Something I didn’t know until Dominic tells me on our way back to the building, when I mentioned needing a nap. I’m getting a headache from all the crying.
“You need to make an appearance. Not long, a half hour at least though.”
Because he’s right, I nod even though I want to argue. I expect Dominic to abandon me the moment we’re inside. He doesn’t, he stays right beside me, his arm around me. Handing me a new clean handkerchief when he sees how soggy the first one he gave me has become. As the men talk to me about Johnny, I wish I had known the man they speak of. Had ever been allowed to know him as something more than the man I saw as a jailor, a control freak, someone who was disappointed in me.
Just when I think I’m all cried out, Sister Giulia changes my mind. “Now that Johnny is gone, I think it’s safe to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
“I wasn’t a teacher when I went to your school. I was a psychologist specializing in mute children. Your father came to me and told me about you. How the therapists at the school hadn’t helped you. He wanted to bring you back to Chicago, to me, but they were telling him it might make everything worse. At that time you had been in Italy for three years. So he paid me a sum so large I couldn’t tell him no to travel to Italy and treat you. I had no idea it would take so long. In the end I came to love it there. I had nothing here in the States but my work.”
I’m stunned. There are so many things I want to ask, to say. How could I have been so wrong? Why couldn’t he have told me this when he was here? It’s too late now. The unfairness of it all overwhelms me, and my legs give out. Dominic catches me, he picks me up and carries me away.
He doesn’t say anything. When he tries to put me on my bed I cling to him. With a sigh he lies down beside me, holding me while I cry. It’s how I fall asleep.
***
Regina
When I wake up it’s three o’clock in the morning. I’m alone and I feel like shit. Instantly, I know I’m dehydrated. I’m also starving. I turn over to find a bottle of water on the bedside table with two over-the-counter pain pills and a packet of almonds. And fuck me, I’m crying all over again. For what I had without knowing. What I lost. What I threw away.
Then Dominic is picking me up, putting me in his lap. In the back of my mind I wonder where he came from. He’s still dressed in the suit he wore to the funeral. He sighs. “You’re going to make yourself sick. Come on, drink some water.”
Taking off the cap, he pours it down my throat again and again until it’s almost gone. He opens the almonds and puts one after another in my mouth. I let him because I don’t want to fight with him. Don’t want to fight at all anymore. Once the almonds are gone he hands me the pain pills and the bottle of water. I finish the water.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter when I know I should move yet can’t bring myself to.
He shrugs as he loosens his tie. “It’s fine.” He’s quiet for a few minutes. “Did you want to talk about him?”
I shake my head. “Tell me about Luca, please.”
And he does. He’s matter of fact, even though I can tell he’s still a little in shock from it.
“Is Tony going to kill Carlo?”
“No, not anytime soon at least.”
“How old is he?”
“He’ll be thirty-five next month. Pop is trying to get him to stay in Chicago for a little while longer, until then at least. He was going to leave tomorrow. For now he agreed to another week. His problem is his second-in-command isn’t as hard as he is when it comes to keeping things in order. In a city like Vegas, it isn’t a good idea to let anything go long enough for bad habits to form. So me and Pop are talking about me taking care of things for him while he goes out to spend time with Luca there.”
“I could help watch the bookstore,” I offer, a little excited at the idea of it.
“I’ll let Pop know you made the offer. Tonight he wants us over for dinner at his place. He’s having my cousins and their wives over to make introductions. Fair warning, they are going to be bringing their kids. Except maybe Che and Alicia, since the drive is long they don’t usually bring the kids out late.”
I nod. “Okay.”
Before I know it he’s standing and places me back on the bed. Immediately I miss him. I don’t dare let him see it, keeping my eyes down.
“As far as my family is concerned, especially Pop, this marriage isn’t a shitshow.”
I close my eyes at the description, at his ice-cold delivery.
“They’ll want to add their opinions and get into it. I don’t want him worried about anything other than getting to know Luca. If anyone asks, which they shouldn’t, I’m going to put it down to you losing Jo
hnny. It’s the same reason I’ve given for us skipping the honeymoon. I lied and said we would reschedule in a month or two, so you’re on the same page if it’s mentioned.”
He’s gone. This time I go into the bathroom, turn on the shower and sit in the empty bathtub to cry so he doesn’t hear me.
21
Regina
From the window seat I’ve taken over as my spot in the library, I watch as Sergeant Riley and a woman I can only assume is his wife leave the building laughing and hugging each other. Closing my eyes against their joy, I lean my head against the glass.
It’s been seven weeks since the night I met the man the night before the wedding. I open my eyes just in time to see him put his hand on her stomach. My own stomach twists in bitter jealousy. They were no doubt here to tell Dominic and thank him for helping them get what they wanted. This time I squeeze my eyes so tight I see stars.
I’m living with a shadow. I hear him, can tell when he’s been home, but I rarely see him. It’s even rarer we’re in the same place for longer than a few minutes. Out of sheer desperation, I worked to get my body back to my old schedule.
I’m in bed by midnight, asleep by two, then I’m awake around eight or nine. I have breakfast, make a snack to take back to my room where I work on my translations until Dominic leaves the apartment. He’s having breakfast with his father again. It’s as if I’m not even here. The few times he walked into the library and found me here he looked through me. He got what he came in for and was gone again.
A few days after Johnny’s funeral, Dominic went to New York to settle Johnny’s business. I had no idea until Marco told me. He was gone for six days. Every day I wondered why it was taking so long, I came close to breaking down and asking Pop, yet every time I opened my mouth the shame of not being able to ask Dominic himself wouldn’t let me.
If it weren’t for Mary and Pop, I’m pretty sure I would have drowned in my misery. It was a few days after Dominic left for New York when Pop came to see me. As usual I was here in the library, but I was on the couch trying to take a nap because I hadn’t gotten much sleep.
I’m not sure if my dozing is the reason I didn’t hear the elevator; all I know is one moment I was drifting in and out of sleep, and the next I opened my eyes to find him standing over me, studying me. The shock of seeing him gave me a start.
“I apologize, I didn’t mean to disturb you. I’ll leave you to rest.”
“No, please stay. I’m not—I won’t be able to get back to sleep. I’m not...please stay.” Sitting up, I curled into the corner of the couch. It was a little spooky how much he and Dominic looked alike, from their blue eyes to their frown.
With a sigh he sat down, unbuttoning his jacket. He wore the same three-pieces Dominic did, his silk suit a pale gray with the vest a black and dark gray checked pattern.
“Mary has mentioned your unhappiness. I promised myself I wouldn’t meddle again. Yet, I care for both you and my son too much not to...explain myself to you. Your father and I, we believed we were doing the right thing. Both of us for selfish reasons. I love my son deeply. He and Anthony were the best things to ever happen to me. Loving him doesn’t make me blind to his faults. I see him clearly. I also know him. I know he will be a good husband to you. He will take care of you and protect you with all he has inside him.”
I hadn’t been able to meet his eyes, intent on studying the stitching along the hem of my skirt. I knew he wanted me to agree with him. I did agree with him, only I didn’t trust myself to stop there.
“Johnny told me you would be Dominic’s wife when you were a week old. You were sick when you were born, some infection. The doctors told Johnny you were probably going to die. You proved them wrong. He came to me the very night you pulled through. Made me drink to your health. I was happy to. Then he told me to make sure Dominic stayed single and available because when the time came, you two would be married.”
Shaking his head, he studied his clasped hands. “I put it down to him being drunk. He was adamant, though. You weren’t even supposed to be here. Your mother had an IUD in. That she got pregnant at all was one thing, then for you to almost die and survive... Johnny felt it meant something. Dominic, one of his crew betrayed him, beat him, shot him, and left him for dead. He should have died. For three days the doctors weren’t sure how he didn’t die. Every night they thought it would be his last.”
“I didn’t know any of that. About me or Dominic. That’s where the scars came from.”
He nodded as he ran a hand through his hair, still thick and with more black than silver. “That’s where the scars came from. I honestly forgot about the whole conversation with Johnny. Then my nephews started getting married, having children. You’ve seen them, how happy they are. So happy they glow with it.”
His eyes met mine, I couldn’t look away at the earnest longing in them. “I wanted that for Dominic. I wanted him to have light in his life. Our world is a hard one, I wanted softness for him. Yet I knew it wouldn’t be just any woman. Johnny came to me with your picture—you were graduating that day. When I saw you, saw your smile, saw equal fear and determination in your eyes, I knew you were the one.”
“Johnny refused to come that day. He said if I wasn’t coming back to Chicago then I could rot in Italy. I have no idea how he got the picture.” I looked up to find him studying me as if I should know already.
“The same way he got the dozens of them he had of you: Mother Superior sent them to him. I told him it was better you went on to university. You were too young and innocent, you needed to live life more. When Johnny got sick, he told me it was time. You were going to come back here if he had to drag you back by your hair. He had been watching you, making sure you were the perfect, docile little princess fit for Dominic, who would become Don whether he wanted to be or not.”
“Dominic was always going to be Don?”
He nodded. “As far as Johnny was concerned, yes. If things had gone sideways on Johnny, there’s no telling for sure, but Johnny told me the day I got out of prison what he had planned for Dominic. It’s why I sent him to a good school in New York. He needed the knowledge and the connections it would bring.”
Shaking my head, I sighed. “He would be so pissed off if he knew that.”
“For about five minutes, because what’s done is done.” Sighing, he reached for my hand. His hand was so big it swallowed mine. “Please don’t give up on him, on your marriage. Be the light he needs, the softness in his world he needs so badly. He won’t just take from you, he’ll give back once he trusts you, trusts in you.”
I wanted to believe him. He wasn’t telling me what I wanted to hear. Pop wasn’t lying to me and telling me Dominic loved me. How pathetic was I for wishing he did? But no, Pop wasn’t going to lie to me the same way Dominic wasn’t going to lie. So I told Pop I wouldn’t give up. I didn’t need to tell him it felt like Dominic had, though.
After he left, I found Mary in the kitchen and begged her to never tell Pop anything about me and Dominic again. I wanted to yell at her but I couldn’t. She was the only person who talked to me—without her I would be completely alone. She promised she wouldn’t, then she told me to put on an apron, we were making lasagna today. With a sigh I did as I was told, and by the time the lasagna was in the oven I wasn’t mad at her anymore.
Over the last seven weeks she’s been teaching me to cook. We’ve spent a lot of hours in the kitchen. Sometimes I hated it, sometimes it was the only thing that kept me sane. Especially the days when Dominic was gone and I wondered what he was doing while he was away.
One day Marco and Dario were gone, and he was there again.
For the hundredth time since Marco and Dario left, I wonder what I’m doing here. During the week Dominic was gone I was given access to my bank cards, ID, and passport. Why didn’t I just walk away? A dozen times I’ve plotted it, planned it out. One day it’s getting on the first international flight out of O’Hare, the next it’s renting a car and crossing into Canada.
Once I went to Union Station and just sat there for two hours, watching the trains come in and leave again.
While I was there I let the fantasy unravel, as I have often: a small red brick home with a dog in the yard. Three children playing together in the grass as the breeze blows. They are all blonde, with brown eyes—at least they are supposed to be everything Dominic isn’t, what his children would never be. Only it never stays that way. They morph into blue-eyed and dimpled brown-haired boys, and I ache with longing. Fuck. Even in my dreams I can’t get what I want.
It’s no good, I’ve seen it all in front of me too many times. Over the last seven weeks, we’ve appeared at Enzo and Chloe’s home twice and once at Alicia and Cesare’s home. Dominic held my hand, he smiled, he teased me in front of them, played with the children. It felt so real, until we were in the car and he was back to looking through me, to one-syllable answers to my questions or observations.
I could say it was the promise I made to Pop, but I don’t. I got up from the chair at the train station and took a cab back to our hollow home. I don’t cry anymore, I haven’t since Johnny’s funeral. I’m proud of it, it’s the only thing I’m proud of anymore.
This is all me. I got what I thought I wanted, only it’s a thousand times worse than I imagined it would be. Tonight is another dinner. Luca is back in town for the week. Pop has invited us to his place, just me and Dominic joining him and Luca. One more night of heaven and hell.
The sound of the elevator alert going off pulls me out of my misery. Is it Dominic? It’s a little after three in the afternoon. He almost never comes home before early morning.
“Regina?” I sigh, it’s Chloe. Damn it, I’ve made excuses twice already to avoid lunches with her. I should have known she wouldn’t accept another one.
“In the library,” I call out. Only seconds later she is in the doorway.
She’s carrying a small paper bag. When she sees me, she stops and studies me for so long I grow uncomfortable.