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“I did go once. It was… difficult. Painful.” As he speaks, I feel it.
Carlo struggles when his emotions bubble up. My intense urge is to comfort him. To rescue him from the storm. But I hold myself back. I need to watch. To know him and understand this terrifyingly complex man. Maybe I’m learning that from him already.
His jaw works and his teeth rake inside his lip.
His eyes flash into mine as he says, “My turn.” I can almost see the emotion simmering in his eyes as he holds it back. “Your mom died, right? That’s what I heard. Do you remember how it happened?”
If his aim is to trade painful associations, then he knocked that one out of the park. I say ‘Yes,’ but no sound comes out.
“I’m sorry.” He reaches to stroke my hair, and he pulls me closer. “It’s okay. Really. You don’t have to say.”
This part is going to be hard. I pull back a little, knowing I need to be strong. I tell him, “I never talked about it before. I never told anyone. So I may crack, but it’s alright. It’s time I let it out.”
He nods, silently. It seems like he understands the difficulty I have talking about it, and he knows I need to take it at my own pace.
“Mom was seeing another man. He was an enforcer for the Romano family, and they’d been seeing each other for some time. They were driving back late one night from a motel in Pinewood Gap. The official story was that the car skidded on a high bend. A metal sign from a gas station had been blown on the wind and wound up in the middle of the road.”
“But that wasn’t true?”
“There was a loose sign from the gas station, that much was true. It was recovered with the wreckage.”
“But you said ‘the official story,’ like it wasn’t true.”
“Oh, it was all true. It just omitted the fact that three of the car’s tires were shot out.”
“A sniper?”
“It was a well planned and executed hit.”
“And the hitman?”
“Never found.”
“So nobody knows who it was that bought the hit?”
“Everyone knows, but no one has any way to prove it.”
“Your father never found himself another woman?”
“Never even looked at one. Not that anybody knows about. And, believe me, me and both of my brothers, we looked. We were mean, prying little brats even back then, and we were positively peeing ourselves trying to find proof that we could nail onto Daddy.”
“It’s understandable.”
“We were all too young to understand anything. What he was going through.” I take a breath. “I don’t know what your dad’s friends are like, but from what I heard, Daddy got his balls busted from morning till midnight about how he was being cucked.”
“So, you blame your daddy?”
“For what he did? Sure. Mom had a miserable life with that man. He was mean, he was cruel, he would slap her with the back of his knuckles — and he’s got a big fucking hand — just because she tried to do something nice but it wasn’t right or to his liking. I remember once when she was really trying and she was reaching her wits end, she bought him flowers to come home to. God, I swear, I thought he was going to kill her then. She had to go to the emergency room. Had stitches in the side of her forehead. They took months to heal.”
I hold back on the feelings as I’m telling the tale. Trying to learn from Carlo, to separate myself from the story. Observe what I’m saying without being immersed and lost in it, without feeling it all again. “It was after that she started seeing Stronzo.” I swallow. It gets easier. More manageable if I breathe deeper. “What I feel most bad about is, my brothers, they all took Daddy’s side. Said she didn’t know how lucky she was and she was no good and she should think where her bread was buttered, and I went along with them. I can’t quite forgive myself for that.”
God, I need a drink. But I keep still and I keep going. I see how Carlo is watching me as he listens, like they’re two things he can do at the same time, but as separate actions. “Then it all turned to shit, and she really was nasty to him. Made his life a hell on earth. They should have separated. Obviously. But you don’t do that. Not in the Life.”
He holds me. I feel like I’m going to start sobbing, but I don’t.
“Mom was made to marry Daddy, and there wasn’t a day went by when she didn’t remind him of the fact. And, even though she was my mom and she was the moon and the stars to me, damn, she made his life hell.” I feel a whole layer of that pain lift away from me.
“And he worshipped the ground she walked on. He’s a strong man, but she pushed him harder than he could take.”
