Page 10 of Mafia’s Dirty Secret

“But you are ill, Mom. Very ill. Now lie back and let me check your skin.” Marie grabbed a pair of gloves and examined her mother’s skin once again, and soon found everything to be fine. “Good, relax now. I’ll bring the gumbo in when it’s done.”

“Thank you.” Ruby looked as surprised as Marie felt. Had her mother actually thanked her?

“You’re welcome, Mom,” Marie uttered before she went through the doorway and into the dark hall covered with a dark shade of green carpet. The carpet ran into most of the rooms in the house, except for the kitchen and Marie’s room. Marie preferred the bare floors to the carpet and had taken it up when she was a teenager. With her mother’s permission, of course.

She added a few things to the gumbo, checked the flavor, and then sat down with a book to read as she listened to the radio. Her mother would be asleep in minutes, so she settled down to let the food cook.

She liked to read anything, but lately, she’d started to read thrillers. They kept her on the edge of her seat and gave her an opportunity to live an exciting life, that was, well, thrilling. Her life was so boring and mundane, sometimes awful, and the books helped her to escape into a new life that she could never imagine on her own.

A smell filled the air, one that Marie was all too familiar with. Her mother had an accident. And not one that she could wipe away with a single wipe either. The smell was terrible, and by the time she’d finished cleaning up the mess, a mess her mother couldn’t help, she no longer felt like eating.

Her mother did, though, so she made her a bowl, and fed it to her. By the time the bowl was empty, her mother was asleep again. Marie took a shower, put on a clean nightgown, and went to bed without dinner. She’d put the gumbo in the fridge, and she’d have it for lunch tomorrow. Tonight, her stomach wasn’t interested in eating at all.

7

“Why is it so hot in here?” Jane inquired as she came into Ruby’s bedroom.

“The air conditioner died last night, and I don’t have the money to get a new one. Even if I did have the money, I couldn’t leave her to go buy one.” Marie had been fanning her mother with a paper fan she’d made but stopped now that Jane was there. “I brought the fan in, but Mom’s still sweating. I don’t think those antibiotics are working.”

“It’s only been a couple of days, let’s give it a little while longer,” Jane said thoughtfully as she moved closer to the bed. “I might know someone that has an extra air conditioner they don’t need. Let me ask them while you’re gone, and if they’ll let you have it, I’ll bring it by later on.”

“Really? That would be so… wonderful!” Marie’s smile was almost beatific as she beamed at Jane. “I’ve been so worried about her all night long, I barely slept.”

“Well, go out, relax for a little bit, and don’t worry. I’ll see if we can get this sorted.” Jane’s reassurance that all was under control eased Marie’s mind.

Throughout the night she’d panicked over the fact that her mother didn’t seem to be improving, and the fact that the air conditioner wouldn’t work. She’d tried and tried but couldn’t figure out what was wrong with the machine that simply refused to come on. She’d finally given up, brought in the fan from her room, and made another fan out of paper to wave over her mother. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.

Marie got up from the chair that had once been covered in a red velvet-like material but was now faded and patched. It was a soft, comfortable chair, and Marie refused to give it up for that reason. It made the hours she spent at her mother’s bedside a little more comfortable, why should she replace it?

“I’ll go clean up and head out for a bit. Thanks, Jane.” Marie brushed her fingers over Jane’s shoulder in gratitude as she walked out.

A short while later, she was seated at the café with a cup of café au lait, her beignets, and a book. She was too tired to read, and the way the sun slanted on the pages made it a chore to see the words, but she tried because it was one of her favorite things to do. Today, she didn’t have to go to the store or pick up a prescription, all she had to do was relax. Only she couldn’t.

Her mother’s condition weighed on her like a 2-ton weight. What would she do if her mother didn’t improve? She felt like a yo-yo, being pulled by a child that had never pulled one before. She was jerked in one direction only to be thrown in another direction before she was jerked back into the same direction. Then she just sort of flailed around, with no direction at all. Which was where she was right now. She had no idea what to do, or who to talk to. There was always Jane, but she felt bad for burdening the woman with her problems.

It was great that Jane might be able to get an air conditioner for her mother, but at the same time, Marie felt bad about it. She was her mother’s daughter, she should be able to provide for her. It hurt her pride, just a little, that she couldn’t just go out and buy a new AC unit.

“May I join you?” A deep male voice, accented with that Yankee sound, drew Marie’s gaze upward.

It was him!

Her jaw dropped a little and she looked around as if to make sure he was talking to her. “I, uh, yes, if you’d like.”

“I would like to. My name is Matteo, by the way. Matteo Mazza.” He put down his coffee and beignets and sat down across from her at the little white table with white chairs. He held his hand out and she felt her face turn red.

“Marie Hebert.” She took his hand and felt the touch as a buzz of electricity. His hand was so warm, big, and comforting. Like he’d taken on her problems and he’d fight the world for her. His eyes were different though, they devoured her, from head to toe, with a hunger that she couldn’t ignore.

She stared into those eyes, unable to look away. She forgot how to breathe, to let his hand go, and they sat at the table, frozen in that moment as their hands touched. Then, he blinked and let her hand go.

“Sorry, forgot myself for a moment there. I see you’ve mastered the problem of dressing in this incredible heat.” His head nudged in the direction of her body.

She’d worn a pair of denim shorts, a lacy, cotton, white blouse, and her ever-present flip flops. She looked at him and frowned. In contrast, he had on a pair of dark denim jeans that looked like they were made from a thick material, the kind she thought of as winter jeans, rather than the thinner material of summer jeans. Along with that he had on a white Oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and on his feet were a pair of leather loafers. Way too many clothes.

Then she blushed again because she’d suddenly imagined him naked. “It’s alright, you’ll learn to adapt. Down here, even senators wear shorts sometimes.”

“I bet they do. I wanted to come down here for a change of scenery and knew it was hot but damn. This is incredible.”

“It is. Wait until the mosquitoes start. Even with the mosquito abatement programs, we still get them.”