Page 2 of Mafia’s Final Play

Time to go home, at last.

* * *

“It’s been a month since I was released from the hospital, he still won’t let me leave the penthouse. It’s almost October. The leaves have changed and I probably won’t get to see them now. Our anniversary is soon too.” Marie turned to fill Trina’s cup with fresh coffee from the French press that she’d brought into the living room. There was regret on her face mixed with a sadness that pulled at the corners of her mouth.

“It’s not safe out there,” Trina responded, repeating her cousin’s own line back to his wife. She couldn’t meet Marie’s gaze and stared out of the glass panes to the gray, rainy scene outside instead.

“I hate you both, you know that right?” Marie’s glare wasn’t mean and disappeared quickly. “I just feel like I’m a prisoner all over again.”

“What do you mean?” Trina sat forward her head tilted to the right as she leaned in towards Marie.

“Well, I told you about my mother, how ill she was? Well, that prison she had me in was a prison my entire life. Before she developed Parkinson’s she was, uh, well, she was an alcoholic.” Marie blurted out the words she’d kept hidden away from Trina.

She hadn’t wanted to open up that much to the other young woman, hadn’t wanted to reveal that embarrassing bit of information, but knew she couldn’t hide it anymore. She also knew by now that Trina wouldn’t judge her for her mother. Matteo’s cousin didn’t work like that, unlike the women back home in Louisiana. Trina’s acceptance and the love she offered from the first moment they met told Marie she had a real friend, at last.

“When I was growing up, my mother hated me, hated that I existed. No, let me finish…” Marie paused to put her hand out, to implore Trina not to interrupt. She took a breath, pulled at the cuffs of the white long-sleeve t-shirt she wore to ward off the chill in the air. “She wasn’t like most women that ended up with a child they hadn’t planned to have and learned to make do, or grew to love the child before it was even born. She hated me and she was very open about it.”

“That’s awful, Marie. I’m so sorry you had a mother like that.” Trina sat at the end of the black leather couch and Marie could see she was thinking, but Trina didn’t say about what. It was a comfort to Marie that Trina didn’t try to reach out to her or try to insist Marie’s mother must have loved her. She just tried to think of how to respond, she was real about it all, and that mattered to Marie. Marie took over the conversation again.

“Oh, I’m still confused about it. I had started to see a counselor before the, um, accident.” She swallowed and took another calming breath as she tried to gloss over her stumble, tried to force those memories of the attack on her away. “It was hard. I was the mother more often than not because she was always drunk. I don’t know how we paid for things after she spent all her money from acting. I made do, though, and learned to cook. I’d walk down to the grocery store on Saturdays, before I could drive, with a little red wagon, you know the kinds little kids get?” When Trina nodded Marie continued. “I’d take our EBT card in and buy what I could, then I’d go home and make something. I eventually learned to cook something decent.”

Marie paused, thought about all the things she wanted to say, all the things that had happened, but it would take too long to go over it all. Trina didn’t deserve to have all of that dumped on her, not all of it.

“Anyway, Momma spent more time drunk than sober, but she’d manage to get us to the welfare office every time we had to go, and she’d make sure I was clean and clothed, which meant I’d made sure of it. Probably should have gone in dirty and nasty so they’d take me away, but she was all I had you know? And for all the hell she put me through, she was my mother. I was all she had too.”

“That sounds so rough, Marie.” Trina took her hand and squeezed it, her eyes full of tears. “I had such a good childhood, so much privilege. Damn, I’m going to cry my makeup off.”

“Don’t do that, Trina. I just mainly wanted you to understand, you know? Matteo keeping me in the apartment is like that prison all over again. I haven’t left the place since we came home from the hospital. It’s driving me crazy.” She pushed her hands through her hair and pulled at it a little until the sting of it made her stop.

“He loves you though, I can see it. And I can see why now. You’re a fighter and one tough little cookie.” Trina wiped at tears that had pooled under her eyes and smiled. “You overcome, and that’s what he loves.”

“Oh, I sometimes think he loves the waif, the poor little woman that needs a savior more than he loves the actual me.” She all but whispered the words, but Trina heard.

“I think all men do that, honey. They need to feel like protectors, providers, but I also see how much he admires you, how proud he is of you. You might not see it, but I do. He loves you, even if he hasn’t said it.”

Marie’s eyes went wide, she hadn’t told Trina they still hadn’t spoken those words. How had she guessed?

“Aunt Celeste wasn’t the kind to give affection or allow it. She raised Matteo to be almost a robot. I hate her for it. So, does he. But I think, maybe, that’s part of what draws him to you. You both know that loveless world. You both know the need for that love.”

“Oh.” Marie could only blink as the truth of Trina’s words sank in. “I see.”

“We’re a pair.” Trina laughed and sank back against the couch again. “I can’t find love and you can’t say it.”

“I can’t,” Marie laughed with Trina, despite the pain hiding in her heart. “But I feel it and I want to say it, but, I just can’t. Not unless he does. I can just picture him now, running as far away as possible if I ever said those words to him.”

“But maybe he needs to hear them, Marie, before he can say them himself.” Trina’s gray eyes, so different from Matteo’s gray that Marie loved so much, were troubled now. “Maybe you’ll have to take yourself out of this prison you’ve both put each other in.”

“Wow, that’s deep.” Marie was the one that sat back this time, her mind in a whirl all over again. “But I think you might be right.”

“Think about it, honey. I have to get going before that thug at the door throws me out for being here too long and tiring you out.” Trina leaned over to kiss Marie’s cheek then waited until Marie had done the same to her. “I’ll be by tomorrow. Maybe you’ll be out of prison by then?”

“I hope so. And thanks, for letting me dump all of that on you.” Marie followed Trina out and waited at the door until she disappeared behind the elevator doors.

She went back into the living room and sipped at her coffee.

She’d learned one thing from being shot, life was too precious to be caged up, mentally or physically, and right now she was caged up in both ways. She’d have to talk to Matteo this evening and find a way to get him to see that she needed to be able to go out. She’d even agree to have the bodyguards tag along if that’s what it took.

He could be a hard man to love, his not wanting her to go out made it even harder. But she did love him, despite the distance he sometimes put between them, even though he had never said those words to her. He was kind, gentle, fun, and loving with her and she knew that she meant something to him.