Page 16 of Broken Trust

Pa ignores us. Ma sets a plate at his elbow without being asked, and as she passes she touches the back of his neck, quick and soft, the same way she did before he left and every day since he came back. He doesn't lift his eyes from the screen. He picks up his fork with his free hand, and when he raises his glass she hurries over to top it up, and when his plate empties she fills it again. She stands there beside him the whole time, waiting for an order he never has to give out loud.

I've watched this my entire life. But sitting here tonight as a married man, I feel sick to my stomach, because I'm looking at my own marriage from the outside for the first time.

“Ma,” I say. “Sit down for a minute. You haven't stopped moving since I walked in.”

She laughs and waves the spatula at me. “And do what, watch you not eat?”

“Leave her,” Pa says mildly, still reading. “She likes to fuss. Let her fuss.”

“Pa, when was the last time you thanked her?”

That gets his attention. He looks up at me. “What?”

“Ma. She's standing right there. When did you last say thank you for the plate?”

Ma turns from the stove with the dish towel twisted in her hands, and she studies me carefully, the way she used to when I came home from school with a split lip and a story that didn't add up.

“Dante,” she says quietly. “What's wrong with you? Is this about Gia? Is that why you're here?”

I press the heels of my hands into my eyes. “He doesn't see you, Ma. And I did the exact same thing to her. Every single day. I'm no better than him.”

Pa sets his phone face down on the table. It's forty years too late for that small gesture to mean much, and it still guts me to watch him do it.

“Gia?” Ma asks again.

“I took her for granted. I let her carry everything while I told myself I was the one holding us up, and I only see it now because I'm sitting here watching him do it to you. It's the ugliest thing I've ever seen, and I've been doing it for ten years.”

Nobody speaks. Behind Ma the eggs start to smoke in the pan, and she doesn't move to save them.

“Sofia,” Pa says, low. “Leave the eggs. Sit down.”

She sinks into the chair beside me as if her legs have been begging her to for hours. Pa reaches over and turns off the burner, and for a moment the only sound is the hiss of the pan cooling.

“Son.” Pa's voice is gruff but not unkind. “Talk to us. What really brought you here at midnight?”

I take a deep breath. Every instinct I have is telling me to talk about the production instead, the money problems and the lead actor who walked, anything that would get Ma stroking my hand and telling me it'll all be fine. I've been hiding behind that production for months. I'm sick of it.

“I've been sleeping with Mia,” I say. “Gia's sister. For almost a year.”

Ma's hand flies to her mouth.

“And the baby.” My voice cracks, and I force the rest of it out anyway. “It was never by artificial insemination. Gia found out today, at the baby shower, in front of the whole family. She's gone, and I don't know if she's ever coming back.”

Ma starts to cry without making a sound, tears running down her tight, smooth cheeks. She reaches for my hand and then stops halfway, like she isn't sure she's allowed to touch me.

Pa doesn't cry. He goes very still, and I know what he's thinking about, because I'm thinking about it too. Uncle Paolo, Pa's older brother, hanging in his garage after committing suicide, the winter I turned twelve. His childhood sweetheart, his wife had been cheating on him for years, and when it all came out he learned that the three kids he'd raised and loved weren't his, he bailed out on life. At the funeral Pa stood at the graveside with his jaw set like concrete and told me that anyone who lies in a relationship, doesn’t deserve any happiness.

He pushes his chair back and stands. He doesn't shout. That's the worst part. He just looks down at me the way you'd look at something the dog dragged in from the yard.

“When you leave,” he says, “don't forget to close the door behind you.”

“Bruno,” Ma whispers.

He walks out of the kitchen, and a moment later I hear the bedroom door shut down the hall.

I nod at the empty doorway. I understand him perfectly. He isn't just telling me to go home tonight; he's telling me not to come back.

Ma walks me to the front door without a word. On the step she presses a foil-wrapped plate into my hands, because of course she saved some of the eggs, and then she grips my face in both hands and holds it there.