Page 36 of Broken Trust

“So you're on her side,” I say. “Again. And no one has called me by my full name. Not since the shower.”

“The law is the law, Gianna.”

“You're backing whoever's paying your bills,” Nella snaps, stepping out from behind me. “Don't insult us, Mamma. We know all about Papa and his little accountant. The whole valley knows. He's divorcing you, and you're terrified you'll end up with nothing, so now you're trying to bleed Gia's restaurant dry to keep yourself in pearls.”

Mamma's face goes hard as marble. “Mind your tongue, Nella.”

“No. I'm done minding it.” Nella's cheeks are flushed, and her hands are balled into fists at her sides. “Fuck off, both of you. You're vultures, circling the one good thing anybody in this family has managed to build, just waiting for it to fall over so you can pick at the bones. Gia worked her fingers raw for this. What have either of you ever done except spend other people's money?”

Mia laughs, high and bright, with nothing behind it. “Charming. Is that how they teach you to talk at the hospital?”

Nella doesn't even glance at her. She's looking straight at Mamma now, with a hard, knowing look on her face that I don't recognize, and something about it makes the hair on my arms stand up.

“I've got a question for you, Mamma,” she says. “When Papa cut Mia off last year, why didn't he have to pay her a penny? He just closed his wallet and walked away, and you let him. And now he's leaving you for a girl half your age, keeping everything else, and you've kept your mouth shut the whole time.” She takes a step closer. “So why is that? What does Papa know about you that keeps you so quiet?”

Mamma's lips part, and then she presses them together again.

Her hand drifts up to the pearls at her throat, the way it always did when we were girls and one of us had asked something she didn't like, and for a moment she looks old in a way I've never seen before. Her eyes flick toward the street like she's measuring how far it is, then settle back on the table. She says nothing at all, doesn't even try, and the longer the silence goes on, the heavier it gets, until I realize with a slow, sick feeling that Nella has hit a nerve, a secret buried so deep that my mother would rather lose everything she owns than have it dug up.

“Mamma?” I say softly.

She won't look at me.

It's Mia who breaks the silence. She's on her feet in a rush, her chair scraping back across my tiles, and she comes right up to me, so close I can smell her perfume, the same orange blossom she's worn since we were sixteen.

“Stop changing the subject,” she hisses. “This isn't about Mamma. It's about you, pretending you're some kind of saint because you can make pasta. You always thought you were better than me, didn't you? The good twin, the sweet one, Nonna's favorite.” Her lip curls. “Well, guess what, sister? I got Dante and his money and had his baby. Something you never could do.”

“Get out of my restaurant, Mia.”

“Make me.”

The slap cracks through the empty dining room like a plate hitting the floor. Her head snaps sideways and her sunglasses go flying off her hair, skittering under a table, and for a heartbeat she just stays like that, turned away from me, one hand rising slowly to her cheek.

My palm is on fire. I've never hit anyone in my life, not even when we were kids and she pulled my hair or broke my dolls or told every boy at school that I stuffed my bra. I'm shaking from head to toe, and the strangest part is that I'm not sorry. Not one bit.

“I never want to see your stupid face again,” I tell her. “Do you hear me?”

She turns back slowly. There's a red handprint blooming on her cheek and tears shining on her lashes, but she's smiling, and it's the worst smile I've ever seen on her, bright and brittle and cold right through.

“Too bad,” she says softly. “You see my face every time you look in the mirror.”

And then she slaps me back, so much harder than I hit her that my head whips around and my ear starts ringing. I taste blood where my teeth catch the inside of my cheek, and I stumble against the nearest chair and grab it to keep from going down, and somewhere behind me Nella shouts my name.

By the time I get my balance back, Mia is already bending to scoop her sunglasses off the floor. She shoves them back into her hair with her fingers trembling, then she gathers up her gloves, and walks out with her chin in the air and her heels clicking across my grandmother's tiles. The bell over the door jingles, horribly cheerful, and she's gone into the dark square without a single glance back.

Mamma lingers.

She stands there in her fur collar and looks at me properly for the first time all night. My cheek, which must be swelling by now. At the dining room I built out of nothing but sweat and stubbornness, and the menu propped in the window. Something flickers in her eyes that might almost be regret, and I hold my breath and wait for her to say something, anything, that could mend even a corner of this.

She pulls on her gloves instead and follows Mia out into the night.

I lose track of time after the bell goes quiet. The candles burn down another inch, and at some point Nella slips her arms around my waist from behind and rests her chin on my shoulder, like she did when I was little and woke up crying from a nightmare.

“You okay?” she asks.

“She hits harder than she used to.”

Nella lets out a laugh that's half a sob. “You got her first, though. That was the best thing I've seen all year.”