Page 152 of Diamond Fortress

And then I lose it, remembering his promise all those years ago.

You don’t cry because you’re sad anymore. You cry when you marry me again in front of five hundred fucking people. You cry when you tell me you’re carrying my kid. You cry when we name a little boy after your dad or a little girl after my mother. You don’t cry because of what they took from you. You cry because of what I give you.

And he has stuck to that ever since.

15 years later

“Eliza Carluccio, I swear to fucking god, if you do not stop whining, I’m making your father turn this car around and we’re going home,” I say, turning around in my seat and staring at my 14-year-old daughter. She’s sitting in the back seat next to her younger brother, arms crossed on her chest and glaring at me.

“Good. I don’t want to go to stupid Lake George anyway.” I suck my teeth and look at the ceiling, praying for some higher power to come save me.

Please.

Anyone.

“You know, if I turn around, we’re stuck in the car with her bitching for another three hours, yeah?” That’s my wise, handsome, pushover of a husband who loves his little girl more than life itself. I give him the side eye, and he smiles. “Liza, baby, you gotta cut the shit.”

“Daddy—”

“Your mother and I have been coming here—”

“Since the day you got married, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. I just . . .” She huffs and looks out the window, her jaw tight in a familiar way.

Familiar because it’s the way my jaw looks when I’m frustrated and trying to figure it out, trying to decide how much I want to reveal.

I’d put money on the fact that she’s gnawing on her lip.

“Juliana is having a pool party tomorrow.”

“Great, when we get home, we’ll have a bigger party and invite her.”

In Dante’s world, that’s how you solve a problem with the women in your life.

Give them whatever they want.

“She wasn’t invited,” Turo, our son younger than Liza by just a year, says with a mean smile.

It’s not actually mean, but mean in the way that younger siblings get when they’re about to cause their sister mental suffering.

I know it well.

But on the bright side, I now know why my daughter is being so cranky.

“Because of Mom,” says Turo. My boy is named after the father I never knew, while my daughter is named after Dante’s mother and Teresa. Her middle name honors my mother’s best friend, just like my mom once promised would happen.

Or Gonna Teresa, as my kids call her.

“Because of your mother?” Dante asks, clearly confused.

I’m not.

“All of those fuckin’ mothers at that uptight goddamn school you insisted on hate me,” I grumble under my breath.

I see Dante’s smile.

“Is it because you give them the fuckin’ death stare when they look at me?”

Yes.

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