Page 43 of Maddest Temptation

“I’m sorry.”

“That’s a no, then. I figured he would be too occupied with his whore.” The venom in her voice was the same as when I was twelve years old.

“Why do you even care? You don’t even love him, it’s a blessing that he ignores you.”

My mother looked at me as if I had punched her in the face and as if I had spoken a blasphemy.

“Is that what you thought of your husband? Is that why you let him humiliate you as he did? Parade you around like a cheap whore.”

“Please, Mother, I’m not cheap. You and Daddy raised me to be an expensive whore.” I threw back at her, and my mother gasped in full shock.

“Isn’t it? Wasn’t that what he called me? A whore. You let him do it. Your own daughter.” My blood was boiling, and I don’t know where that anger came from. Oh, wait, yes, I knew. From the fact she was actually mad at me, for my father calling me a whore and treating me like I was the trash stuck to his shoes.

She scoffed. “You don’t understand.”

“No, Mamma, I don’t.”

We were back to our silence, and I flipped through the pages of my magazine, not really looking at them. I felt her staring at me, making it harder to concentrate. I settled the magazine on my lap and looked at her.

“I do love your father,” she said simply. Love. As in present as in still loves and not loved in the past. “Don’t make that face at me, I know what you are thinking. I know the man that he is, what he’s done?—”

“Including ruining my life,” I pointed.

“When you love, Francesca, when you really love, you can’t help yourself. You don’t pick and choose the parts you love about a person; you love them for who and what they are. I know you have hated me for it and maybe you always will, but because I love him, there are things that I will always forgive him for.”

“He did despicable things, Mamma,” I reminded her.

“Yes, he did,” she agreed. “You’ll learn one day, that to love is to forgive. That to love is to understand your lover’s limitations and not hate them for it but to help them through them.”

“Yet he never changed,” I grumbled.

I stared at my mother dumbfounded by what she was telling me. What she said was right, a person had to change because they wanted to, and in that moment, sitting with my mother in a hospital room, I realized I had to change, too. I blamed her and my father for so many things in my life. I even blamed Cassio and Paolo, but I never stopped to look at myself. At the damage I had created. The thought sat like a heavy stone in my stomach, and it followed me through the day.

“Honestly, I feel like I am talking to myself,”Marie said snapping her fingers and bringing me back to reality.

“Sorry, I got distracted.”

Marie gave me one of those looks where she doubted what I was saying but wasn’t going to press me about it. We were having coffee at a small little place near her apartment. We’d just come back from a walk at the park, and Reginald was curled at my feet. I secretly wished I were him.

“Is Vitelli coming?” I nibbled on a piece of my doughnut, not really hungry for it.

“No, he had work to do today, he’s been busy lately,” Marie said. “It’s all Cassio’s fault.”

I couldn’t agree more.

“Frankie, what’s going on?”She picked up a piece of her chocolate croissant and nibbled on it.

“What?” I settled the doughnut on my plate, and picked up my jasmine tea, to take a sip. The better question was what wasn’t going on. “I kissed Cassio,” The words jumped out of my mouth. So much for forgetting that.

Marie slowly placed her croissant on the table and stared at me. “Excusez moi?” Her jaw dropped and then when she picked it up, she added aghast. “You what?”

“Well, he was the one to kiss me first, but then I kissed him back.”

“I knew it.” Why did she sound so gleeful? “Explain, and don’t think about leaving anything out.”

“There is nothing much to say, one moment he was there and then he kissed me.” I sipped my tea leisurely.

“Frankie, that’s shit. Feed me more. I need more!”

---