Page 8 of Tormented Heir

“It is?” I ask.

“Yes. This is your birth family. Your blood. It is the crest your grandfather had, and when he died it went to your father.”

“Now it is mine?” I ask.

“It is yours to always remember who you are and where you came from. When you are old enough you can come back to Russia if you want and live with me.” Nonna has switched into Russian.

“In fucking English,” Papa shouts. “I won’t have you filling the child’s head with nonsense. He already hero worships a man who is not worth a moment’s more thought. If the boy knew what a coward he was.”

What does Papa mean?

“Anton,” Mama says. Her voice sounds like it does when she’s found me stealing cookies from the jar before dinner. “I swear one more word, and I’ll never forgive you. Don’t go there. Please. Unless you want me to leave.”

“It’s wrong.” Papa stands and points at me. “He deserves the truth, and not lies he can never live up to. You can piss off back to Russia the minute you can get a seat on a plane, old woman, and don’t come back until you can stop this nonsense. I won’t have it in my house.”

He storms out of the room. Scary, Italian Nonna who has remained silent up until now, stands. “He’s right, you know, Vera. This isn’t doing the boy any favors.”

She leaves too. Russian Nonna wipes a tear from her cheek and pulls me into a hug. “Whatever you might hear about your father in the future, Dimitri, remember this. He loved you.”

Then she pats my cheek.

“You shouldn’t have given him the shield in front of Anton,” Mama chides. “You know he gets upset.”

“He’s pathetic. Getting upset about a ghost.”

“Dimitri, go to your room and play with your new toys.” Mama sounds tired.

I do as she says. Alone in my room, I try to play with all the shiny new toys I received, but I can’t think about things clearly. My brain hurts. Why is Papa angry about Russian Papa in heaven? Why is Papa doing the bad thing with the servant? One thing I do know … Papa and Mama seem to be angry with each other, and if he sent us away, we’d have nowhere to go.

I must try to make Papa love me, for real. For that to happen, I need to stop talking about my other papa in heaven. I put the shield away in my drawer, at the bottom, underneath many clothes. I resolve to try very hard to make Papa feel important to me and Mama so we can stay.

3

DIMITRI

13-YEARS-OLD

Lombardy

The days are growing longer, and the mountains are losing the snow. Soon, it will be nothing but a crown they wear as the valleys bathe in sunshine.

The crash of a plate being smashed in the kitchen has me rolling my eyes. Mama and Papa will be fighting again. They fight a lot these days.

The servants are long gone, and Mama has to do most of the cleaning of this big, old house. She and Papa argue a lot about it, but he says they don’t have the money now. Mama asks him to move to America, for a new life. Her sister is there, she says. An aunty I've never met. But Papa says he’ll never leave Italy.

His business is not doing well, and we must cut back. I only have tutors three afternoons a week now. They give me work to do, and luckily for me, they say I am clever and learn fast. It means I am not behind, despite not getting enough tutoring.

I head out of my room, hang my head over the banister, and listen.

“We can send him to school,” Papa says. “That would save on tutor fees.”

“He’d have to board; it would cost a fortune.”

“Not if he worked for a lot of his costs. They let some of the boys do that. Or he could stay with a family in the town for a small cost. Much less than tutors three times a week.”

“No,” Mama screeches. “You won’t take my boy away from me.”

“Our boy,” Papa says heavily. “He is my boy too. Haven’t I raised him like my own? Haven’t I provided for him? Yet he still carries his dead father’s name. Not mine. You and his stupid Russian Babushka filling his head with fairy tales. You pretend he was some hero, yet the man was not worthy of licking my shoes.”

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