Page 12 of Brutal Husband

Mom folds her arms, her fingertips drumming on her sleeve. “Don’t talk foolishly, Isabel. Nero’s been insulted beyond reconciliation.”

“Insulted? Please,” Isabel says with a wave of her hand. “When Rieta slammed his diamond down on that table, he probably thought it was the hottest thing ever. Men love the chase. You’re too close to this, Mom. You’ve been out of the dating scene too long, and you’ve forgotten how to play the game.”

Mom bristles with outrage. “How dare you! I’m very muchinthe game, young lady. I’m considering a marriage of my own. Perhaps another child as well, one I’ll raise to have some manners, unlike the rest of you.” She crosses the room and examines her reflection in a glass cabinet, turning her head this way and that. “I look excellent for forty. I could easily pass for thirty-two.”

“You look like a harpy after so much crying and screaming,” Isabel says with a nasty snicker and a glance at me, but my stomach is churning too much to join in her idea of fun.

“I didn’t break off the engagement to deflate Nero’s ego,” I tell her. “It wasn’t a tactic. I don’t want to marry him, and I’m not going to marry him.”

Isabel gives me a pitying look. “Oh, Rieta. You’ve got Nero nearly eating out of your hand. Don’t throw it all away.”

I don’t know what she’s talking about. The last I saw of Nero was his car tearing down the street in an angry squeal of rubber. “There are other men. I’ll marry someone else.”

“Mia, bed,” Mom orders my sister, pointing up the stairs. “Isabel, go home. I want to talk to Rieta about her behavior today.”

Mia disappears upstairs, and Isabel goes home to her apartment. The churning in my stomach doubles when Mom and I are alone, and she turns to me with rage sparking in her eyes.

“You made a spectacle of yourself in front of everyone at the party,” she seethes. “What do you think your aunts and cousinsare doing right now? They are on the phone telling people just how badly Rieta Bianchi behaved. They are gossiping about you. By tomorrow, everyone in this city who matters will know what happened here today. The Bianchi name will be dragged through the mud yet again.”

“He was rude and cold to me, Mom. I can’t marry a man like that.”

“Then you shouldn’t have accepted his ring,” she shrieks. “Do you even care how disgraceful you’re making your mother look?”

Anger burns in my heart. Of course this is all about her, her reputation, and how she feels. I stood up to Nero, and now I’m going to stand up to Mom. “I’m my own person, and I’m not going to do whatever you say just to make up for all your mistakes.”

It feels good to say it, but a split second later, Mom’s face darkens with rage. She strikes me across the face so hard that I gasp in pain, and my eyes water. Before I have time to blink and clear them, Mom grasps me by the hair and drags me across the room.

“You ungrateful little bitch. I’ll teach you to talk back to me.”

“Mom, let go, please,” I cry out and try to get away, but she’s pulling too hard. My scalp blazes with pain. I can’t see where I’m going, but the living room carpet changes to tile beneath my stumbling feet. I hear a door open, and as Mom lets go of my hair, she shoves me down some concrete steps and into clammy darkness.

I freeze in panic and grip the banister as I realize where I am. Halfway down the steps into the basement.

When I was a child, I was terrified of the dark. A terror Mom stoked by telling me chilling bedtime stories about all the monsters that live down here. The zombie that has lost its legs and drags itself by its arms across the floor, searching for warm flesh to seize and sink its broken teeth into. An evil witch withfingernails like knives that likes to feast on children’s entrails. A boogeyman that skins you alive, laughing and laughing while you scream and beg for mercy.

Mom locked me in the basement whenever I was naughty, for hours on end, until I was sick and nearly fainting from crying. After two seconds of standing on the cold concrete stairs, gazing into black nothingness, all my childhood terror floods back, and I realize something terrible.

I’m still afraid of the dark.

“Mom, no!” I scream and race back up the stairs. Mom’s expression blazes with cruel vindictiveness as she slams the door closed in my face and locks it.

“Mom, please let me out.” I hammer on the door with both fists, screaming and sobbing as panic overwhelms me. I’m old enough to know that there are no monsters in the basement, but knowing doesn’t stop freezing black fingers of terror from wrapping around my throat and choking the life out of me. My panic rises up and spills over until I can’t breathe.

“You can stay in there and think about what you’ve done, Rieta. An obnoxious, disobedient child must be punished.”

Mom’s high heels click on the tiles, fading to nothing. The light switch is on the outside. I’m trapped in the dark. No matter how hard I rattle the doorknob and beg her, she’s not coming back.

I’m hopelessly lost in a storm of screaming and crying, and I sink down until my knees are pressed against the gritty concrete. There’s a sliver of light along the bottom of the door, and I focus on that. While there’s still a tiny bit of illumination, the darkness can’t hurt me. It can’t hurt me. I tell myself that over and over again as I rock back and forth.

Someone’s moving around in the living room and the kitchen. It must be Mom cleaning up from the party. Once she’s finished, maybe she’ll come and let me out.

If I’m very quiet.

If I’m very good.

An eternity later, the light snaps off. Mom isn’t coming to let me out. A scream rises up my throat and bursts from my lips as I realize I’m going to be locked down here all night.

I shriek for Mom to come let me out, but I’m answered by silence. I’m all alone. No one is coming to save me from the monsters. The blackness is so absolute that I feel dizzy. I can’t even see my own hand in front of my face.

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