Page 65 of Forbidden Surrogate

My answer remains intentionally vague, a detail he won’t miss. “Out of town.”

“Is the girl with you?”

“Don’t expect me to answer any questions about the mother of my child.”

He sighs. “I have offended you.”

“You will change your opinion once the baby comes. Until then, I’ll be keeping Delphine away from any more potential outbursts from this family.”

“I didn’t ask your brothers to kidnap her, Luigi. I swear. You’re my first born son. I might disagree with the way you do some things, but you’re a leader. Not a follower. I can’t expect you to suddenly be a different man from the one I raised.”

The worst part about listening to him say this right now is not being able to tell how sincere he really is. I’ve heard my father lie and cajole when necessary to achieve control for this family. Could he lie to his own son? Is my father that set on having an Italian mother for his grandchildren?

I can’t take that risk.

“The baby won’t be here for a couple months. If there’s a death in the family, I’ll come out of hiding. Until then, I need this space.”

He pauses for a long time. It took a lot of training for me to stop feeling pure terror during my father’s long, thoughtful pauses. I want to trust that his initial bigoted reaction was out of surprise, not genuine commitment to hatred. But I can’t take that risk with my blood. Even if my father doesn’t see it yet, the baby growing in Delphine is ours. A Taviani.

“Do you want Renzo and Gino punished?” He asks. “They say you had the chance to kill them and you didn’t.”

I can imagine my father sipping whiskey at his desk as he ruminates solutions to this family problem. My father isn’t above brutality towards his own family. He might be questioning who deserves greater punishment. According to our family “laws”, a series of mostly unspoken rules, loyalty to family surpasses all other expectations. So why did my brothers, who were just educated in our ways at their Sicilian college, so easily give away their morals?

Angela always believed the old world education would only make them more depraved. Maybe she was right. Still, I don’t want them punished. Delphine defended them and although I don’t know why, I trust her judgment.

“I’ll take what they owe me when the time is right. Leave them be.”

“Who’s gonna keep the kids in line while you’re gone?” My father asks in a final plea for me to reveal… anything.

“We’re all adults. It’s only a couple months. I’ll be in touch, I swear.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to send them on a mission to somewhere bleak like Oklahoma?”

“I’m sure.”

I don’t bother asking my father what business he could possibly have in Oklahoma. Our conversation winds down and before long, it’s over. I slip back into bed with Delphine, feeling better every moment about my choice to protect her from the wrath of my family further down the line.

The only thing I’m missing from Delphine is an even deeper commitment — a promise before God and our families to be together forever.

I wrap my arms around her and press my hand to her tummy. She doesn’t like me touching her too much, but it’s a miracle to feel the baby move. As I touch her stomach, I feel something move. It’s our little one. We don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl yet, but I sometimes imagine him as a boy with caramel skin, as if my skin color and Delphine’s were mixed in a paint pot. He might be darker than that too and I wouldn’t mind as long as he was still proud to be Italian.

The baby responds to my hand moving along Delphine’s bump with even more movement. It feels like we’re communicating in a special, silent language.

“I love you,” I whisper to both of them. “I truly love both of you.”

Two Weeks Later

Her body changes so quickly that I hardly appreciate one part of her pregnancy before a new change or symptom develops. I’m sorry I missed the beginning. I wish I could have been there for her then, so I’m working overtime to be there for her now. Dad knows I’m out of town, but I didn’t explain more than that, and I also didn’t tell him how close I was going to be.

The place is Ithaca, NY, a sleepy town with an Ivy League school and nothing else going on except that. It’s the opposite of Buffalo in many respects, with the main similarities being the upstate New York attitude. My “safe house” is a small cabin out on Cayuga Lake and there are enough competent OB/GYNs in the area that I have an appointment for Delphine this Friday.

Everything between us feels good, except for my missing sister.

I have no answers aboutwhathappened to Angela, except her departure prompted Delphine to reach out to me and might be one of the only reasons she survived Renzo and Gino’s kidnapping stunt. I can’t imagine what would have happened had Benny Gravina dragged her back to Pittsburgh or worse, over the border to Canada where I couldn’t trace her at all.

I don’t want to imagine life without Delphine. It’s bad enough right now living without Angela. Don’t get me wrong, she was still a nightmare of a roommate. But she’s my sister. And the last time I let her out into the world without supervision, she lost the ability to do the one thing she loved the most. Mikey and Peter are right about being patient with her.

Did I somehow screw up by not being patient enough? It’s possible. Whatever the case may be, I won’t make the same mistakes with Delphine. I want her close to me and I want her to feel secure in our connection.

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