Page 214 of Bitter Poetry
I’m shaking; she’s shaking. Just holding her feels impossibly good.
I hear the creak as my father wheels his chair over, and I break away to take his hand.
“Mela, my baby. I have made such a terrible hash of things.”
“Not now, Papa,” I whisper. “Not now.”
“Did Eileen show you where you’ll be staying?” Dante says, interrupting a moment.
“Yes,” Cedro says. “You are leaving?”
“I am. Leon needs me, but I’ll return later tonight if I can.”
“Please keep me informed, Dante,” my father says.
With those words, I’m acutely aware of the changed dynamics. There was a time when my father would have demanded an update with a polite air of entitlement rather than polite entreaty.
I squeeze my father’s hand and then turn and go to Dante.
“Of course,” Dante says, only he’s looking at me approaching, not my father.
He barely spoke to me at the hospital. Why does he suddenly feel like a stranger?
Is it him or me?
He’s tired. I’ve broken things between us with my lack of trust. His expression is so guarded that it makes me want to cry.
He lifts his hand and traces his fingertips down my cheek before capturing my chin. Then he leans down and plants his lips over mine.
My eyes feel unnaturally wide at his public display of affection.
“I’ll see you later, Carmela.” His words, for my ears only, wrap a sense of intimacy around us. He reaches into his jacket pocket and takes something out that I can’t yet see, clutchedwithin his fist. “You left something behind. Something you promised never to take off.”
My breath catches as he turns my hand over and drops a familiar heart-shaped pendant into my palm.
“I expect to see it where it belongs when I get back.” His voice drops to a whisper. “Or there will be hell to pay.”
He winks and then turns and strides away.
The necklace feels like it singes my palm. I shove it deep into my pocket. When I turn back, I find my father and sister poorly disguising their interest.
“It was always Dante,” I say, my empty hand instinctively reaching for my throat, and the place where a necklace should be.
We sit down and we talk. My sister sits beside me, her hand in mine, and my father opposite.
“I failed you, Carmela,” my father says. “And now I have to live with that.”
“I forgive you,” I say.
“I don’t deserve it. My mistakes cost you both your mother, and me my wife. Then I let you marry him. Worse, I was the one who told you to.”
I swipe the fresh tears that spill down my cheeks. “What is done is done. I can’t go back and fix it. I’ve enough guilt from my own mistakes.”
“Your mistakes are nothing,” he says bitterly.
“They nearly cost me Christian,” I say softly, then look away, realizing that I’ve said too much.
“You care about him,” my father says.
