Page 17 of Loss and Damages
“Nonna’s here, and she’s cooking. Get up and have a meal with me.”
“No.”
“She’ll be happy if you do.”
“Leo is dead! How can you think about food? Selfish.”
“It’s not selfish to want to see you healthy.”
I try not to let her get to me. The conversation is going as well as I thought it would.
“I have nothing left. Leave me be.”
“Mama.” Her words don’t hurt me. I’ve been nothing to her since the day a nurse laid me in her arms at the hospital and less than nothing the day Leo was born.
“Your whole life hasn’t been ripped out of your hands. You’ve never loved, Dominic. You don’t know what I’m feeling.”
“I loved Leo.” I did love my brother. We didn’t get along and we didn’t see eye to eye, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t love him, don’t miss him.
“You love money.”
I love money because my father does. The bigger our bank accounts the more satisfied my father is and the more approval I earn.
“That’s not all I love, Mama.”
Finally she looks at me, her dark eyes full of misery and anger. “Then why aren’t you married? Why have you no children? You have no room in your heart for anyone but yourfather. Leo meant nothing to you, I mean nothing to you. Get out of my room.”
I want to point out she means as much to me as I mean to her, but she wouldn’t understand. That to be able to give love, you have to be loved. She’s never loved me as a mother should love her child, and I’ve never found a woman who would love me for who I am and not my money. Until that day comes, I can never love anyone besides the members of my family who show me affection.
“Why do you think I can find a woman who will love me if my own mother can’t?” I ask, gripping her shoulder and preventing her from turning over. “You’ve never gotten to know me, have never taken an interest in anything I’ve ever done. I’m not Leo and I never tried to be.”
She doesn’t say anything, pursing her lips and closing her eyes in an unsuccessful attempt to block me out. Still, I want to give her something. Her pain is mine, despite our relationship. The purpose of my visit was to comfort her and possibly find a small amount of comfort in return, but all I did was make things worse.
I try to salvage our conversation. “He was seeing someone.”
She stiffens. She’s listening, and through a sick feeling in my gut, I continue. “He was driving back from her house the night he died. She lives in Hollow Lake. An artist. He was in love with her.”
“How do you know?” She doesn’t want to ask, but curiosity got the better of her.
“I went to see her. Maybe you remember her. She came to the wake. A brunette, shorter. Elegant. She was holding an umbrella.”
Her hair rustles against the pillow as she shakes her head. My mother wouldn’t have remembered anyone. She was grievingtoo terribly to notice. That I did will be another strike against me.
“I want to see her. I want to meet this woman Leo gave his heart to.”
“Mama—” That is not a good idea, but I knew she would want to when I said it. I knew she would want to, and I said it anyway because it gives me an excuse to drive out there and see her again.
“Bring her to me.” She turns and gives me what I want. Her attention, a touch to my hand. “Bring her to me, Dom. Let me look at her.”
“Okay.”
She squeezes my fingers, and it’s the first positive contact I’ve had from her in years.
Jemma will hate me for using her, but it will be just a few hours of her time. Dinner. She can give Leo’s mother that, I think.
She can. Whether she will is a different story.
I sit with my mother while she grips my hand, her shallow breathing wisping over the guilty pounding of my heart.
