Page 81 of Loss and Damages
“Leo painted.”
She can’t stop staring, her fingers hovering over a baby duck.
“Yes, he did. I thought you would want them. Leo and I were never close, and I have no need to keep them. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”
I lean the canvas against the crate and turn to go.
“Dominic.”
I tense but don’t look at her. I’ve done what I came to do, and now I want to speak to my father.
“What?”
“Did . . . Jemma . . . did she tell you anything?”
Confused, I face her. “About Leo’s paintings? Only that he would paint with her in the workshop attached to her gallery. That’s all he did when he went to Hollow Lake. They spent time together and painted.” I think of Edgar but hold my tongue. I’m allowed to keep some secrets, too.
“No. About—” She stops and her face pales. “It’s time you know that Raphael isn’t Leo’s father.”
I didn’t hear her correctly. “I’m sorry?”
“Will you sit? Come sit and I’ll have Gia pour coffee.”
“No. I think you’ll tell me what you mean. Right here, right now.” Leo is only my half-brother? How could that be?
She stares at the painting as she recounts her college days and her university lover. How her father, my grandfather, wanted her to marry Raphael Milano, and his request and heart attack destroyed all her dreams.
My mouth goes dry, listening to how she so simply explains the reason for all her hate toward me since I was born. She never loved my father, and by default, never loved me. Leo was her everything, born to a man she loved since she met him at twenty, and still today, the man she’s been having an affair with for the past thirty-two years.
“He doesn’t know Leo was his son.”
“No. I wanted to protect Leo, and Antonio. I had to keep the secret close to my heart.”
“Why did you ask if Jemma told me? She knows.”
Rage rips through me but dissipates just as quickly as it consumed me. Jemma didn’t keep it from me to hurt me.
“She knows. I told her some of the story at the fundraiser, then she came to see me not long ago and asked me to tell her the rest. I took a chance she would keep my secret, and she did. She would know the story was not hers to tell.”
“Then why are you telling me now?” I’ve never hit a woman, but I want to slap my mother for turning my life into a living hell when I did nothing to deserve it but exist.
She grips my arm and I need all my willpower not to shake her off. “I want you to ask your father to grant me a divorce. Antonio wants to marry me. I’ll leave this marriage with nothing.” She meets my eyes, and I know she means me, as well. If she walks away from Raphael Milano, she’ll walk away from his son.
“Why would I do anything for you?”
My mother lifts her chin and a hard glint comes into her eyes. Jemma is made of the same steel. I never asked what ethnicity she is, but Italian blood runs in her veins all the same.
“Think of what I told you and now think of your own position. What if Jemma was promised to another?”
“I don’t have feelings for her. Your little scenario does nothing.”
“You may hate me, but I am still your mother. I see the way your eyes heat whenever I say her name. I see the way your lips tremble when you think of her. She’s your lover, unlike Leo who used her for other things. You’ve taken her to bed, perhaps already made her pregnant—”
I try to keep my eyes from widening in surprise, but her knowing smile tells me I’m not successful.
“You want to marry her, now think of being told you cannot. What does it do to you to imagine another man’s baby in her belly and what it took to put it there? If he wasn’t kind? If he used force? If she cried?”
I know precisely what my mother’s talking about. Didn’t I ask Jemma more times than I care to admit if she and Leo had had a sexual relationship? How many times did I ask her if she was pregnant? Because I didn’t want the nightmare of her belonging to someone else to be true.
