Page 106 of Wounded King
"I didn't change any of your given names. It would have been too confusing for you. I only changed mine and our last name, so that Enzo couldn't find us."
Love for her wells inside me. I can't even imagine all the things she went through for us. She is the strongest woman I know.
"There was no fire, was there?" Elaine wants to know.
"No," Mom shakes her head. "I had to leave in the middle of the night, with nothing but you and your sister."
"Hmm, false paper, a false identity, that must have cost quite a bit…" Lee suggests.
"Eleven million dollars can buy good papers," Marcello replies.
Mom glares at him.
"What are you talking about?" Elaine laughs dryly. "Mom didn't have eleven million dollars to buy…" she trails off, looking at me for support.
Marcello squeezes my hand again, reminding me to trust him, which I do. Now more than ever. He knew that the men who attacked us were after me, not him, and he came anyway—well, maybe he didn't know it at the time—I amend. But he must have found out at some point, I remember him telling me we needed to talk the moment… when he returned from… a small shiver runs down my spine. I knew where he went last night, after the attack. I didn't want to think about it—like always, Vi, like always—but I knew he went to interrogate the men who had attacked us. That's when he found out they were after me—and then he asked you to marry him. To protect me. Not from a threat against him, but from my own father. My heart thumps hard against my ribs, and my affection for him grows stronger.
I lean against him, waiting for the next bomb to drop.
"How much money did you steal from your husband, Bianca? Around eleven mill are still in your accounts." Marcello drops.
"You have eleven million dollars in your accounts, right now?" Elaine's jaw drops.
"Why did you work so many jobs if you had that much money?" Sebastian shakes his head in disbelief—a disbelief I fully share with him. At times, Mom worked three jobs to keep a roof over our heads.
"It's insurance money. In case we had to run again, I wasn't about to touch it." Mom says, but there is a slight waver in her voice and an expression on her face I can't quite decipher when she looks over at Marcello. His phone dings with an incoming message. He reads it, then stares straight at Mom, "That's a nice pricey place you have there, in the West Village."
"What are you talking about? Mom lives in Queens," I protest, but chills break out underneath my skin, telling me this day is far from over when it comes to bad news and lies.
"Okay, so hold on," Elaine's face scrunches up, "let me see if I've got this straight. You're telling me that I had to babysit these two," she points from me to Sebastian, "since I was eight, while you worked three jobs, and all the while, you hadeleven milliondollars sitting in your account?" Her voice rises with every word.
"It didn't hurt you," Mom turns from Elaine to Sebastian and me, "or them, to live more humbly."
"Do you have any idea how much the other kids picked on us for always wearing second-hand clothes?" Elaine continues. "While you… you…" She points at Mom's outfit, which, now that she does, I realize is a lot better than our clothes were when we were growing up.It's because she doesn't have to buy them for you anymore, I tell myself, but at the same time, I remember the time in high school when I asked for a prom dress, and she sent me toGoodwill. It was one of the few times I'd argued with her, pointing out that she always wore new clothes.I have to look professional for the job, was her answer.
Elaine is still talking, but my mind goes back to that prom dress. The one I saw at Dillard's, where I'd gone with my friends to look for their dresses. It hadn't even been that much. The others chose dresses in the two hundreds and more, while the one I picked was marked down to eighty, because it had a little stain. I asked the saleslady to put it aside and went to the hair salon where Mom worked.Or told us she worked. I remember now that I didn't find her there, and when I asked for her, the receptionist told me I must have been mistaken; no Linda Meade had ever worked there. She'd been adamant about it, claiming she would know, having been there for thirty years. Back then, I thought it was a mistake—a crazy receptionist. I was far too focused on the stupid dress to stop and think about it. But now… now I look at it in a new light.
I tune back into the conversation around me to hear Elaine complaining about a ratty pair of tennis shoes Mom made her wear one summer. One pair. All summer.Because we couldn't afford sandals. "How long… how long has she had that other place? In the West Village?" I ask Marcello. My voice is low, but even Elaine must have heard it, because she stops midsentence.
"Yeah, Mom, how long?" she repeats my question in a hard, cutting voice.
"Twenty years," Marcello supplies.
"Alright, enough." Mom rises. "I won't hear any more about any of this."
"This is un-fucking-believable," Elaine curses, and before she can upset the baby, Lee takes him out of her arms.
"So I carved out some happiness for myself," Mom wails as more tears streak down her cheeks. "Can you blame me? I was all alone. With three children." Mom's voice trembles. She places her hand over her heart, steadying herself. "You don't understand what it was like. You only saw your side of it. But I was terrified every single day. Not just of Enzo. But of the world. Of what would happen if I failed. I worked myself to the bone trying to give you some kind of life—any kind of life—where you were safe. Where you weren't pawns in some mob war!"
"Safe?" Elaine shoots back, "Watching you cry over overdue bills that didn't even exist?"
"That was for your benefit!" She snaps, then quickly softens her tone again. "I mean… I wanted you to understand the value of things. Of hard work. You've grown up strong, haven't you? Smart. Self-sufficient. That was me. I raised you that way."
She's crying again, her voice is trembling like it always does when she's emotional. And I want to go to her. God, I want to wrap my arms around her and tell her it's okay, that she did her best, that I understand.
Because until today, Ibelievedthat. That she was the strongest woman I knew. That she worked herself raw—three jobs, constant exhaustion—just to keep a roof over our heads and shoes on our feet. She'd come home smelling like bleach and coffee grinds and cheap perfume, and I thought it was the smell of survival.
But now... I wonder. My chest aches with it—the tug-of-war between love and betrayal, between what I want to believe and the ugly truths that have been laid bare. I look back on the past with newly opened eyes, and I'm confused by what I see.
