Page 8 of Sugar, Sprinkles, and Secrets
“Hi, Papà! I miss you! Can you come see my room? I want to show you my new toys and we need to race my cars and where are you? Are you coming here soon or can we go home soon? But I don’t know, I kind of like it here and it’s not as cold as it was at home. Do you miss me? I miss you.” Dante’s rapid-fire questions shouldn’t surprise either of us, but I can see it kills my brother that he can’t just say “yes” and show up.
“I hope I’m able to see all of it in person as soon as possible, Dante, and of course, I miss you all so much. I can’t wait for you to show me all your toys, and then you know what?”
“What?”
“I think we will need to buy a bunch of new ones too, don’t you think?”
“Yeah!” Dante’s face lights up like Luca just promised a second Christmas morning.
“Luca! They have enough toys. They don’t need more.” They just need their daddy to come home already, but I don’t have to tell my brother that. He looks older than the last time I saw his face and the stress of everything is aging him faster than it should.
“Hi, principessa. How are you, baby?” Luca asks Mila who looks up at me before responding.
“Hi, Papà. I’m good. Where are you?” Her little voice shatters my heart. It seems like an easy question, but the answer is so complicated.
“I’m still somewhere safe, you don’t need to worry, baby. As soon as I can, I’ll be joining you guys. I promise. But tell me everything that’s been happening. I don’t know how long we have, but I want to hear everything—from all of you.” The kids take over telling him all about adventures at their daycare, what they want for Christmas, and how excited they are that it won’t be as cold this winter as it always was back home. Before I know it, forty-five minutes have flown by, and I can tell by how Luca is looking off the screen that he’s getting told to wrap it up.
“I love you all so much, and I can’t wait to hug you guys. Keep listening to your Zia, okay? I’ll talk to you as soon as I can. And Cara? Grazie per tutto. I love you guys.”
“Of course, we love you and we will see you soon.” And just like that, Luca is gone. I really have no idea where he’s being kept safe, but judging by his attire today, it isn’t somewhere tropical.
UNKNOWN
Sugar delivery tomorrow morning 0700.
Great, it looks like my morning gets to start with coffee, baking, and a visit by a U.S. marshal.
Chapter six
“I never thought we’d be making our own Thanksgiving dinner like this,” my brother Chase says as he pulls the wrapped meat from the fridge to prep for the smoker. I would argue that all of us Riley boys are nice, but Chase is definitely the nicest out of the three of us. But this year has also brought out a side of anger that is completely out of the norm for him—and I’m hopeful that he can find his way back to himself sooner than later. Maybe anger isn’t even the right word, but it’s like the stress of everything dulled his light, right before my eyes.
“I think it’s a fair statement for most of our year, right?” Tommy asks as he chops the ingredients for the stuffing. Tommy would proclaim he’s the realest in the group, but he can easily skew darker. I am much more pragmatic in my approach to things, which is challenging when dealing with so much bullshit at once. I wasn’t sure how Forrest Falls would react. We could easily be lumped in with our mother and cast out, but thankfully, people are able to separate us from our mother’s crimes.
The holidays are putting a giant spotlight on everything. We just need to get through the holiday season and then we will have tackled our final significant firsts without our mother in our lives. It would almost be easier if we believed the insanity plea, but my father, brothers, and I have all come to the same conclusion on our own. She has a host of official diagnoses from her doctors, but it boils down to the fact that the woman that raised us is an egocentric narcissist who lacks empathy for others and still refuses to take any responsibility for her actions. Even with herfreedom taken from her, and locked away from society and her life, she still doesn’t think she did anything inherently wrong.
My mother is a psychopath.
And our family is trying to find our way forward together. Regardless of what we’ve been through this year, the calendars still turn, and the holidays are still coming. I offered to have everything catered in—I can easily afford it—but when Dad mentioned he wanted us to make new traditions and Thanksgiving should always be homemade, I couldn’t really argue with the guy. None of us are great cooks, but there’s plenty of room and top-of-line appliances to try, and copious amounts of counterspace to hold our efforts.
Chase divides the meat into containers for the different marinades. “Did you guys stop at the house to see the renovations?”
Our mother was arrested after a standoff with the FBI—a thought I still can’t have without shaking my head in absolute shock. The woman we thought we knew and loved was a façade of a manipulative monster. We weren’t blind to everything she had done over the years; we just had no idea the length she was willing to go to get her way. There wasn’t a trial because she quickly pleaded insanity, and her attorney secured her an indefinite stay at a mental institution. Dad paid her legal bills and fulfilled his duty to take care of her in that sense, but the betrayal of being lied to for so many years was just too much for him to process. Every time he visited her, it would follow the same pattern, and our mother would talk about what they would do when she was released, but that day isn’t coming. Marcie Claire Riley will never experience freedom again, and sometimes, I can’t help but wonder if she really even grasps the severity of what she did. I only visited her a handful of times, but all it did was stress me out more, and eventually, Dad admitted he wasn’t planning on visiting her anymore, which somehow let us off the hook.
Except Chase.
He only visited her once with me when she was being held by the FBI and has refused to visit her since. In his mind, it was allsomehow his fault because the victims of her insanity included his high school girlfriend and the murder of her first husband.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Chase never visited her again. Despite what my brother thinks, he’s not culpable for her actions, and I don't blame him at all for being unable to deal with her.
“The new outdoor kitchen will be great in the summer,” Chase chimes in. Previously, there was a sunroom at the back of the house, but this summer it was torn down—after we had one too many beers and took a sledgehammer to some walls. The kitchen is being completely remodeled and extended into a combined indoor-outdoor entertainment space. There will not be a single shade of light blue or cream in the entire house. Dad hired Finn Callahan to do the renovation and Dad has been staying at Tommy’s house while the major structural changes take place. We talked to him about just selling the house, but Dad insisted that we’ve had enough stolen from us, and he wouldn’t give up the dream home he built because of a nightmare. He settled on extensive renovations of a few key areas of the house, including the kitchen, former sunroom space, master bedroom, and living room. Finn suggested adding a poker area to the outdoor space and we’re all looking forward to the first game sometime in the new year.
I also hope the new year holds some joy for my little brother. He’s barely smiled this year. Chase has the best laugh out of the three of us and I miss hearing it.
“Guess who I ran into when I was in Oak Point on Monday?” Tommy grins as he mixes sage, thyme, rosemary, and black pepper together.
“Who was that?” I ask as I grab a fresh round of beers from my fridge. When Jack wanted to build something in Forrest Falls, it didn’t take long for Lux to have a satellite office included in the plans. Jack designed the top floor to be his personal residence then split the floor below his into two large lofts and gave Wells and I the option of each buying one. Our lofts are mirror floor plans of each other, with a large primary space, two guest rooms, three and a half baths, and plenty of entertaining space.
The building also has an awesome—and private—rooftop space with an enclosed gym, a massive heated pool, and a spacious entertaining area. Only residents of the building can access it, which is a really nice perk. Living in the same building as my primary office location makes the commute to work easy, and I like having a secure place to get away from crowds—including the press. The arrest and fallout were a public relations nightmare for Lux with Jack and I both having family members involved, and I will forever be grateful that our decades-long friendship was strong enough to weather such a vicious storm.
