Page 67 of Mafie Trials

I lift the cover and Evie gasps as the image of my mother looks back at us. “I was a realism artist, which is why I always took my failures so seriously. If they didn’t look real, then what was the point? My mother was the one to remind me that anyone can take a picture of something real, but only an artist can capture the essence of a moment and share its soul.”

And that’s what’s looking back at us now, the essence of joy and love from my mother.

“She would have loved you and the fight in you. She would have ached to capture your resiliency to stay in this world and put it on a canvas.”

A tear falls from Evie’s eye. I swipe it away, moving to the next one.

“This is how she would tell us stories. I picture her telling you of all the silly things I used to do as a child while we laugh, and my face turning red from embarrassment.” I uncover the next painting to reveal my mother in a pose, mocking a child-like run from when she would recount her sister chasing her after she painted a random object in her room.

“And finally,” I say as I move her to the last one. The hardest one for me to come face to face with, “I picture her looking down on us, watching as I make you mine and claim a sense of family I believed was lost forever.”

I reveal the final painting, the one of my mother as an angel. It’s much larger than the others and towers over us as if she really were looking down on us at this exact moment. Evie’s hand moves to her mouth as she takes it all in.

“She’s beautiful,” she says as she lets go of my arm and walks directly under her. I pull out my phone to snap a picture of this moment, never wanting to forget this.

The light behind the painting catches just right, and I swear my mother comes to life for the briefest of moments. For just a second, she’s here with us, smiling just as I remember her. My heart swells with both joy and sadness mixed together.

Evie turns back to me and runs into my arms, wrapping hers around my neck and holding me close as tears wet our cheeks in the silence.

After a minute, I break our embrace and look down at her. “So, Lucky Charm, would you have dinner with us?”

Her smile stretches across her face. It’s so beautiful I can’t help the twitch in my fingers with an urge to paint her. I haven’t painted a single thing since my father burned my mother's images, but I’m finding so many moments I want to cements onto a canvas with Evie.

I have dinner delivered and Evie laughs when I pull out the giant sandwich. My mother loved sandwiches because she could eat them one handed while painting and there was a bakery she preferred to go to because the bread was perfect. We eat as I tell her more stories about my mother and my childhood.

“So you and your father are no longer close, I’m guessing?” she asks with her mouth half full of food.

I laugh at her assessment. “I don’t think my father has said a single nice thing to me since my mother died. I think he partially blames me. My mother was going to stay home with me because I was sick, and she planned on missing her girls trip with Damien and Alexi’s mothers.”

I pick up the cheesecake, the very same one my mother would buy whenever we had guests. She would pretend she made it herself.“It’s our little secret,”she would say as she carefully removed it from the pan and placed it on our own.

“Every year, they would all pick a destination and go for two weeks to reset and relax. The boys and I would normally stay at one of our houses during that time along with a nanny since our fathers worked so much. They would usually all spend one day with us though, and take us to do something fun.”

I think back to how things used to be before Damien’s father changed and grimace. He was never a doting father, but he would always look at Damien with a sense of pride. Now all his gaze holds for anyone is malice.

“For some reason, things with Damien’s dad started getting worse. The year before they were in the accident, it was like he no longer paid attention to any of us. I told my mother to go on her trip and not to worry about me. It was only a small cold and would be over in a few days. I didn’t want her to miss out on her time. So, I convinced her to go at the last minute. She called Alexi’s mother and they changed their plans to come pick her up before heading to the airfield. She was so excited when she left the house that she forgot to tell my father goodbye.”

I clear my throat and sit back, no longer interested in the meal. “He got the call when we were sitting on the couch together. I was eating a bowl of hot soup. When his face dropped, I knew something had happened. But the venom he shot at me while spilling the burning liquid down my body still haunts me some nights. He said it was my fault.”

“Do you believe that?”

“Yes and no.” I rub the back of my neck not knowing how to explain, but Evie finds the words for me.

“I get that. For the longest time after my parents died, I believed it was my fault. Sometimes I find myself falling into that trap again. Dr. K actually helped me see that their choices were their own. I know they were just trying to protect me. But, if they had only been honest with me from the beginning, so much would be different.”

I look back at the painting of my mother smiling, and it warms my heart as much as it breaks it.

“Our fathers had a joint funeral,” I tell her. “I don’t know if it was for them or for us, but there was no way any of us would have survived three different days of that kind of sorrow. Yet, seeing them all three together, their coffins sealed because the wreck was so bad, it made me feel like my mother was less special in that moment.”

Reaching out, I take Evie’s hand in mine, trying not to let the grief overwhelm me.

“She deserved to be mourned as an individual, not as a part of a group that the three of them had no choice but to form. Our fathers all kept them on the outside, and the only way they seemed to be okay with that was because they found their own thing between each other.”

I clear my throat, and she squeezes my hand. “I think seeing them up there together like that, it felt like our fathers were claiming them as a group that I don’t think they ever would have chosen to be in, given the choice. Our mothers were all strong, they were all their own people. They could have given so much to the Bratva and made it considerably better.”

I think back on the words I said to Boris after I heard what he said to Alexi in Evie’s hospital room.

“I never want it to be like that with us, so if you find us pushing you out, I want you to tell me. You’re a part of whatever we do, whoever we become. Do you understand? Can you do that for me?”

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