Page 52 of The Vow

“I didn’t cause what happened to Ma, I didn’t…” Carmelo couldn’t say it.

Mario looked at him with rage and hate. “She died bringing you into the world-”

“Here we go.” Carmelo dipped his head, knowing what Mario was going to say. Knowing it word for word. This was how every argument played out. Every conversation descended into this. Every time they tried to do anything together. Every family occasion. It always came back to this, and for Pap and Mario, it always would.

Mario ranted his usual script as Carmelo stood up and followed his Pap out the kitchen door, into the garage.

“Hey, hey! I haven’t finished with you! Where do you think you’re going? Where do you think you’re fucking-”

And thankfully, Carmelo shut the door on his brother.

The garage was cooler and quieter than the kitchen had been. Carmelo’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim light. The change in atmosphere was a relief.

He took a few quiet steps further into the garage, very aware he was entering his father’s inner sanctum. His father was there, of course, boxes out over the workbench that had never been used for DIY.

Carmelo looked at the boxes. Old photographs. Ah shit. He cleared his throat. “Look, Pap, I’m not trying to be difficult…” He paused, he didn’t quite know what to say, after all the years, all the tension, all the fights, how could he clear the air?

He knew this would either heal them or end them, and it was looking unfortunately like the last option.

Carmelo gritted his teeth and tried again. “I don’t know why-”

“In 1970, we came from Italy, on a boat, can you believe that?” His father started, a far away yet authoritative voice spoke.

Ah fuck, his father was in some sort of reflective, uninterruptible mood. Well Carmelo had no choice but to listen now. To strap in for the ride. Listening was worth something, surely? He’d read that somewhere, he thought vaguely.

“We were so full of excitement for our new life in America. The land of hope and dreams. We had so many. We moved here to escape the Mafia, Italian… we landed in New York, we sailed right into that harbor with Lady Liberty standing so tall and proud… we worked hard, we found a neighborhood to call home, we found an apartment, found a restaurant… and then when we got there, what else did we find?”

Carmelo swallowed. He had heard bits of this before, usually in arguments, usually followed by a ‘you don’t know what we’ve done for you’. But he got the feeling that that wasn’t going to come now.

“Another Mafia, there in NY. Wanting us to pay protection money. Wanting to bring bags of cash in, wanting us to put it through the tills to clean it for them. They were Armenian.”

Carmelo closed his eyes, dread building in his chest.

“We did what we could to resist but in the end we had no choice, we laundered their money. We did what they said. Until one day, they came with a bag of cash and a glint in their eye, and watched your mother in a way that I didn’t like.”

Carmelo felt sick now.

“And they said they wanted her, as well as everything else we did… I said no, of course, she said no… it didn’t matter. They tied me up and made me watch. It wasn’t a Zakarian family member, it was one of their cronies. Your mother was raped by the Armenian Mafia.”

Carmelo tried to clear his throat. “Did you report it? Go to the police?”

His father glared at him through wet eyes. “No, you foolish boy, we couldn’t, they would have killed us. Mario was a baby, we had too much to lose.”

“Police could have got names, you should have-”

“Don’t you dare to presume you can tell me what I should have done, hmm?” His father flared. “We moved, we left what little we had and fled in the night, from New York to LA, then up here, to get away from them. And we had, we really had…”

That’s when his Dad fell apart. He couldn’t voice it. Carmelo knew the rest of the story though. She’d fallen pregnant with him, it had been a difficult pregnancy, and unfortunately she’d died giving birth to Carmelo. Leaving his father all alone.

There was a pause. Carmelo let it stretch. It wasn’t awkward. Just painful. Full of grief and pain and regret.

“How could you, after what they put this family through?” His father suddenly burst out again erratically.

“I didn’t know! I have no idea what they put this family through, I thought you moved ‘cause Mama wanted better weather-”

“She wanted closure, we all did…” Papi said quietly now. The fight had left him. The rage had burnt out.

He bent slightly and thumbed through the boxes on the table in front of him. His wizened old hands shaking slightly. That was new, Carmelo thought. Carmelo looked down at what his father was thumbing through.

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