Chapter Twenty-Six
Terra
My mother took a drink of wine, lowered her glass, and then smiled. “It’s just around the corner.”
It seemed odd sitting in a bar with her, but I felt we needed privacy. I rubbed my hands together, hoping to wring out my nervous tension, but it didn’t work. “Were you scared before you and Dad got married?”
“Scared? No, I wasn’t scared. I loved him. I admired him. I was so happy.”
“Things were different then,” I explained. “There was nothing to worry about. You didn’t have internet, and everything wasn’t a competition. Pictures weren’t going to be on Instagram and Facebook when the wedding was over, and you didn’t have to worry about how many ‘likes’ the pictures of you in your dress were going to get.”
She waved at me. “Who cares?”
“I care.”
“You should care about nothing but him. Your dress is beautiful, you’re beautiful, and Michael is a perfect gentleman.”
“I know, but everything’s changed. People can be so hateful now. All it takes is—”
“They can only be hateful if you let them,” she said. “They don’t hate my pictures.”
“You don’t have Instagram. Or Facebook. Or Snapchat.”
She arched her eyebrow. “That was my point. Don’t post pictures of it, then you won’t have to worry.”
“Other people will post them. There’s no way around it. It makes me nervous.”
“It will be fine. The people who go to your wedding will love it. The others? Who cares what they think?”
I wished I could look at it the way she did. There were two weeks to go, and I felt like I was going to vomit. “I can’t even drink my wine. I’m a nervous wreck.”
“Stop worrying.” She reached for my hand. “It will be the perfect wedding.”
“I hope so.”
“Your father is so proud of you and Michael. You’re all he talks about.”
I felt like such a fool for hiding everything from my father, and from Michael. If I would have known everything was going to end up the way it did, I would have told Michael on the day we met the truth about who I was.
Hindsight’s always twenty-twenty, though.
I shrugged slightly. “I never would have guessed it.”
“I wouldn’t have, either,” she said. “But your father likes Michael. He sees in him what he doesn’t see in Peter. But he’s changed. He’s accepting Peter now. For who he is.”
She leaned over the edge of the table. “Jail changed him.”
“Papa?”
She nodded. “He’s different now. He’s more kind, and he’s concerned with how I feel about things. The other night, when he got done working, we sat on the couch and watched television together.”
It may have seemed trivial to most people, but I knew it wasn’t. My father never sat down and watched television. His life consisted of working, eating, and sleeping. If he was awake, what he was doing was work related.
I looked at her in disbelief. “Really?”
Her eyes widened slightly, and then she smiled. “Two nights ago, he went and got ice cream. He was back in fifteen minutes. We sat down with Peter and had ice cream while we talked about his boyfriend.”
“The one he broke up with? Joey?”
“They’re back together.”
My eyes shot wide. “Really?”
My ‘really’ response was more about my father’s actions than Peter and his boyfriend. My mother’s statements about my father seemed like utter lunacy. My father’s acceptance of Peter being gay was one thing, but to think he was talking to him about his boyfriend was unimaginable.
This wasn’t the father I’d grown up with, that was for sure.
“We talked until almost one in the morning,” she said, smiling the entire time she spoke. “We ate a half gallon of ice cream.”
I laughed. “Rocky road?”
She arched an eyebrow.
“He came home with something else. Guess.”
“Neapolitan?”
It was Peter’s favorite, but my father hated it. He said it was for people who were indecisive.
She nodded.
My wedding woes were replaced with feelings of my family uniting in a manner that I had always hoped for, but had never seen. Open-mindedness, acceptance, and compassion were things I had never really known.
I grew up a Mafia princess, showered by gifts of money and material items. Although my father was kind, he wasn’t necessarily compassionate. It wasn’t that he was incapable, it just seemed he simply didn’t have time.
My thoughts drifted to having a family of my own, and raising children in a manner that expressed love, compassion, and kindness.
“I think jail changed him, too,” I said. “Do you think it will last?”
She stared at her wine for a moment, and then met my gaze. She looked much different than she had in years. She didn’t look content, she looked happy. “I think he realized what his life was missing.”
“I’m happy for him.”
“I’m happy for all of us.”
“When Michael and I have kids, do you think...do you think Papa will still...you know...will he still be...”
“Your father will always work,” she said. “It’s how he is. He has a relationship with his family, and then he has a relationship with his work. They’re both very important to him.”
A sigh escaped me. “I was hoping he could retire when he had grandchildren.”
“Men like your father don’t retire. They work until...”
She shrugged.
“Until what?”
She took a drink of wine, and then another. After finishing the wine, she reached for her purse. “Let’s go shopping.”
She placed a fifty under her empty wineglass.
“Until what?” I asked. “What were you going to say?”
She stood. “Nothing.”
“Don’t do that. We were having a nice talk, and then, all of a sudden, it changed. Until what?”
“Men in a position like your father work until they either go to jail or they die. It’s a matter of pride with men who do what he does.”
I felt like an idiot for not knowing—or not admitting—the rules of the Mafia.
“He can’t retire?”
She shook her head. “It’s not an option.”
I guess, in theory, I already knew the answer. It wasn’t something I wanted to readily admit, and I wished I hadn’t asked.
I reached for my purse. “He can still spend time with his grandchildren.”
“He’d like that.”
“So would I.”