Bella
Everyone knows the moment I’m home. No sooner have I closed the front door when Muffin comes racing out and Emilio stumbling. As I pet Muffin’s sleek gray head, I glare at Emilio. It figures: the one morning I’m late getting home, he’s actually awake, although as hungover as ever if his red-rimmed eyes are any indication.
He lingers on the top of the staircase. Then he totters down a few steps before righting himself with a palm to one of the golden roses on our walls.
“You never came home.” His voice contains all his irritation at not knowing something, not being head of the family, and being my half-brother.
I slip off a shoe and address the other one. If I take in his disheveled self-righteousness, I’m not going to be able to hold my temper.
“Yeah,” I say.
Emilio stumbles down another few steps, sending Muffin into a flurry of barks. I pull her back by the leash.
“Muffin,” I scold her, though I’m secretly pleased. She’s the only one who hates Emilio more than I do. She can probably smell the corruption on him.
“Dumb dog,” Emilio mutters. I take off the other shoe and, as I’m striding to the kitchen, Muffin trotting alongside me, he adds, “You never answered the question.”
I stop and consider continuing walking. But Emilio and his insolent question will just follow me to the kitchen, follow me out of the house even. He’ll use any excuse he can to cause conflict. Ever since the words, “Bella’s taking over the family business until I’m better” came out of our father’s mouth, I’ve seen the hunger in his eyes. The hunger for power.
I turn to face him, while Emilio stumbles down the rest of the steps and strides up to me. He stops an inch away, glaring into my eyes insolently. There’s a cut on his lip, and suddenly, I’m filled with a strange sort of pity for him, this incompetent try-hard who’s my brother.
I almost feel like telling him, explaining it to him: that I don’t want this any more than he does, that I’m just trying to honor our father’s wish. But the longer I stare into those cold, unfeeling coals of eyes, the clearer it is. There’s no understanding there, no mercy. Emilio wouldn’t understand.
No. In his snarled lower lip there is only resentment. He would take my admission, my weakness, and use it to rip me apart. No, I can’t give him an inch.
I turn my back on him and head to the kitchen, calling out over my shoulder, “Have you forgotten who’s in charge here?”
My question hangs in the silence.
“Madame left her scarf,” a familiar voice says.
I turn around. It’s our nanny, Paula Calabria, standing in front of Emilio, her hand extended. Out of it snakes a sheen of green. My eyes meet Emilio’s in immediate understanding.
He snatches the scarf out of her hand. “You dumb bitch. I told you not to say anything!”
As Muffin explodes into a barking rebuke, Paula hangs her head. “I apologize.”
Emilio advances, yelling at the graying roots of her hair. “You apologizing isn’t good enough, you useless old hag! What’s the point of my father hiring you if you can’t do anything properly?”
She says nothing, just keeps her head lowered, but even this doesn’t appease Emilio. He advances further so that he’s so close that Paula can’t back up any further because she’s pressed up against the wall.
“You did this on purpose,” he snarls out, his hand slowly rising as he speaks, “didn’t you? Bella’s always been your favorite, hasn’t she?”
As his hand towers over her, casting a shadow over her averted, terrified face, I step forward. “Emilio, that’s enough.” I keep my voice even, my face expressionless. So he won’t see the fear.
Emilio rounds on me. His hand is still raised and quivering with rage, while his eyebrows are thick angry clusters.
I lift my chin up as if daring his blow. I repeat, “Emilio, that’s enough.”
Mouth contorted in a snarl, Emilio turns from Paula’s bowed form to my upright one. He aims a kick at Muffin, who dodges his blow. Then he storms down the hallway and out of the house, slamming the door behind him.
I stare at it for a minute, then grab the handle.
“Let him go,” Paula says softly.
I turn to her. Her bun is sagging, and her eyes have their own quiet fury. “Okay,” I say.
Paula comes up beside me. “The dog is true to her type,” she says, patting Muffin fondly, “fast and good and gray as a greyhound should be.”
Muffin isn’t as happy at being patted as she usually is. Her gaze is locked on the door as if she expects Emilio to return any minute.
The poor dog doesn’t understand – that Emilio is gone, and that it’s what he’s left that is much worse.
After a minute, Paula says, “Tea.”
I follow her to the kitchen. Her hand is still shaking as she lifts the old “P” emblazoned kettle to pour out peppermint tea for the two of us. Even as slowly as she walks, her tremors cause droplets to surge over the sides of the cups. She puts the cups down on the kitchen table, then dabs the spills off the saucers.
I sit down at the table and, sitting down herself, folding her hands into a creased single shaking entity, Paula says, “She came – Madame Giana.”
“When?”
“Last night when you were gone.”
I nod, stirring the milk in my tea, swirling it around as the thoughts in my head swirl around. It’s never a good sign when that witch, Giana, is in town. She is Papa’s ex-wife after all. What can she want now? What is she planning?
“Like a crow circling carrion,” Paula says to her tea glumly. She grabs my hand. Her clasp is not as comforting as usual with her next words: “Be careful. They’re planning something.”
I try sipping my tea, but my impatience only burns my tongue. I nod dully. “I’ll figure it out. Don’t worry, Paula.” Though I believe it even less than she.
I check my phone, but there’s nothing from my wild white-blonde friend from last night. It’s been less than an hour; he’s probably not even up yet. The screen goes black, and I glare at the worried stranger reflected there.
What’s wrong with me? Why did I even give the guy my number anyway? So we had mind-blowing sex, so what? I’ve never given any of the others my number – why start now?
I shove my phone back in my pocket. Whatever, it’s not up to me now.
Paula grasps my hand again, and I meet her kindly gaze with a smile. “Be careful,” she repeats, her hoarse voice almost a sob.
I nod, but her face is only growing more discouraged.
“Be careful of the darkness,” she whispers.
My heart goes cold. “What do you mean, Paula?” But her gaze is rooted over my shoulder. I turn and follow it to our family portrait from a few years ago.
I find the photo just as hideous now as I did when it was taken four years ago. The too-bright too-sharpened image is the definition of overdone. It’s the whole family, and yet we all appear half there, like caricatures of ourselves. All our arms are enlaced, our smiles propped-up. As if our family wasn’t falling apart.
My gaze goes to my mother, her face all jagged angles and hollows, her smile the most propped-up of all.
“Your mother tried to resist the darkness, but in the end, it swallowed her too.”
At Paula’s whisper, I glance over. Her deep brown eyes are on the same doomed enigma. My mother.
“What do you mean?”
At my words, Paula doesn’t react, only shakes her head and repeats, “In the end, it swallowed her too.”
When I squeeze her shoulder, she flinches. “Paula…”
The words seem to emerge from her against her will, her mouth twisted, her gaze fixed on something invisible to the eye, she says, “Every morning only one side of the bed had to be smoothed out.” Then she leaps up and rushes out of the room without another word.
My gaze returns to the family portrait, to my mother’s dead eyes, the crease of concern on my father’s smiling face. For years, I’d sensed it, the rot under the sheen of our easy lives, trips and gifts stacking up like so many useless idols. After what Emilio let slip about “the girls” the other week, there’s no doubt of what the darkness is.
And yet, after Paula’s admission just now, I’m beginning to think that what my family does for a living is just scratching the surface. That the full horror lying behind the truth is worse than my worst nightmare.