“It’s Catherine, right? Catherine Marcello.”
The click-clack of heels on hardwood floor echoed to Catherine’s spot on the floor of the sitting room. She continued her staring contest with the ceiling. It seemed to be the only thing lately that wasn’t constantly hovering, asking questions, or demanding answers.
“You were aware I was coming to chat with you today, weren’t you?”
Catherine’s gaze slid to the side, but the rest of her didn’t move an inch. It was just enough for her to discern a tall woman, likely in her mid-forties or slightly older, with wild red curls and warm blue eyes. She was dressed in black skinny jeans, sky-high heels, and a flowy red blouse. The woman must have been who Catherine’s father meant when he said they would have a guest, and she should get her ass up off the floor.
Clearly, Catherine didn’t follow that advice.
“Aren’t people like you required to wear … I don’t know, pant suits or something?”
The woman glanced down at her attire. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”
“Doesn’t seem very therapist-ish to me in skinny jeans and stiletto heels, that’s all.”
“Ah, I see.” She smiled lightly, and took a seat on the end of the chaise near Catherine’s head. “Well, I wouldn’t call this dressing down, but since you’re a special case, I figured I could dress how I was comfortable.”
“Is that what we’re going to call this? A special case?”
“What would you call it, Catherine?”
“My father thinks I’m crazy, and here you are.”
“Okay, let’s start with that, for one. Your father doesn’t think you’re crazy. He’s very concerned about you, and for good reason, considering what he told me.”
“You know I’m not going to talk about what happened, right?” Catherine asked.
The woman looked at her watch. “That’s a shame because I’ve got the next two hours cleared to sit here and chat with you. Your house is empty. I asked your parents to leave, and it doesn’t seem like you have anything else better to do except stare at the ceiling. That’s a bore, by the way, but if that’s what you want to do this session, we’ll do it.”
Catherine’s gaze narrowed. “This session.”
“Expect there to be a few more.”
Awesome.
“You actually got them to leave?” Catherine dared to ask.
The woman’s lips quirked up at the edges, and she nodded. “I don’t think they’ve gone far, likely for a walk around the property. It’s a beautiful home. Next time, pick a new room for me to see.”
Again with the more sessions thing.
“They have this house on lockdown,” Catherine pointed out. “I’m not allowed to leave. You can see why I would be surprised that they actually left while you are here, even if it is just to walk around the property.”
“What would you do if you could leave?”
“Is that your thing? You ignore what I say, except for one thing, latch onto it, and shoot me a question based on that?”
“My name is Cara Guzzi. Your father asked me to come speak with you for several reasons. Would you like to know what they are?”
“I’m eighteen, Cara. Can we speak like adults, and not like one adult talking to a child?”
Cara lifted a single brow. “Perhaps if one of us wasn’t lounging on a ten thousand dollar rug, staring at the ceiling, and ignoring the very expensive therapist their father called in for them, we could absolutely do that, Catherine.”
Damn.
Catherine liked this woman. She was kind of bitchy, and Catherine tended to like that in a person. That was bad. She preferred it when she didn’t have to talk at all lately.
“How do you know this rug costs ten thousand dollars?” Catherine asked.
“I have expensive taste.”
“Oh?”
“My husband likes to indulge me,” Cara added with a smirk. “Now, answer some of my questions, Catherine.”
“No, but thanks.” Catherine sighed. “You don’t sound like any New Yorker I’ve met.”
“I grew up in Chicago, actually. I moved to Ontario, Canada when I was fresh out of high school, and that’s where I have lived ever since.”
Catherine’s brow furrowed. “So wait—you still live there?”
“With my husband and sons, yes.” Cara peered down at Catherine when she stayed silent. “What is it, Catherine?”
“You flew here from Canada to speak to me?”
“I flew this time, yes. I may drive through the Niagara Falls border next time, depending on how I feel.”
“And you’re a therapist?”
Cara leaned forward, and rested her arms over her knees to fold her hands together. “For the last decade, yes. I went back to school a few years after graduating to further what I had already taken. Then went on to finish a three-year residency, and my focus is now on young women, children, and those struggling with addiction. Again, though, mostly women.”
“Huh.”
“Do you feel like getting up to talk to me?”
“Not really.”
“Shame,” Cara murmured.
“Sorry my father wasted your time.”
“Dante wasted nothing, Catherine. It’s you who is wasting my time. Never blame others for problems you cause or your own shortcomings; that isn’t any way to fix something that is wrong.”
Ouch.
“Why would my father call you to come here and talk to me? Why not someone from the city?”
Cara smiled. “Would an answer entice you to get up off the floor?”
“Not really.”
“How long have you been down there?”
Catherine had to think about that one. “Last night around ten. My room was too quiet.”
“Have you slept at all?”
“I don’t like the things I dream.”
Wordlessly, Cara moved from the couch, kicked off her heels, and rested down on the rug alongside Catherine. The woman didn’t turn to look at her, but rather, stared at the ceiling, too.
“Your father called me,” Cara said, “because you are a special case, and I am a special woman.”
“How so?”
“I may understand whatever your situation is better than someone else might. I also may have an inside look at what your life has been like up until this moment, given where you come from, and where I came from. You may not feel as though you can talk openly with someone else about your family and the things in your life as you can with me.”
Catherine frowned.
She was doing that a lot lately.
That was … when she did anything at all.
“Why is that?”
“My husband is a lot like your father,” Cara said. “Involved with things that put us women into situations where outsiders are not as welcome, and our life is not up for discussion. I grew up in a famiglia much like yours with my twin sister and older brother. You may know my brother, actually. I know he occasionally has meetings or dinners with your father and his brothers. Does Tommas Rossi ring any bells?”
Catherine stilled.
Tommas Rossi was the boss of the Chicago Outfit. An Italian-based, criminal organization that was much like the one Catherine’s father controlled in New York.
“And your husband is also like my father?” Catherine asked.
“Gian is, although a bit more French, I would say.”
Catherine nodded to herself.
“Now does it make more sense why I would be the one to come?” Cara asked.
“I suppose.”
“You’ve had a rough couple of months, haven’t you?”
Catherine let out a shaky exhale. “You could say that.”
“You told me they have the house on lockdown, and you can’t leave.”
“I would go to the beach,” Catherine murmured. “If they let me leave, that’s where I would go.”
“Why?”
“Better memories.”
“I see,” Cara said.
“I like the floor because they don’t ask me questions when I’m like this. They don’t hover, or stay too long. They don’t look at me too hard, or wonder what I’m doing now. They see me here. They don’t know what to do, so they leave. I don’t have to talk, or answer questions, or go back over what happened and why I did it. I don’t have to pretend or lie. The walls have to be built up somehow, right? So, I started mine from the ground. Nobody is getting over these walls now.”
Catherine’s chest had progressively gotten tighter and tighter the longer she spoke. She wasn’t used to doing that lately—talking a lot. Her hands balled into such tight fists that her fingernails dug into the skin of her palms, likely leaving behind crescent shaped marks. She found it was harder to breathe all of the sudden, and despite being on her back on the floor, the room almost tilted.
“Take three breaths,” Cara said softly.
She had a nice voice. Catherine noticed. Soft, caring, and smooth.
Catherine took the breaths.
“Find three things you can see,” Cara said.
The ceiling. A crystal chandelier. The family portrait on the far wall.
“And three things you can smell,” Cara added after a moment.
Cara’s vanilla perfume. The flowery detergent their maid used. Lingering cinnamon and sugar from her mother’s baking.
“Three things you can feel—emotions, not touch, Catherine.”
A black vortex in her heart. Panic. Numbness.
“Three things you can hear, now.”
Cara speaking. A tick-tock of the Grandfather clock. Her own heartbeat.
“Lastly, three things you can touch, please.”
The rug beneath her tickled her neck. Her dress felt a bit too tight around her throat. And her finger swept over the ridged line of a clean scar on her inner, left wrist.
“And how do you feel now?” Cara asked.
Catherine swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. “Better.”
“How often do you get anxiety attacks?”
“Lately? Every day.”
Cara tipped her head to the side, and Catherine met her gaze. “Try that trick when you’re alone and having one. Try it when you’re not alone and having one. It helps to give your mind different things to focus on while reminding your body and brain you are still here.”
“Okay.”
“Would you like to hear my rules for our talks?” Cara asked.
Catherine pursed her lips. “I suppose you won’t care if I say I don’t want to talk, or that you don’t need to come back.”
“Because those are lies, Catherine. You do need to talk, and I will be back.”
“I figured.”
Cara pushed up into a sitting position, and rested into an Indian-style pose. “The rules for me are simple. You can speak about whatever you want, and I expect you to, but you can also trust that nothing you say will ever go beyond you and me.”
“Not even to my mom and dad?”
“Especially not to them,” Cara replied. “That’s up to you to tell them whatever you need or want to, not me. As long as you’re not planning to harm yourself, or someone else, I’ll never say a word. Also, you’ll find no judgement from me. I’m not here to judge you. I’m here to help.”
“And what about the rules for me?”
“No lying. No wasting my time. Simple enough.”
Catherine glanced away when Cara shot a look over her shoulder. “I do that a lot.”
“Hmm?”
“Lie.”
“Not to me, you won’t.”
“You think you can tell the difference?” Catherine asked.
“I think you should not test me where that is concerned,” Cara said frankly. “You see, I sincerely do not want my time wasted, especially when I know there are a dozen more young women just like you that I could be helping in one way or another. Women who are in desperate need, yet, I chose to get on a plane today, and come to you. I chose, out of the dozens of files on my desk, that you would be the young woman I needed to sit with and talk to. But I do have others. So if you plan to make this difficult simply because you can, then maybe my first instinct to come here was wrong. Right now, however, I know you are the one in need of my help. I would like to give that to you.
“Tell me, Catherine,” Cara continued, still calm and soothing in her tone, “about what you might like to get from me being here with you. Say you do decide to talk, and that perhaps I can help. What would you like to walk out of here having gained from this?”
Catherine didn’t even have to think about it.
Not really.
She wanted him—Cross Donati.
That meant she had to … get up off the fucking floor, get better, and figure her goddamn life out. She had to do it alone.
She was a mess.
“I want to be healthy,” Catherine said, “in my head. I’m so tired of it being dark there—it’s always dark. I want to like who I am, and not depend on others to stand me up on my feet when I crash and burn. I want to be okay again. It’s been a long time since I was okay.”
“Those are good things to want for yourself. Let’s start with why your father decided to lock you down in this house, and finally made a call to my husband to ask for me to make a special trip here for you.”
Catherine rubbed at her wrist again, feeling a tender scar that was finally healed. “I would rather not.”
“Why?”
“Catherine! Catherine, open the door for me, sweetheart! Please let me in!”
Catherine blinked. “He was hitting that door so hard. I thought he was going to put his fist through it.”
“Who?”
“My dad.”
Water edged over the side of the tub—stained pink and turning colder by the second.
Catherine breathed.
In and out.
It wasn’t so hard to do now.
The banging on the door got louder, but she was still staring at a perfect red line on an olive-toned canvas.
“Have you ever self-harmed before that day?” Cara asked quietly.
“Depends on what self-harm includes. I never cut myself before, but I used different prescription drugs—abused them—because it numbed me to things. I knew it was hurting me, but I liked where it took me, too. I figured that outweighed what I was doing.”
“And how long has it been since you self-medicated?”
Catherine ignored the stabbing ache in her heart. “Almost three months now. It was only a couple of weeks after he made me leave when … all the rest happened. Daddy has finally had enough, I think, and that’s why you’re here now.”
“And this he is who, exactly?” Cara pressed.
“My father wants to blame him, you know? That’s the easiest thing for Dante. To say what I did was because of him leaving me. If you can suddenly fix my broken heart, then I’ll go back to being okay again.”
“But you know that’s not the case.”
“No,” Catherine admitted. “I was already broken, and I expected someone else to keep holding me together.”
“Attempting suicide is always a symptom of deeper issues,” Cara said, shrugging. “Certain events can certainly exacerbate depression or suicidal thoughts, but those events are not usually the core issues that led a person to a place where they feel ending their life is the only option. No one causes someone to commit suicide. It’s a choice that’s made by only the person trying to end their life.”
“You should tell my father all of that. Not sure he would agree right now, but hey.” Catherine rested her arms behind her head to use as a pillow, and moved onto something else Cara had said. “I have a few of those—issues, I mean. He helped with them for a while.”
“Again, who is—”
“Can I tell you a story?” Catherine asked suddenly.
“Is it a good one?”
“I think so.”
“What’s it about?” Cara asked.
“A wild boy and a sly girl.”
Cara rested back to the floor with Catherine. “I suppose we do have some time.”
Catherine ignored the tear that slid down from the corner of her eye.
“He’s always saving. She’s always lying.”
“Always?” Cara asked.
“Always,” Catherine assured, “until the end, anyway.”