Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 141255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 706(@200wpm)___ 565(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 706(@200wpm)___ 565(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
Debbie wasn’t the maternal type and I guess I hadn’t really thought that through when I proposed because I wanted kids. After we split, I found out she had an abortion and never told me. It shook me. If I’d married her, maybe she’d never have given me kids. Maybe she would’ve kept aborting them. Or maybe she’d have had kids but maybe I’d be raising kids that weren’t even mine. Before the “man whore” years, I wanted a wife who’d drive a soccer mom Hummer (No woman of mine would ever be forced to drive a minivan) and fill it with enough sons to make up a soccer team.
I wanted daughters, too, to spoil. I wanted my woman to drive our boys to soccer and our girls to ballet and to do that while wearing lace and garters underneath her clothes because she was still a wildcat for me. I was foolish to think Debbie would grow up and mature into something maternal, traditional. She never promised me the picket fence, never promised to grow old together. I just figured it was a natural progression. I pushed the signs away that she wasn’t the one until I was forced to face them, which was when I saw her on her knees deep-throating that goof.
I was Dario Ferrano, respected in my field of work. I was a member of an influential family with ties to organized crime but the appearance of loose ties and not a small amount of mystery, so I was revered and feared. But I wanted the traditional sort of family that the Ferranos were not. I wanted someone I could have a real connection with.
I’d seen a little of what I’d wanted with my grandparents, my maternal grandparents. My ma grew up in a stable and loving home and when I spent time with her for two weeks every summer, I saw that. I wanted that. She picked the wrong man to have kids with and that choice had far-reaching impact. I didn’t wanna make that same mistake.
Anyway, too bad I fell for a non-traditional girl. After I caught her with the DJ, it came to light that she’d cheated plenty. She was wild, willing to try anything in the bedroom, always bringing new ideas of ways to get us off. After we split, I knew why. She’d been doing more than her fair share of wild oat sowing.
My father was married four times, widowed twice. He was in his early fifties when he died. My Pop had not only been married four times but he also had a long string of girlfriends and mistresses in between and often at the same time.
Rarely saw Ma, and when I did, she was timid, broken. My ma’s parents lived in Iceland, and they were amazing. If I’d have grown up there, I’m sure I’d be a very different man.
My grandfather was Italian, grandmother was from Iceland, and that’s where they retired. I visited them in Akureyri for a few weeks every summer until I was in my late teens. It’s where I got a glimpse of a normal family life. My ma came from a big family and most of my Icelandic cousins came from stable homes with married parents. My grandparents were married fifty years. My grandmother died peacefully in her sleep and then my grandfather died the same way three days later, because he just couldn’t live without her. I wanted that kind of love.
I wanted a woman who was spirited, beautiful, who loved to fuck, and who wanted a family as a means of getting more out of life, not out of settling. I wanted a woman who had substance. I didn’t want the Barbie dolls my pop had around, didn’t want a shell of a woman like Ma was turned into out of the fear she lived with because of my father. I wanted someone real, spunky, loving, interesting. After Deb fucked me over, I closed my heart off. I didn’t see anyone around me who seemed real enough for me to let them in. Maybe I just never gave anyone else a chance.
Pop died after alienating his family. After he died, I was taking stock. I’d been doing it a while beforehand, really, watching my brother fall in love and seeing what he was getting. A girl with fight in her, a girl who was awesome with my sisters and our nieces and nephews. And I wanted it all. I wanted success in my work life and I wanted a family.
I also didn’t wanna worry about people kidnapping or shooting at my family. I didn’t want my wife and kids to face the risks we’d all faced due to my father’s choices, especially seeing what it did to Contessa who’d been widowed and left with two boys to raise on her own. I was spending time with my nephews, trying to be a male figure for them. So was Eddy, my brother-in-law, but those boys would grow up without their father.