Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 73663 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73663 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
“Stef—”
“Did you know?”
I nod once. “It started a few weeks ago. They get along.”
“I thought you said she wouldn’t get anywhere near Mother.”
“You like Maddie. Mom’s happy to have someone new to talk with.”
“That’s not the point.” Stefania backs away from the door. “She’s a stranger.”
“No, she’s my wife.”
“You plucked her up off the street and married her because it’s convenient.” Stefania’s hands tremble with rage. “How could you do this?”
“Stef—”
“No, I don’t want to hear it, and I don’t want that girl anywhere near our mother. How could you do this?” Her voice is loud and shrill now. I glance outside as Maddie comes over, looking concerned. Mother’s agitated and the nurse is trying to keep her calm.
“What’s going on?” Maddie pokes her head inside.
“Get the fuck away from her,” Stefania hisses at her.
I move between them. “You’re out of line.”
“I’m out of line?” She looks genuinely hurt. “How are you taking her side?”
Maddie looks terrified. Her face is pale and her eyes are wide. I face my sister, forcing myself to remain calm. “Back down. Right now.”
“Oh, you’re going to use the scary Don Rossi voice on me? Fuck you, Renzo. And fuck you, strange girl living in my goddamn house.”
Stefania storms away. I watch her go, my heart sinking, before turning to Maddie. “It’s okay. I’ll talk to her.”
“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done this. You made it clear I should stay away from your mother but—”
“You’re doing fine.” I take Maddie’s hand and gently lead her inside. “Why don’t you head up to our room for a little while until things settle? Let me talk to Stefania.”
“I should’ve kept to myself.”
“No,” I say firmly. “Please, listen to me. You did nothing wrong. Stefania likes you. She’s just having a hard time with this adjustment. I’ll talk to her. I promise. Let me protect you, Maddie. We can climb together.”
Maddie takes a deep breath. I can tell she wants to hide away, turn into a mouse and disappear, but instead she gets on her toes and kisses my cheek. “Thank you.”
Then she heads upstairs to the room before I head off to find my sister.
I find Stefania in her room at the far end of the house. When she was little, she’d spend a lot of time alone in there, playing with her dolls then talking on the phone as she got older. I’m more than ten years her senior—Stef was a surprise to everyone—and she had a tough time growing up. Mom and Dad were older, more established, less interested in giving a little kid their attention, and her brothers were all asshole mobsters-in-training. It wasn’t an easy life.
I knock and take the silence as assent. She’s sitting on a bay window, the mirror image of my reading nook. I built that for her when she was in high school, and she spent hours and hours sitting there as a moody teenager.
“Hey,” I say, staying near the door. “You want to talk?”
“Not really.” She doesn’t look at me. “I’m embarrassed.”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to be.”
“Actually, I really do. I shouldn’t have blown up like that.”
“What’s going on?”
She glances over. Her eyes are red and her cheeks are wet. She wipes her face off with her sleeve. “I’m not really mad at Maddie, you know? She didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Okay. That’s good.”
“I’m just having a hard time with all this. With what’s happening to Mom.” Her voice cracks.
I walk over to her and sit down against the wall, looking into the room while she stays up on the ledge, her feet dangling down next to me.
“We’re all struggling with it. I don’t blame you for feeling that way.”
“It’s just—” She clears her throat. “Mom never talks like that with me.”
I frown and look up at her. “Really?”
“Seriously, Ren. She barely recognizes me, and when she does, it’s hard on her, you know? Because I think she knows that she’s forgetting stuff and it freaks her out.”
“I know what you mean,” I say softly. She’s done that to me more than once. It’s also the reason Carlo can’t come around. She keeps thinking he’s her brother, even though Uncle Marko’s been dead for ten years.
“I was jealous. Seeing Maddie out there talking to Mom—” She takes a deep breath and blows it out. “I never got that.”
“When you were younger?”
“Mom was done by then. You remember how it was. Dad spent all his time on Famiglia business and Mom only cared about her social clubs. They basically forgot about me. I haven’t had a mother in years.”
I lean my head back and say nothing. The sick thing is, she’s right—Mom checked the fuck out and Dad never cared at all.
“We tried,” I tell her, looking up. “I tried, anyway.”
“I know, but you’re not my parent. Even though you think you are sometimes.”