Chapter 5: All Right

Mother's call came before the anesthetic had worn off.

"Where are you? Fiorella is home from the clinic. Everyone is at the townhouse waiting for you. Get back here now."

She did not ask how I was.

She told me not to disappear again, so Fiorella wouldn't worry.

My passport was in the safe in that house. I had no way to get it except to walk back in.

I held the corridor wall with one hand and walked out through the waiting room.

A man in a dark driver's coat got up from a plastic chair by the door.

It was Leandro. His eyes went to my face and then to the hand I was pressing against my stomach.

He said, "Mrs. Cattaneo."

Then he said, quietly, "Take my arm."

I took it.

He drove me to the Upper East Side without a word, and the heat on my side of the car was already turned up.

Adriano sat on the couch next to Fiorella. My parents hovered around her.

Gaetano looked up at me, irritated. "Finally. The whole family has been waiting. You really think you're that important."

Nobody saw how white I was.

Nobody asked why I smelled of disinfectant.

Adriano gestured for me to sit.

"I've thought it through. The marriage continues and the baby stays. You're still my wife, but I won't be separated from Fiorella."

I sat.

He had no idea that a few hours earlier, I had ended the pregnancy by myself.

Mother took that for surrender, and picked up where he stopped.

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Sister Popped The Bubble Of My Happy Marriage from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.