My Mafia Husband Called Me Unfaithful Then I Married His Enemy novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: Plums
Elisa's mother already knew papers were coming, and tells her to take the pendant and run. At the Galli gate her things are in trash bags, and her son stands on her coat.
My mother was sitting up in bed with a purple bruise along her cheekbone, arguing with her physical therapist.
"I'm not doing ten more," she said. "You count slowly on purpose."
"I count at a normal speed, Mrs. Sartori."
"Then your normal speed is a threat."
The therapist left, laughing and shaking his head.
My mother turned to me, and the whole act fell off her face.
"You signed," she said.
I sat down on the edge of the bed.
"Twenty minutes before your message came. How did you know there would be papers?"
"I know that boy. Three times is when he stops listening and starts filing."
She took my hand.
Her fingers were thin, but her grip was still the one that had held mine in crowds when I was small.
"Did you sign away Dario?"
"I signed that he stays with Tommaso."
"A paper isn't a person," she said. "Remember that. Papers can be undone."
"By who?"
"By somebody who reads them." She looked at the window.
The plums sat on the sill in a blue bowl, nine of them, dark and glossy and perfect.
"The nurse says someone brings those on Thursdays," I said.
"A friend."
"You don't have friends who come on Thursdays. You have a hairdresser, and she comes on Tuesdays."
"Eat one," my mother said.
I ate one.
It was ripe and cold and sweet.
She watched me eat it and looked pleased.
"Where's my pendant?" she asked.
"In my drawer at the house. The clasp is still broken."
"Four months ago I made you bring it here, remember?"
I remembered.
She had turned it over in her hands for a long time and wrapped it in her own red handkerchief.
She made me promise to keep it in a drawer until I could afford a jeweler.
"Keep it close," my mother said. "If you ever have to leave that house in a hurry, take that and go."
"I'm already leaving it. I'll be collecting my things tomorrow."
"Then take it tomorrow. And my gray cardigan, the one with the pockets. I'm cold in here."
"Mama, are you telling me something?"
"I'm telling you I'm cold."
She closed her eyes, and I knew the conversation was over.
I slept that night in a motel off the highway with the cardigan still on my list and my phone on the pillow.
The next evening I drove to Oak Park.
The guard at the Galli gate had been at my wedding.
He stared at the road when he saw me.
"I need to collect my things," I said.
"Your access was canceled this morning, Mrs. Galli."
"Then call the house."
He did, and I stood at the gate while he waited for someone to answer.
A car came out through the exit.
The driver looked at me, then looked away.
At last the guard pressed a button, and the small side gate opened. "The housekeeper will meet you at the door."
I walked up the drive I used to carry Dario along when he couldn't sleep.
He had loved the lights around the fountain.
The housekeeper opened the front door before I could knock.
Her face changed when she saw me.
"Where are my things?"
She pressed her lips together. "Come with me."
She led me through the back hallway to a storage room beside the garage.
My clothes were stuffed into black trash bags.
A box of shoes sat on top of a framed photograph of my wedding.
"Vittoria said the bedroom needed to be ready," the housekeeper said.
"Ready for what?"
She didn't answer.
"It's all right," I said.
"No, it isn't." Her voice was so quiet I nearly missed it.
I didn't need the clothes.
I needed the pendant and the gray cardigan.
I found the cardigan in the second bag, folded under a pair of muddy boots, and I held it against my chest.
Then I found the red cloth at the bottom of a shoe box, and I closed my fist around it.
"What are you doing?"
Dario stood in the doorway.
His hair was longer than at our last visit, and there was a scrape on his chin.
I wondered who had cleaned it.
"Getting my things," I said.
Usually I would have been reaching for him already, asking about school.
Today I stayed where I was.
He walked into the room and put one shoe on my coat.
"Aunt Vittoria says you can't take anything."
"This is mine."
He shook his head.
"Nothing in this house is yours."
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