Every Man Who Loved Me Left Hating Me, Only My Father Knows Why novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Not My Voice

Her father refuses to explain, Lucia quits his books, and Jake tells her what the film showed and that her first love Danny never left that room.

The recording kept going.

"Papa, he's easy. He'll say anything I want. Another one down."

The laugh that followed was mine, and I had never laughed like that.

I crossed the dark room and slammed my hand on the projector until the sound cut off.

"Turn it back on, Lucia," my father said behind me. "You should hear all of it."

He stood at the bottom of the stairs, leaning on his cane, with Remo a step behind him.

"That is not my voice," I said.

"It is your voice."

"I never said that."

"Then you have nothing to be afraid of."

He said it kindly, and that made it worse.

"Five men, Papa. Five. What did you show them?"

"What they needed to see."

"Why?"

He looked at the screen, where my frozen face still glowed. "Because every one of them wanted the Pesaro name. None of them wanted you."

"You don't know that."

"I know it better than you do." He turned his cane toward the stairs. "Go up. Finish your dinner. Smile at Silvio."

"No."

I had never said that word to him in that tone.

Two of his men appeared on the stairs behind Remo.

"I keep the books for your restaurants," I said. "I'm done. Find somebody else to count your money."

"You'll be back at the office on Monday."

"Then you'll be paying a stranger on Tuesday."

I walked up the stairs between his men, and none of them dared to touch me.

Remo caught up to me in the garden. The guests were leaving in small groups, and nobody would look at me.

"Get in the car," he said.

"I'm not going home."

"I know. Get in anyway."

I climbed into the back of the Lincoln. My old phone was still on the dashboard with its cracked screen, and I looked at it for no reason.

Remo took a handkerchief from his pocket and turned in his seat.

"Your hands," he said.

I looked down. My fingers were sticky with Jake's wine, and my hands had started to shake.

He took my right hand and wiped it carefully, one finger at a time.

His thumb stopped at the inside of my wrist, where my pulse was going hard.

I felt it all the way up my arm.

"You're cold," he said, without looking at me.

"Where does Jake live?"

"Lucia."

"Where does Jake live, Remo?"

He put the handkerchief in my palm and closed my fingers over it. Then he turned the car toward the river.

Jake had a two-bedroom on the East Side with a doorman who knew me.

The doorman looked at my stained dress and said, "He's not taking visitors."

"Tell him I'm going to stand here until he does."

He called up. A minute later, the elevator opened by itself.

Jake's door was open. Boxes stood in the hall, and a suitcase lay on the bed behind him.

"You came to the apartment," he said. "Of course you did. Get out."

"Tell me what you saw."

"No."

"Jake." I stood in the doorway, where Remo had stopped behind me. "I never laughed at you. I never said any of that. I did not even know what was in that room."

He stared at me for a long time.

"It was your face," he said.

"Whose face?"

"Yours. At a bar, in a green dress, with some guy. Kissing his cheek, laughing, and you said into a phone, 'He's easy, Papa. Another one down.' Then there was another clip, and you said I was an errand."

"I was never in that bar."

"I watched you. For twenty minutes." His voice cracked. "Then your father turned on the lights and told me what would happen if I ever told you what I saw."

"What would happen?"

"He said I'd get the same as Danny."

His hand was on the door.

I had told Jake about my first boyfriend once, on our third date, and I had not used his name.

"Danny left town six years ago," I said. "He ran."

"Did he?" Jake said. "Your father said Danny never left that room."

The door shut in my face.

I stood in the hall with my hand flat against the wood.

Danny Frost had been twenty-one, and I had loved him more than I have loved anyone since.

Behind me, Remo had gone completely still.

"Remo," I said. "Did Danny run?"

He looked at the elevator and said nothing at all.

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