I Was the Mafia's Maid, Now I'm Their Regret novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Shoebox

I went down the stairs in Valerio's shirt and opened the door.

My mother did not ask to come in.

"I didn't know where else to bring it," she said. "Aurelio had the car taken. I took a cab."

"How did you know where to find me?"

"The gate guard told me." She held the shoebox out with both hands. "It's yours."

I didn't take it.

"What is it?"

"Twenty-two years."

Bianca came up behind me with her hair in a knot, wearing one of Valerio's sweatshirts.

Elio stood on the stairs with his mouth open.

"Everything in the basement belongs to the Family," my mother said. "Every photograph, every tape. If a picture is in that room, the consigliere can file it, and a filed picture is an entry."

"That's why you're not in any of them."

"That's why you aren't in the Family's pictures. These are mine."

I sat on the porch step, and she did not sit.

I took the lid off.

It was packed full, the photographs held in bundles with rubber bands.

The top one was a baby in a hospital blanket with her eyes screwed shut and a pink cap.

On the back, in blue ink, someone had written: Livia. Born March 9. Not in the book. R.

"You wrote that on the first day," I said.

"I wrote it on every one."

I turned over the next.

It was a cake with six candles, and a girl with her hair in two uneven braids, blowing them out.

Nobody else was in the frame.

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