His eyes met mine, I couldn’t look away at the earnest longing in them. “I wanted that for Dominic. I wanted him to have light in his life. Our world is a hard one, I wanted softness for him. Yet I knew it wouldn’t be just any woman. Johnny came to me with your picture—you were graduating that day. When I saw you, saw your smile, saw equal fear and determination in your eyes, I knew you were the one.”
“Johnny refused to come that day. He said if I wasn’t coming back to Chicago then I could rot in Italy. I have no idea how he got the picture.” I looked up to find him studying me as if I should know already.
“The same way he got the dozens of them he had of you: Mother Superior sent them to him. I told him it was better you went on to university. You were too young and innocent, you needed to live life more. When Johnny got sick, he told me it was time. You were going to come back here if he had to drag you back by your hair. He had been watching you, making sure you were the perfect, docile little princess fit for Dominic, who would become Don whether he wanted to be or not.”
“Dominic was always going to be Don?”
He nodded. “As far as Johnny was concerned, yes. If things had gone sideways on Johnny, there’s no telling for sure, but Johnny told me the day I got out of prison what he had planned for Dominic. It’s why I sent him to a good school in New York. He needed the knowledge and the connections it would bring.”
Shaking my head, I sighed. “He would be so pissed off if he knew that.”
“For about five minutes, because what’s done is done.” Sighing, he reached for my hand. His hand was so big it swallowed mine. “Please don’t give up on him, on your marriage. Be the light he needs, the softness in his world he needs so badly. He won’t just take from you, he’ll give back once he trusts you, trusts in you.”
I wanted to believe him. He wasn’t telling me what I wanted to hear. Pop wasn’t lying to me and telling me Dominic loved me. How pathetic was I for wishing he did? But no, Pop wasn’t going to lie to me the same way Dominic wasn’t going to lie. So I told Pop I wouldn’t give up. I didn’t need to tell him it felt like Dominic had, though.
After he left, I found Mary in the kitchen and begged her to never tell Pop anything about me and Dominic again. I wanted to yell at her but I couldn’t. She was the only person who talked to me—without her I would be completely alone. She promised she wouldn’t, then she told me to put on an apron, we were making lasagna today. With a sigh I did as I was told, and by the time the lasagna was in the oven I wasn’t mad at her anymore.
Over the last seven weeks she’s been teaching me to cook. We’ve spent a lot of hours in the kitchen. Sometimes I hated it, sometimes it was the only thing that kept me sane. Especially the days when Dominic was gone and I wondered what he was doing while he was away.
One day Marco and Dario were gone, and he was there again.
For the hundredth time since Marco and Da
rio left, I wonder what I’m doing here. During the week Dominic was gone I was given access to my bank cards, ID, and passport. Why didn’t I just walk away? A dozen times I’ve plotted it, planned it out. One day it’s getting on the first international flight out of O’Hare, the next it’s renting a car and crossing into Canada. Once I went to Union Station and just sat there for two hours, watching the trains come in and leave again.
While I was there I let the fantasy unravel, as I have often: a small red brick home with a dog in the yard. Three children playing together in the grass as the breeze blows. They are all blonde, with brown eyes—at least they are supposed to be everything Dominic isn’t, what his children would never be. Only it never stays that way. They morph into blue-eyed and dimpled brown-haired boys, and I ache with longing. Fuck. Even in my dreams I can’t get what I want.
It’s no good, I’ve seen it all in front of me too many times. Over the last seven weeks, we’ve appeared at Enzo and Chloe’s home twice and once at Alicia and Cesare’s home. Dominic held my hand, he smiled, he teased me in front of them, played with the children. It felt so real, until we were in the car and he was back to looking through me, to one-syllable answers to my questions or observations.
I could say it was the promise I made to Pop, but I don’t. I got up from the chair at the train station and took a cab back to our hollow home. I don’t cry anymore, I haven’t since Johnny’s funeral. I’m proud of it, it’s the only thing I’m proud of anymore.
This is all me. I got what I thought I wanted, only it’s a thousand times worse than I imagined it would be. Tonight is another dinner. Luca is back in town for the week. Pop has invited us to his place, just me and Dominic joining him and Luca. One more night of heaven and hell.
The sound of the elevator alert going off pulls me out of my misery. Is it Dominic? It’s a little after three in the afternoon. He almost never comes home before early morning.
“Regina?” I sigh, it’s Chloe. Damn it, I’ve made excuses twice already to avoid lunches with her. I should have known she wouldn’t accept another one.
“In the library,” I call out. Only seconds later she is in the doorway.
She’s carrying a small paper bag. When she sees me, she stops and studies me for so long I grow uncomfortable.
“What?” I pull the book I’m holding up to my chest.
Holding up the bag, she says, “Enzo and I came by last night to have dinner with you and Dominic.” I can’t hide my surprise. “Right.” She nods. “Dominic said that you weren’t feeling well so I brought you—”
“I wasn’t, I had a migraine.”
“He said you had a cough, thought you might be sick. You were trying to keep people from getting sick. I figured it was the crud that went around a few weeks ago and was bringing you some throat stuff that helped us.”
Embarrassed, I study the floor.
With a sigh she settles onto the couch and pats it. “Sit.”
I shake my head.
“Get your ass over here and sit down, Regina.”
Rolling my eyes, I go and flop down on the couch. I don’t take my eyes off the book in my hands.