La Famiglia (76 page)

“His name was Octavio Leone. And he pretty much abused me from the moment he could,” Marietta said.

“And if I could rise from this bed I would get you justice. I swear it.” Mancini grunted.

“I don’t want your justice. It’s too late!” Marietta said. “I don’t want to know why you abandoned us, why you tossed our mother aside like garbage. I want to know why you think now we owe you anything!”

Mancini nodded. “I’m dying. I’ve been dying for years. I want forgiveness.” He reached for the drawer and Mira thought to help him. But he removed the folder without assistance. “I’ve kept them hidden, until now,” he said. He removed from the folder two original birth certificates. He smiled at them and passed them to Mira. She stared down at the little stamped prints of her and Marietta’s feet.

“I want Lisa,” Mancini wheezed. “I know my soul will never make it past purgatory or the lakes of fire in hell to see her without your forgiveness.” He looked up at Mira. “I watched you for years. I promised your grandparents I would never interfere. I had no right to know you. But I did interfere. When you were seventeen and your grandfather died, you applied to Parsons for a scholarship.”

Mira blinked at him. “Yes. How did you know?”

Mancini smiled. “I paid the tuition, set up the scholarship. I had regular reports on your life.”

Mira couldn’t believe it.

Mancini sighed. “When I learned I was dying I couldn’t keep that promise to stay away any longer. I used your attorney Theodore Tate to bring you to me, and then you met… Giovanni.” Mancini closed his eyes. “I’m not a good man, girls. And I did hurt your mother. In ways I can never forgive myself. But through it all she found a way to love me. And that love saved me. And that love created you,” Mancini said.

Mira sat on the edge of the bed. She put a hand to his chest. “I can’t forgive you for what you did to my mother. But I can see, in your warped mind you do think you loved her.”

“I did!” Mancini insisted. “I’m not so different from Giovanni. If I can’t love neither can he,” Mancini said.

Mira shook her head. “He believes that. He thinks he’s his father. He thinks he’s a man like you. And I’m not blind to his faults so don’t throw them in my face. What Giovanni and I have is nothing like what you had with my mother.” Mira glanced to Marietta who continued to stare at the photo. “What she has with Lorenzo is nothing like it either.”

“This is not the life for you, Mira, or you, Marietta. I have money. You have an inheritance I plan to leave to you. Armando is your brother. He’ll help you escape them. Claim your life. Be that great fashion designer. That was your dream. I want you both to have your dreams.”

Mira removed her hand from his chest. She frowned. “I don’t want your money, I don’t want your legacy. My children will be raised as Battaglia. If you want forgiveness I’ll try to give it. But you won’t get anything else. And as for my dream, I have my dream. Her name is Eve. And I have sons, their names are Gianni and Gino. I have a husband who is part of me. That’s my dream.”

Mancini gripped her wrist. His eyes began to tear and she saw he struggled to appear strong. “Lisa,” he said staring at her. “You’re my Lisa.”

Marietta walked over to the bed. She pulled her sister free from his grasping. “It’s time to go. We’ve come for what we wanted. Let’s go!”

In that moment Mira knew, this would be the last time she saw her father. He stared at her with such pain in his eyes.

“Mira! Let’s go! He should suffer! After what he did to her, he should suffer.”

“Don’t you see it, Marietta?” Mira looked to her sister, and tears slipped down her cheeks. “He’s suffering. Just like you. The past can’t change. So you both have to let it go.” She looked back at Mancini. She leaned over and kissed his brow.

Mancini wept. “Lisa…”

She kissed his cheek.
“Mi Papa, andate in pace.”
 

And in her heart she had released him. Mancini whispered his love for her mother. She let up and let him go. Mira stood. She reached for Marietta to encourage her to say goodbye but her sister dodged her touch. She looked at Mancini with disgust. Mira feared she’d one day regret this moment between them, but she couldn’t force it.

“However you want to do it. Say goodbye,” Mira said.

“Goodbye,” Marietta said and walked to the door, opened it, and walked out of it. Mira picked up the cigar box. She put their birth certificates inside and stepped back from the bed. Mancini closed his eyes and continued to sob. There were no more answers to be found with him. Just the cold-hearted resolution she needed. She followed her sister out.

Giovanni looked up. Marietta stepped out of the door first. Mira followed soon after carrying a cigar box. His wife had tears on her cheeks. She smiled at him. She then cast her gaze to Armando. Giovanni watched as she walked over to him. Armando frowned, but didn’t object when Mira embraced him. “Thank you for letting us see him,” she said.

He kissed Mira on both cheeks. “Will you call us to let us know, when…” she glanced back to the room. “I’d like to pay my respects.”

“I will,” Armando said.

She smiled.

When she returned to Giovanni he could breathe again. “Take me out of this place please,” she said softy.

Giovanni eased his arm around her waist and they followed Lorenzo and Marietta down the stairs. They left the Mancini gates without incident. It wasn’t until they were half way home did she think of Gemma.

“Where’s Gemma?” Mira asked.

“She’s Mancini’s problem now,” he replied. Giovanni cast his eyes to Mira. He studied her reaction. The answer seemed to satisfy her. When the men left the room Giovanni informed Armando of the facts. The ones he wanted him to know. Gemma was responsible for the girls learning the truth. Armando said he’d been looking for her. They had unfinished business. Giovanni didn’t inquire further. She was Mancini’s problem now. He also let him know that if there were any further attempts to harm their wives, he’d pay with his life. Armando smirked and nodded to the threat. A clear challenge.

“What happened to your hand?” Mira asked. She picked it up again. “Giovanni, it looks broken.”

“It’s fine. I’ll have someone take a look at it in the morning,” he replied as he went through the cigar box of momentos. The pictures of his Bella as a little girl riveted him. She was right. There wasn’t much he knew about her past. Only her mother’s fate was told to him. Who was her first love? How did she grow up? What made her become a fashion designer? All of the questions flooded his brain.

“No. No. Lorenzo, take us to the hospital,” Mira said.

“I said it’s fine.” Giovanni tried to pull his hand away. But she held firmly to it.

“Take us to the hospital please.” She stroked his hand and smiled. “I’m going to take care of you.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek.

Giovanni stiffened. He was still very gun-shy of her affection. But the melting softness in her smile made him want to believe her sincerity.

“Do as my wife said,” Giovanni forced a smile. “I want her to take care of me.”

* B
*

Mancini pushed up on the pillows. The door was open when Armando walked Gemma inside. He hadn’t seen her in over twenty years. The accusations Marietta threw at him burned his heart. How could he have been so blind?

“It was you. All this time I blamed Capriccio and it was you.”

“You did this. Don’t blame me,” Gemma said. She held her head high. “I was her friend.”

“Liar!” Mancini said. He began to cough. So harsh and chokingly tight was this coughing fit he spit up blood. Armando returned to his side. He helped him. Mancini didn’t want help. With the last of his strength he wanted truth. “You set it in motion and I was a fool. You were doing this under my nose and I never suspected.”

“Yes!” Gemma said. “I loved you, Marsuvio. I was good enough for you until you saw Lisa. And then you made me watch as you treated her like your woman. I was the one who put her on drugs!” Gemma proclaimed with pride. Mancini sat upright. She nodded. “Just like you were the one that led me to them. I was the one that kept feeding her fears, telling her to run from you. I was the one who convinced Capriccio to give your daughter to that sadist brother in-law of his. I was the one that held Lisa down while Capriccio put a needle in her arm filled with heroin so she could overdose. I wanted to destroy her after years of watching you give her what was mine!”

Mancini couldn’t speak.

Gemma let go a mad laugh. “When Isabella told me what she wanted to do to you I was glad. I wanted you to pay. And I wanted you to find out that Marietta was alive after all these years. So you would know what is like to lose a child. How badly it hurt. Just like it hurt when I lost the child I carried for you!”

Marsuvio reclined back into his pillows.

“Was there ever a contract on Lisa’s life?” he asked.

“No, it was something Flavio tried to convince Tomosino to do. He hated you. Did you know that? Flavio hated you and Capriccio worked with him for years. But Tomosino never okayed it. Lisa died when she came back for Marietta and threatened to expose Capriccio and me.”

Mancini closed his eyes. He drowned in the bottomless depths of his sins. He could deny nothing anymore. There was no point. Gemma was his whore before Lisa, and in his arrogance he turned his beloved Lisa over to her killers.

“I spared your daughters that truth. It’s ugly enough what happened to their mother. I can live with my part in it. But Marietta doesn’t need to know that her suffering was the sentence I gave her for being your favorite. I chose her, because I remember seeing you at her crib. Telling her how much you loved her. How you would protect her. She got none of that love or protection! I saw to it.”

He nodded. “I will see you in hell.”

Gemma spat at him.

Armando grabbed her by the arm. Gemma began to shout at him. “Rot in hell! I don’t care what you do to me! Rot in hell!”

Mancini said nothing. He didn’t look her way as she screamed at him. She was dragged from the room screaming and pleading. He closed his eyes.

“Are they sleeping?” Mancini asked.

Lisa turned and smiled at him. “Look at them, Manny. They hold hands when they sleep.” He walked over to the crib. He folded his arms around Lisa and held her to him. The moonlight poured in over the crib. The girls slept side by side on their small stomachs. Marietta’s hand covered Mira’s tightly balled fist. He’d never been into children. He’d only held his son twice and that was once at his christening. But his girls were beyond beautiful.

“I like their names now, Mirabella and Marietta. I think they’re perfect for them.” Lisa said. “I’ll be a good mother, like my mother. I’ll do whatever it takes to protect them.”

“You already are a good mother. A good woman. No longer the girl who was afraid of her shadow.”

Lisa turned in his arms. She took his face. “And you’re a good man, Manny. I love you. No matter what happens between us, always remember that.”

He chuckled. “You act as if things will change. I swear to you, Lisa, I won’t abandon you and my daughters. Never.”

“Shh… don’t make promises to me. I don’t need them. Not anymore.” She kissed him softly. The softest sweetest kisses he’d ever imagined possible. And he believed in them. 

Mancini opened his eyes. His tears blurred his vision. There was someone in the room. He struggled to focus on the identity. “Mirabella?” he asked at first. The person moved to the bed and his vision cleared.

“Lisa?”

His beloved sat on the side of the bed. Her fragrance bloomed in his nostrils. She was as beautiful as the day he met her. She leaned in and kissed him again with those petal soft lips of hers.
“It’s me, Manny. I’m here.”

Armando walked back down the hall. His head swam from the events of the night. He’d learned too much of his father for his liking. Surprisingly he’d learned even more of the women who were his sisters. How fragile and unsuspecting they were of their connection. He had to admit his father had been right to bring them back. But what was he to do now?

“Papa?” he opened his father’s door.

Mancini lay still in his bed. His eyes closed. Armando walked over to the bed. “Papa, I sent them away. Giovanni and I have a new understanding. I don’t think peace is possible if you won’t give me full control. Papa?”

Armando put his hand to his father’s chest. He felt no heartbeat. “Papa!” 

He put his finger under his nose and checked for breathing.

There was none.

Marsuvio Mancini was dead.

“Papa!” He dropped to his knees. He took his hand. He kissed his ring. “Papa, no. Not yet. No!”

* B
*

“Are you okay?” Lorenzo asked.

Marietta buried her face against his neck. She sat on his lap in the waiting room area while the doctors saw to Giovanni. She cried and held to him from the moment they arrived. Lorenzo tried several times to talk to her but all she could do was cry.

“Marie? Talk to me. Please. What did he say?”

She lifted her face from his neck. She wiped at her tears and snot with her jacket sleeve and then reached in her pocket and removed the Polaroid. “This is my mother,” she said.