Where the Sun Sets (14 page)

“Anthony... Anthony... can you open your
eyes? Anthony?” Antonia thought she heard her mother’s voice; so
sweet and caring, rich with love. She hadn’t heard that voice
forever, it seemed. It kept calling to her as she struggled to open
her eyes. It took all her strength but she managed to crack them
both, just enough to see the room she was in. The hospital room,
with Joe standing over her. It had been Joe’s voice she heard. It
had to have been. Antonia was so confused. She wanted to see her
mother. She needed to see her mother. She started to close her eyes
again, willing her mother’s voice to come back.

“Anthony, please don’t go. I only have a
minute. Please Anthony, I...”

“Jo...”

“Yes, it’s me, I am here.” Josephine started
to tear up. She was loaded up with more guilt than she could ever
imagine. She needed to apologize for everything.

“Jo...I’m sorry Joe...”

“What? No...” What was Anthony apologizing
for?

“The...so sor...”

“Anthony, it’s alright, we can talk about
that later...”

“I know... bad...you...wanted a ...” This
wasn’t happening. Josephine could feel the anger rising inside of
her. Anthony wasn’t going to allow her to apologize. “Joe...I
tried...sorry...I am...so sorry.” Anthony’s eyes closed again.

“No, no Anthony! You’re not going to do this
to me dammit. Anthony! Open your eyes look at me. I am the one who
is sorry, let me be sorry dammit. Why...” Josephine looked around
the room. Her eyes fell upon the dime store bouquet of flowers,
wrapped in cheap cellophane. She picked them up and looked at them
questioningly, throwing them into the trash can without a second
thought.

“Why Anthony? Why must you always be the good
guy? Why couldn’t you just let me say I’m sorry?” She looked
angrily at her friend. Anthony slept on soundly. If she had heard
any of what Josephine was yelling about, she did not show any sign
of it. Josephine was feeling a mixture of anger and guilt as well
as self pity. Her head started throbbing. She walked back to the
side of her friend’s bed and called out to her again, softly.
“Anthony, Anthony please, open your eyes honey. Just for a moment,
please Anthony. I love you Anthony.” The nurse reentered the room
to remind Josephine she must leave. She obeyed the request, but it
took all her will power to do so.

“You can come back in a couple of hours. She
will be fine. Most likely she will be awake then. Hey you look
pretty upset. Ms. Dal Santo is doing very well. In fact she has
surprised everyone on duty here. She will most likely be moved to a
private room before the end of the day. She is very strong. You
should be happy at her progress, not upset about her
situation.”

“Has Antonia’s OB-GYN been to see her
yet?”

“Let me check hon.” The nurse flipped through
some papers on the counter at the nurses’ station. “Dr. Carides,
yes he was in during the surgery and he checked on her right before
she left recovery. Hasn’t been back since, which is good news,
don’t you think?”

Josephine wasn’t thinking. She was making a
mental note of the doctor’s name. She had a couple hours before she
could visit with Anthony again. Plenty of time to find this doctor
and get some answers.

Chapter 15

Antonia tried to focus on the voice.
“Anthony, Anthony please, open your eyes honey. Just for a moment,
please Anthony. I love you Anthony.”

Darkness, a rich thick black, was all she
could see. Then falling, she felt herself falling backwards. She
felt fear, and wondered why. Antonia had worked hard, throughout
her life to capture fear, to control her emotions and hide them
from others. And now she was afraid and worse, she did not know why
or what she feared. She kept falling away from the voice. She
turned her head to look behind her. She wanted to see where she was
falling to. Nothing was there, just more of the darkness.

Searching out the voice again, she felt
emptiness. The falling sensation stopped and she looked around. She
stood on her own two feet, there was no ground. She was surrounded
by the darkness. Off to the left she saw a light. She willed
herself to walk towards it. It was coming from a doorway. She
opened the door very slowly.

Peeking through the door way, she saw her
father. He had the front of her mother’s dress in his hand. Antonia
tried to focus her eyes. Her mother was still in the dress. Antonia
knew, in her heart, it was her mother. Although even if she were
closer, she would not be able to recognize her. The fist of her
father’s free hand was continually punching at the hole that used
to be her mother’s face. Antonia let a gasp escape her lips. Her
father looked over to where she stood. He looked her in the eyes
and smiled.

The front door smashed to the floor,
startling both Antonia as well as her father. Salvatore dropped the
body, but his bloody hand was still extended as the police entered
the dwelling. Antonia closed the door quietly. She backed away into
the darkness. A hand fell upon her shoulder. She spun around to
witness its owner. Mother. Her mother was standing behind her with
a smile on her face. She bent down so that she was eye level with
her daughter. Antonia looked upon her face. She felt a solo tear
fall down her cheek. Gently she extended her hand out to her
mother’s face, her mother’s beautiful face. Not a freckle, not a
pimple, not a flaw. Ever so gently Antonia let her fingers caress
her mother’s face.

“It’s OK, Anthony, don’t cry.”

“I’m so sorry Mommy.” Antonia heard herself
speak the words she had harbored inside all these years. Her words
did not seem to apply to with her eyes, trying to locate some
light. Once she found the source she crept slowly towards it. Once
again she found a door. She fought to keep her hand by her side.
The voices outside the door were painfully familiar. She did not
want to open the door, so she just stood there, listening with her
eyes.

The door opened without her help and her
father stepped through it. “What’s the matter with your hand there
little woman, broken or something? You open that door when you hear
me calling. Juliet, where are you dammit? Little woman, where is
your mamma?”

Antonia just stood there, looking at the
figure still standing in the doorway. The light was very bright
behind the figure, so one could not make out any distinguishing
features. Juliet came running, pressing the sides of her dress down
with her hands.

“Sorry sir, I did not hear you come in. How
was your day?” Juliet’s eyes jumped between Antonia and the figure
standing in the doorway.

Salvatore relinquished his anger as he
invited the stranger into his home. “Well kid, what did I tell ya?
Huh? Are they not the most beautiful closures ever seen? Tell me
whatcha think.” Salvatore motioned with his hand towards his wife.
“This here is Juliet. And the little woman there is Antonia.”
Salvatore never considered his wife or daughter as individuals. To
him they were property and he let outsiders know this as well.
Antonia’s eye’s never left the stranger. He was dirty and carried
an odor which summoned up bile. He walked into the house and
towards Antonia, who involuntarily took a step or two backwards.
Her father immediately picked up on this and quickly stepped up
behind her. He jabbed at her back with something sharp and she
froze in response.

“Are ya scared of me?” The stranger asked,
while he tilted his head in every direction so as to get a better
look at her. “Do I scare you?” Again the sharp object rammed her in
the back.

“No sir, you don’t scare me.”

“Good, I wouldn’t want to scare you.” The
stranger kept his stare on Antonia as he spoke to her father.

“Yes Sal, I think we can do some business
here. Shall we begin?”

Antonia felt her lungs solidify as her body
recognized the danger implied in the stranger’s statement. From
behind, her father grabbed her around her thighs and lifted her off
the ground. She could have been sitting on his shoulder.

“Juliet put two steaks on and whip up some
taters, me and the kid gots business to do. I want dinner on the
table in twenty minutes. Do you hear me woman?”

“Yes sir, right away.”

Salvatore and the kid walked back to the
bedroom. Antonia watched from her father’s arms as her mother ran
to the kitchen obediently. She watched her mother force herself not
to watch as Antonia was taken away. She felt anger with her mother
for the first time in her short life.

Once inside the bedroom, her father closed
the door behind them. This made the danger feeling stronger, as
Antonia never saw the door shut before. She felt totally cut off
from her mother and she was very frightened. Her father placed her
on her feet at the foot of the bed. He raised a single finger to
her nose and gave a strong stare into her eyes, which told her not
to move a muscle. “You see kid, it’s all in the training.”

“For three thousand, the training had better
be more involved.”

“Oh, it is. You’ll see. Go ahead and ask her
to do something, go on.” The kid looked questioningly at Salvatore,
and then back to Antonia. He walked over to where she stood and
stopped directly in front of her.

Again the smell overwhelmed her and she took
a step backwards. But the bed behind her stopped her in her tracks.
She almost fell back on it but managed somehow to stable herself.
The stranger smiled at her as he said, “Take my pants off.” Antonia
was not sure she heard him correctly, so she looked up
questioningly. “Is there a problem? I said take my pants off.”

Antonia willed her hands to his belt buckle.
It was rusty and pieces of the fake silver flaked off. The
stranger’s belt was worn and cracked. It fell from the buckle
easily. Antonia was finding it difficult to breathe with the
stranger’s odor so close to her. She had to calm her fingers as she
manipulated the button of the stranger’s pants. She could feel him
harden through the material. She pulled the zipper down and caught
a wicked smell as the strangers pants dropped to the floor.

Her hands dropped to her sides as she
completed the task required of her. The stranger looked over to
Salvatore, who closed his eyes as he nodded in agreement.

“Breathe on me.” Antonia stood about a foot
away from the stranger. She breathed, not understanding. The
stranger placed his right hand behind her head and brought it to
his crotch. “Breathe on me.” The man was filthy. His jockeys were
stained with a golden crust. There were black finger wipes all over
the front of them. Antonia felt as if she might die right there on
the spot. It would not be long before she wished she had.

When the stranger tired of the breathing
game, he asked her to put her hand inside the slot. Antonia did as
she was told. “Now grab hold of it and slowly pull it out.” Again,
Antonia obeyed. “Lick it.” Antonia felt herself go pale. He could
not be serious. It was oozing some sort of phlegm. It smelled and
looked as if it hadn’t been washed in years. The stranger brought
his face down to Antonia’s. “I said lick it, like this.” And slowly
he ran his tongue up and down Antonia’s face.

Antonia heard her father chuckle as he sat
watching in the corner of the room. Antonia tried to do what the
stranger asked. It just wasn’t going to happen. It was as much as
she could do to keep from throwing up.

Her father seemed to have noticed her color
change, and not wanting to blow the deal, decided to step in before
she ruined everything for him. “Hey, kid. Hang on a second. Come
and sit over here for a moment.” With great difficulty, the
stranger staggered over to where Salvatore was sitting. “There’s
plenty of time for that. Why don’t you read over this closure
contract and watch the little woman. Antonia, take your clothes off
the way Daddy showed you. Go on.”

Antonia was grateful that the stranger had
walked away. She was catching her breath when her father made the
request. She took a deep breath to calm herself and started to
undress, as she was taught to in front of a man. Slowly she undid
her dress and pulled it up over her head teasingly.

“Oh, I’ve gotta have her Sal.”

“Well, just sign on the line and you can pick
her up Friday evening.” Antonia placed her dress on the bed neatly
and bent to untie her shoes.

A plate crashed on the kitchen floor. Both
Antonia and Salvatore looked up at the door at the same time.
Salvatore stood and started towards the door. He grabbed a finger
full of Antonia’s hair as he passed and twisted it. “You do this
right little woman. Just keep taking the clothes off like Daddy
taught you.” With that he exited the room. Antonia watched him
leave. She bent down to finish removing her shoes. She heard her
father screaming at her mother. She heard her mother beg him to
stop. Heard her mother apologize. She could mentally feel her
mother cower into a corner. Again she felt angry with her
mother.

She felt evil surround her and she was
frightened again. It had just occurred to her that she was alone in
the bedroom with the stranger. She knew her father would be a
while. She knew her mother would have to earn forgiveness for
whatever she had broken. She slowed down her undressing a bit,
hoping her father would be back before this man did whatever it was
she knew he was going to do to her. She started to remove her
nylons. She was bent, almost folded in half. She rolled the nylon
down the first leg. Removing the foot, she closed her eyes as she
said a silent prayer. Slowly she rolled down the second leg and
pulled her second foot from the nylon.

Before she could stand up straight, to neatly
lay the nylons on the bed, he was behind her. He grabbed hold of
her hips with both of his hands and jammed himself into her rectum.
The pain was quick and searing. He held her still as he drove
himself inside as far as he could manage. He stayed that way a
moment as he asked her, “Are ya scared of me?” Antonia couldn’t
breathe much less answer the man, so he tried again. Slowly he
pulled himself out to the very edge, and then forcefully he jammed
himself back inside of her. “I asked ya, are ya scared of me?”