Fight Me Little Pearl

Chapter 23

Chapter Twenty-Three

FRANCESCA

“ O h, Francesca!” My mother hugs me tightly. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed you. I didn’t know you were coming today. Why didn’t you tell me? I would have cooked something special for you.” She pulls back, her gaze roaming my face.

Tears sting my eyes at how beautiful and relaxed she looks. I attribute it to the fact that it’s because she doesn’t have to worry about anything anymore. She’s safe and protected in this gorgeous brownstone house in a good neighborhood… all because of Valentino.

‘ They’re under my protection; it’s insulting that you ask me that ,’ he said, and I know he meant it.

“I didn’t know I would be coming today. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing,” I explain lamely. “We just arrived from Italy a few minutes ago, and I decided I must see you.”

“Really?” Mama beams with happiness at the unexpected pleasure of my company. “Well, come on in. There’s some leftover lasagna in the fridge. I’ll warm it up for you.” She starts to drag me towards the kitchen, but I stop her.

“I’m not hungry, Mama. I ate on the plane.”

“Nonsense. That was hours ago. You-”

She stops suddenly when Nonno appears in the hallway, confusion and bewilderment on his face.

“What are you doing here, Francesca?” he asks suspiciously.

“You don’t seem very happy to see me. I just came to visit.” I walk towards him and kiss his cheeks. “You look well.”

There is no answering smile as he peers at me anxiously. “What about your husband? Does he know you’re here?”

I frown. “Yes. Of course, he does.”

“Hmm.” He grunts and turns to go back into the room he had emerged from.

“Nonno, wait.” I touch his arm slightly, and he stops. “Why did you have to move out of your house?”

He frowns at me. “And when did you start asking questions, piccola ?”

The condescension in his tone reminds me again of the way my father had spoken to me all my life, but I keep a smile on my face. “Valentino said I should ask you…”

Nonno’s eyes flare, and it’s funny to see how much he fears Valentino. “He said that?”

“Yes. He did.”

“Uhm…”

I stare at him with amazement. I’ve never seen my Nonno flounder like this. Obviously, he’s hiding something.

“He gave this house to me as a gift after your wedding.” Nonno forces a smile onto his face. “It would be rude if we didn’t move in. After all, it is much bigger than our previous house, isn’t it?”

Obviously, this house is nothing like the majestic mansion Valentino owns in Italy, but it’s a great house and as Nonno noted, much bigger than our previous home. Even now, as we stand in the foyer, the difference between this house and our former one is clear. It’s spacious, with high ceilings and a polished hardwood floor. There’s a minimalist console table to the left with a sleek silver art piece on it.

“Francesca.” I feel my Mama’s arms curve around me. “Are you staying the night?”

“Yes… for a few days, actually.”

“Did Valentino approve of this?” Nonno asks worriedly.

Maybe you should ask him, I want to say, but I’m too scared of Nonno to say that, so I nod instead and quickly follow my mother up the stairs. When we reach the first landing, Mama leads me to the second door and stops.

“You can sleep here. I had all your things from your old room brought here,” she says.

I push the door open and gasp. She has recreated my old room for me. Tears fill my eyes as I turn and hug her. “Mama, thank you.”

“Want to tell me what’s going on?” she asks, herding me towards the bed.

“What do you mean?”

“No bride comes home to stay for a few days with her mother after her honeymoon, cara . Something is going on between you and Valentino.”

I release a deep, shaky breath. “It’s nothing.”

She catches both my hands in hers and kisses them softly. “I will not let you go down the same path I did, Francesca. Something is wrong, and I want to help you fix it before it becomes irreparably broken.”

I school my expression into one of nonchalance. “What if I don’t want to fix it? What if I want it to get so bad to the point where he gets impossibly frustrated and ends this… this… arrangement of convenience?”

“How about you say that again, but with a straight face this time.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’ve fallen for your husband, Francesca. Your eyes, cara, they never lie. They tell me everything I need to know.”

I try to laugh gaily, but the sound is harsh and bitter. “Valentino is handsome, and I’m a woman, so it’s easy to want him, but I hate him and everything he stands for. He’s just like papa, he-”

“He’s nothing like your father,” Mama cuts me off. “I would rather have died than let you marry him if he was like your father…”

“What do you know of him, Mama?”

Wrinkles gather on her forehead. “I don’t know much about him, but I can sense a man like your father from a thousand miles away.”

I roll my eyes and fall back on the bed. “But he’s exactly like Papa, Mama. He kills, he lies, he cheats, and he’s a champion at being unfaithful.”

Mama grabs my wrists and pulls me up. Her eyes are intense and earnest. “Remember that day when he came to ask for your hand in marriage you walked into Nonno’s library wearing that stupid bat costume?”

“Yes.”

“I saw the way he looked at you,” she says. “Your father has never looked at me like that. Not once. That man will not hurt you. He will never treat you the way your father treated me. He is more-”

“He cheated on me on our honeymoon,” I blurt out. “On our freaking wedding night!” Stinging tears slip past my defenses and roll down my cheeks. I press my lips together and wipe them away with my sleeve. He is not worth my tears.

Mama clasps her hands and bows her head. For a few seconds, she is silent. When she raises her head, her eyes are full of love for me. That makes me cry even harder.

“Tell me what happened,” she says softly.

I tell her about Valentino returning to the hotel room smelling of a woman’s perfume, and how the woman shamelessly shows up a few days later at his house in Italy and informs me that she is in love with him and was with him on our wedding night. Angrily, I tell my mother how disappointed and hurt I was, especially since he swore he’d never slept with another woman since our wedding.

“And he has the guts to stop speaking to me after I confronted him about it,” I growl, ending my recount. “He’s an arrogant prick! He cheated, and now he’s acting like he’s the victim.”

Mama’s sigh comes from a very deep place inside her. “In all this you haven’t told me where you caught them sleeping together.”

“Mama!”

“I’m sorry to tell you, but in this instance, you are in the wrong.”

“What?” I explode. “I’m not the one whoring around.”

“No. But you’re the one who has put two and two together and come up with five. I know you never wanted to be part of the world you were born into, but this is your life now. You need to start accepting it.”

“Mama-”

“As horrible as this brutal world we have been born in is, a man’s word is his bond. Once he gives his word about something, he never backtracks. It is the same with your Nonno and all the other honorable men in the Cosa Nostra. The greatest respect you can give a man is to take him at his word.”

I stare at my mother. “What are you saying, Mama?”

“If your husband told you he didn’t do it and gave you his word, then maybe you should trust him over some random woman who is clearly jealous and whose sole purpose is to tear your marriage apart. Valentino isn’t speaking to you because you disrespected him by not holding his words in high regard. He gave you his word and you trampled upon it.”

My body stills at my Mama’s words, especially since they feel so right. Ever since that evening outside my bedroom door in Italy, Valentino has ignored me. I hardly see him at all, and when I do, he greets me, then goes right back to behaving as if I’m not there at all.

I never stopped to think that he didn’t do it, but like Mama said, I didn’t catch them together. It dawns on me that I was and am acting on hearsay. Suddenly, I feel so dumb.

“Mama, what if he did it? I don’t want to be that silly woman who lets her man whore around while she pretends it is not happening.”

She smiles. “You’ll never be that silly woman. No man will ever walk all over you, but marriage is about respect too. Other than this perfume incident, has he done anything to hurt you? Disrespect you?”

I shake my head slowly. He hasn’t. Not even while I was busy hurling insult after insult. Not even when I carelessly spent that big chunk of his money in one afternoon. He didn’t even slightly admonish me.

“When you have a man who cares for you and respects you, you must also respect him. And that starts by holding his words in high esteem. If he says he didn’t do it, then he didn’t do it. Perhaps wait until you catch him in the act. Maybe then you’ll have a better case.”

Did I hurt Valentino by disbelieving him? I don’t think he cares enough to be hurt by me. Still, I feel bad for everything that has happened and the hurt I felt every time he walked past me in the hallway without saying a word. A stray tear falls from my eyes.

My mother lovingly wipes it away.

I lean forward and impulsively kiss her cheek. “I love you, Mama.”

“I love you too, my darling daughter.”

She rises to her feet. “I’ll bring your dinner so you can eat and go to bed early. I’m sure you’ll want to return to your husband bright and early tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Mama.”

As soon as I open my eyes the next morning, I reach for my phone on the bedstand. It’s already nine, and I know Valentino must already be up and working, but I must talk to him. I could hardly sleep last night after my Mama’s talk. It was like the scales fell off my eyes and I saw how wrong I was. And I don’t want to carry on under this ugly black cloud of my own making for one second longer.

I cringe to think I even threw Thomas in Valentino’s face. My hypocrisy stinks, and I’m angry at myself for being so na?ve and emotional. As much as I liked to castigate Valentino, he has never rubbed another woman in my face. When I brought up the issue of Vica, he reassured me of his loyalty and readily agreed to never associate with her again.

But me? What do I do?

Every time there’s a misunderstanding, I bring up Thomas. That is a kind of cheating too. Emotional cheating. I don’t have to sleep with Thomas to be unfaithful to Valentino. Even though in an ideal world Thomas would be the best man for me, I’m not living in an ideal world. I stood in Church and right there in front of God, I made some vows to him. And I intend to keep them. I want to be loyal to Valentino. He is my husband. For better or for worse. Nonna Fabiola’s words ring in my ears.

Everything is already perfect, you just can’t see it because you think it should be different.

My heart almost stops when I hear the ringing tone, and my fingers tighten around the phone. I nearly hang up when he picks it up.

“Hello.”

His husky voice washes over me, and I realize how much I miss him. His voice, his touch, his mouth, everything. I miss him so much, and I want him now.

“It’s Francesca,” I say stupidly.

“I know.”

“Can you send Vance to come pick me up?”

“Why?”

“I want to see you. There’s something we must discuss.”

“I’m busy, Francesca. I?—”

“I have to see you, and it’s urgent. Okay?”

After a brief pause, he says, “Okay. Dutch will be with you shortly.”

“Thank you.” He hangs up immediately, and I understand. He’s upset, but not for long. I intend to make him forgive me.

He must. He just must.