Page 70 of Sinner's Vows

As I open my journal, a photo slides out and to the floor.

Portia reaches for it. “Heavens, there’s so few photos of them. Here, put a face to the name,” she says, pointing to the old photo. “This is Bianca Randazzo on her wedding day to Don Scalera. See, there’s Randazzo.”

BiancaRandazzo? Heavens help me. Was she his cousin, his sister? My stomach seems to drop to the floor. Here it is—the whole connection captured in a fleeting moment.

“Were you there?” I ask, somewhat breathless, trying to hide my shock.

“No, but she showed me this photo once.”

I take it from her, my fingers quivering.Randazzo. I haven’t seen an image of him in decades. This one is taken from his side, and that tell-tale notch in his ear is clearly visible. Just looking at him like this tenses me up with fury, and I exhale with strain, trying to keep a hold on my emotions. Now isn’t the time.

Instead, I focus on Bianca. She was beautiful with lush chestnut hair, tanned olive skin, dark eyes, deep and somehow mournful in this casual wedding photo. But it’s Don Scalera’s face that pulls me in the deepest. Dominic is the spitting image of his father, if a much taller hulk of a man.

Something shifts in me.Relief. Deep, foundation-shaking relief. There’s no chance we’re related. Neither the same mother, nor the same father.

I slot the photo back into my journal as Portia opens hers with a sniff.

“This is dated six weeks before she went into labor.” Her eyes skim the lines.

I lean in to look closer, but she’s already flipped the page. She trembles with a few suppressed gasps, then goes over into big heaving sobs. Tears run and splatter down on the page as she grips the notebook.

“Portia—” I murmur, reaching for her hand. This woman is reliving trauma, and I so wish I could spare her.

“I can’t…I just can’t—” she cries out between sobs. “I can’t do this. I’ve never been able to do it. It’s like taking a blunt knife and carving into my heart. I knew she suffered, oh, God, how I knew it, but to see it like this—” She brings her hands together in prayer, closing the journal in the process as she brings it up to her face, already trapping her tears on some of the pages. “You know, after the twins, the doctor told her to never have more babies as it would kill her. And then, she was blessed with Benedict. I don’t know what Don Scalera was thinking, getting her pregnant again.” With a wild sniff, she looks at me, tears glazing her eyes. “I can’t read this.”

“So let me,” I say, feeling shredded by the power of her emotions. Already, I sense there’s a stronger connection between me and this family than I ever thought possible, but Portia lived this time with Bianca and her sons, now grown men. She witnessed Bianca’s abuse, her pregnancies, and her last days… God, I totally understand why she can’t do this. “Just let me. I don’t have the same connection to Bianca as you had.”

She nods, tears not stopping. “This is why you’re here. This is why God send you to us. To right this wrong that was made decades ago.” Her grip loosens on the moleskin, and I gently take it from her. “God works in mysterious ways.”

And sometimes, he doesn’t work at all. But I keep this thought to myself. As I open the book, Portia slumps back against the wall, looking completely exhausted. Who knows what battles she’s been fighting since learning of Gabriella’s existence.

I open the first page. It is just a blank journal, and Bianca wrote the date on the top of each page on which she made an entry. I take a quick glance over a few pages. Some days, the entries are a line or two; some days, there are pages. If this was six weeks before she went into labor, then she didn’t write much. She must have been exhausted and anxious, clearly not supposed to be pregnant at all, and waiting in dread to see if this birth would finally be one too much.

“Read aloud, will you?” Portia whispers at me from her side of the walk-in closet, where we’ve cut ourselves off from the rest of the world.

“Okay,” I whisper and turn back to the first page:

I can’t. I can’t anymore. My anxiety for my little girl, for my Gabi, is too much. I know they’ll save her because I’m done. I know I’m not surviving this one and I’ve signed the papers. I don’t even have the strength to push her into this world. Already this is so much worse than with Benedict, and I can’t bear looking at my sons, knowing I’m leaving them to fend for themselves.

I swallow. “Papers? What papers did she sign?”

“Like a living will,” Portia says. “I witnessed it. A legal document forcing the doctor to save the baby if it becomes a decision between saving her or the baby. She had the same in place with Benedict.”

A shudder passes through me, having never heard of such a thing before, but in this world, anything is possible. What was this poor woman going through? I jump to the next entry.

The last thing I ever wanted was to bring a girl into this world, to fulfill the final term and condition of the sick pact they made.If only I could have died with Benedict as was the plan, this would never have come to pass.

I glance up at Portia, and she’s stilled, taking in the words, putting them in a context I don’t have.

“Benedict. Do you actually think she fell pregnant with Benedict in the hope to—” I break off, unable to say the words.

“No, that was just wishful thinking. The Don didn’t stop with her. Ever. It was just a matter of time.”

I wipe at my cheek, the cruelty of Dominic’s dad being hammered into me from all sides today. “What do you think she means with final term and condition of the pact they made?”

“I don’t know. We’ll have to read the rest. I told you, to get the big picture here is going to take time.” She glances at her watch. “Can you scan through it? Find the salient parts.”

“Okay.” I skim over several pages during which Bianca only makes short entries, mostly about her sons. She skips many days and doesn’t write anything.

---