Page 189 of Vita Mia

“You calling me crazy, bitch?”

“I’m telling you that what you do in that meeting could change your life forever.”

“Why are you using Lorenzo to bait me? Do you want me to kill you?”

“It’s not bait. It’s the truth. You should have been told it long ago. I’ll let him explain it to you now.”

“Him? Him who?”

Sera got up from the chair. She went to the door and made sure it was locked. She came back over to the camcorder and provided Marietta with headphones. She was hesitant to take them. But she accepted them graciously. She put them on.

“Now, listen to it all, then we talk.” Sera turned on the camcorder. She lifted the viewfinder so that the small window could do a playback of the small cassette inside.

Marietta leaned in.

“Take the paper. Show the date on the paper,” she heard her sister voice.

A man’s hand with scarred knuckles and dirt embedded under his fingernails reached for the paper. He held it up to his chest. The camera zoomed in and revealed the Russian paper and the date. She had no concept of time anymore, but she knew the year. It was 1996.

The paper lowered. The camera angle climbed up dramatically slow. A face appeared. A man with long hair and a beard. A man with an eyepatch and scar on his left cheek. A man with one blue eye.

“Ciao bella. I have missed you Marie,” Lorenzo said.

Marietta stretched her eyes in disbelief.

“I know this is a shock. I’m supposed to be dead. I’m not. I’m notcara, and only you can save my life.”

“You’re tricking me!” Marietta said.

“Do you remember the first time I saw you. When you were visiting that attorney, how our lives connected then. I was fresh off of destroying everything after murdering Giuseppe Calderone. I thought you were my enemy. I found out you are the only good thing that has ever happened to me. You gave me a child, you made me strong, you healed me Marie. Did you know that?”

Marietta clenched her fist and closed her eyes. She opened them and closed them again. She tried to wake up from the dream. She was convinced that nothing that was happening at that moment was real. Tears slipped down her cheeks. It was the medication. Her mother had stopped visiting her in the night so it was now Lorenzo’s turn. She was still asleep.

“That day on the boat. The day you thought you lost me is the day Giovanni proved to me what a real brother is. He should have killed me. I begged him to kill me. But he didn’t. He shot into the floor of the boat and he gave us this chance. Don’t worry about where I am or what I’ve been through Marie. Focus, on how we get free. The only way to free me is to free Giovanni. We have to trust him Marie. We can’t fight destiny. And this is our destiny. Can you help me cara? Can you be strong for me and our daughter one last time? We need you.”

Marietta snatched off the headphones and shook her head violently. Sera paused the recording. She grabbed her by the head and forced her to calm down. When Marietta was able to breathe through her trauma Sera put the headphones back on her. She started the recording. The second half of his message was far more intimate. He confessed his love for her and the all the reasons why. Marietta began to cry. Lorenzo showed her the newspaper one last time.

The camera turned to Mirabella. Marietta recoiled at the sight of her.

“You will meet with whomever you have too, to get before the courts and testify against Giovanni. And then, only then will you tell the magistrates the truth. That our family protects each other. That your husband isn’t dead. And that Giovanni did nothing wrong. You will tell them how the Générale set this all up to destroy us, put you in that place to make you crazy. Drugged you to get you on the stand. You will tell the judges how much you have lost because of him. I love you. This is the proof, Marietta. He’s alive. I kept my promise to you. I will give him back to you if you give me my husband.”

The video clicked off.

Marietta shook her head in disbelief.

“No more drugs, no more suffering,” Sera said. “I’m going to help you. And we’re going to get your life back.”

“I want to watch it... again,” Marietta said as her voice croaked with emotion.

“Okay, I’ll play it again.”

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