Page 274 of Vita Mia

They both laughed.

“I’m sorry Mira. For... for us being this way.”

“I’m sorry too, Marietta. When I punished you away you were pregnant, doing that to you was at the lowest point of my life. I could have put Lorenza’s birth in jeopardy. I have so many regrets. My biggest is my part in you being desperate enough to commit yourself to that place. After my nervous breakdown when Giovanni was believed to be dead I was put in a hospital, medicated, treated like my brain was broken. When I was just in a lot of pain. I thought about what you went through. How I could have prevented some of it.”

“None of it was your fault. We had both gone further than we ever thought we would.”

Mirabella nodded in agreement.

Marietta chuckled. “You know it’s hard to remember the bad times. I got so many good memories now with Lo and the children. I don’t even remember Octavio and the things he did to me as a little girl. I don’t carry that dark stuff around anymore. The past just doesn’t feel as important as it used to be.”

“I think now I can say the same,” Mirabella said. “So much has happened since Giovanni went into hiding. Good and bad. Even at our age we feel like for the first time we are free to just be us.”

“So you support him going public?” Marietta asked.

“I always support Giovanni,” Mirabella smiled. “I’m going public with him.”

“What if they come for him?”

“Let them try,” Mirabella said.

“You and Giovanni must know something, or have some trick up your sleeve.”

“Our sons are very powerful now. Gino wants to go into politics. He needs Giovanni’s secret to be out and uncovered. So we can keep the rest of our business as it always should be. Private.” She extended her hand to Marietta. “Trust us. We know the world has changed. But we changed with it. Let them come. I got my sister and my husband at my side. I’m not afraid.”

Marietta smiled. “I got your back. This time, no matter what. I’m not afraid either.”

They held hands and looked up at the moon.

“Can I tell you something?” Marietta asked.

“Sure,” Mirabella said.

“Mama was with me,” Marietta said.

“With you where?” Mirabella asked.

“In that insane asylum. When I was locked down and doped up. All day and every day she was there. I’d sit in that cell and talk to her for hours. The doctors said the hallucinations were from the drugs. They may have been. She stopped coming to me when I sobered up. But it doesn’t change how it felt to have her to take care of me. To really have her be there for me. It felt like how it does now holding your hand.”

“Fabiana used to be with me like that. The doctors told me it was a form of PTSD after seeing her die. That I’ve lived with it all these years. I dunno. She stopped coming too. I guess we may have guardian angels looking out over us.”

Mirabella’s eyes teared. She looked over to her sister. Marietta closed her eyes and relaxed. Mirabella squeezed her eyes shut and relaxed as well. She didn’t let her hand go. Not for nothing.

***

“HERE,” LORENZO SAIDand handed Giovanni a fresh drink. Giovanni hadn’t realized that Lorenzo had come up behind him. He accepted the drink after a nod of respect. They were a few yards away from the pool where their kids all drank, swam and celebrated. Closer to where his property descended to the beach.

“Thanks,” Giovanni said.

“I’m beginning to like the taste of rum,” Lorenzo admitted and tossed back his drink.

“It grows on you,” Giovanni agreed.

“So this is it, where you sentenced yourself? Paradise?” Lorenzo asked. “Much different than my Russian cell.”

Giovanni gaze slipped over to his cousin and then back out to the ocean. “This place was a sanctuary, but it was more hell for me than anything I went through inPoggioreale.”

“I heard what happened,” Lorenzo admitted.

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