Page 42 of A Son Hidden from the Sicilian

“That isn’t what happened.”

“Yes, it is. Rocca told me about Mom. When she was having one of her...dark periods. And I know why they both had those dark periods.”

“You were a child.” And no one was supposed to know. It was Rocca’s secret. Even he hadn’t known right away, or he would have stopped it. Stopped their mother. Berated their father into being a man and not letting his wife whore herself out to put food on the table.

Then worse, so much worse, insisting his daughter do the same.

“I wasthere,” Saverina said while Lorenzo reeled. “Not so much a child as you wanted me to be. I’ll admit, I didn’t understand the prostitution stuff until I got older. It’s only started to come together for me recently, but—”

“Stop.”

“Stop what? Discussing the truth? We all know. Rocca, God rest her, did not possess the discretion about the situation that you did.”

“You misunderstood her. She was...unwell and—”

“Are you calling her a liar, Lorenzo?”

It took his breath away, the accusation. The memory of his sister, so broken at the end. So desperate to stop the pain inside of her. All put there by parents who had used her.

And he hadn’t been strong enough to see it. To stop it. To save her from it, or the end she’d chosen.

“How did we get on this subject?” Lorenzo demanded. This entire evening had been one moment after another where someone else was in control. Someone else was unravelingeverything, and all without his consent. How had he arrived at this place where everyone could upend all his carefully structured walls and plans?

And still Saverina yammeredon. As if this twenty-year-old knew more than him. Understood all while he floundered.

“I have watched you work yourself to the bone for years. And you were successful. It seemed to make you...content, if not happy. So I said very little about your choices. Oh, I know I made fun of you, but it was always a joke. This is no joke, Lorenzo. This is a son. A woman you love. And you’re calling thembusiness. Have you changed so much from the man who raised me so well?”

“I have not changed. I am who I have always been. My goal, my only goal, has been to protect and provide for my family. This is why you live the cushioned life you do.”

“Yes. Yes, it is.”

He didn’t know what to say if she didn’t argue with him. He didn’t know what to do when it looked like she was about to cry rather than rage at him.

He was hurting every woman he cared for this evening and he didn’t understandhow. Distance. It was the only answer. Because this—discussing the past, being together,love—it only caused strife. Hurt.

“Without us to protect...is it all punishment for you now?” she asked, making no sense at all. “You’ve essentially been an empty nester for two years and I thought you might build your own life, but you haven’t, have you? Rocca took her own life, so you cannot have anything for yourself?”

The words, the stark reality of them, stole his breath. Surely they couldn’t be true, no matter how hard they landed. “You don’t understand.”

“She was my sister too. I know she was your twin, but that doesn’t mean you get to own grieving her. Failing her. All that we couldn’t do to save her.”

He wanted none of that guilt or failure to touch Saverina. “She was my responsibility.”

“She was oursister, Lorenzo. Not a task assigned to you by our parents. Theyneglectedus, both of them. But you didn’t. We weren’t...bullet points on a company budget and a child isn’t a business merger. Iknowyou know this, so I cannot understand why you have decided to...pretend as though you are someone else.”

But she didn’tunderstand. Couldn’t. Because he had ensured she had a life where his choices would ideallynevermake sense to her. “I am Lorenzo Parisi. I will take care of and protect my son the way I took care of and protected you and our siblings.”

“You loved us too.”

Love, that awful thing. Stabbing at him again and again tonight. “Why are we talking about this?”

“Because you’re...messed up. Sacrificing the wrong things. And weirdly enough, when I realize I’m messing my life up, it tends to stem from some terrible thing that happened when we were kids.”

The thought of her messing up, of knowing the terrible when he’d been so certain he’d shielded her from it...

“And when I realize that, and acknowledge that, deal with it—I know that’syourinfluence,frati.” She reached out to him then. Her eyes full of hurt thathehad put there, whether he’d wanted to or not.

“Yousaved me from what could have been. Because you loved me, all of us, more than yourself. You put our needs above your own. When our father did not care, when he let everyone around him sacrifice sohedidn’t have to, you were our savior. That was...heroic, Lorenzo. You have always been my hero, no matter how I tease. But that cannot continue if on the other side of raising us, saving us, you push away any chance at love and happiness.”

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