Chapter 10 - Isabella Versus Teresa
They did not speak for nine days.
Mother and daughter.
Same apartment building.
Different units temporarily because Isabella asked Teresa to leave hers.
That hurt Teresa.
It was also Isabella’s right.
Teresa had hidden the identity of Isabella’s father for twenty-eight years.
Not:
until she was ready.
Twenty-eight years.
Isabella asked:
“Did you ever plan to tell me?”
Teresa answered:
“Yes.”
“When?”
Silence.
There.
Isabella shouted:
“You gave me his necklace!”
“Pendant.”
“I don’t care what it’s called.”
She had worn a clue around her neck for twelve years.
Teresa said:
“I wanted you to have something from him.”
“Without knowing him.”
“I was afraid.”
“For twenty-eight years?”
“Yes.”
Isabella cried.
Then:
“You made your fear my biography.”
That sentence destroyed Teresa.
I heard it later because Isabella told me in therapy, not because I listened outside doors.
Teresa’s fear was real.
Lorenzo’s threat.
The followed car.
The address under her door.
The family reputation.
Then Antonio’s death.
She raised Isabella alone.
Worked.
Protected.
Loved.
Still:
At eighteen Isabella could have been told.
At twenty-one.
Twenty-five.
The danger had changed.
Lorenzo died eight years before the gala.
Leonard DeMarco died two years before.
Teresa still remained silent.
Fear had become habit.
Then identity.
She was:
the mother who protected Isabella from the Morettis.
If she told the truth and Isabella chose us?
Teresa feared losing her.
That was harder to admit.
Eventually she did.
“I was afraid you’d want them.”
Isabella looked at her.
“You mean him?”
“Your father first. Then after he died, the family.”
“So you protected yourself too.”
Teresa cried.
“Yes.”
There.
Not noble-only motherhood.
Human.
Their relationship did not repair in one chapter.
It took the entire story.
May you like
As it should.
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