Page 77 of The Tempted
Chapter Twenty-Seven
When I was, three years old, my grandpa Tony died it was a pivotal moment in my life and at the tender age of three, one would think that I wouldn’t remember anything but I remember bits and pieces from that day. I can recall bouncing on my blue rocking horse with the springs on it waiting for my Grandpa to come home from the docks. He was a longshoreman and had gone down to the union hall that morning. Two officers rang Nana’s bell that day one male and the other a female. The female officer wore her hair tied back in a ponytail. When her partner asked my grandma to sit down and began to explain what had happened to my Grandpa the female officer took me into the living room and made me tell her all about my horsey. I remember that officer after all these years the same way I remember the scent of flowers that filled the funeral parlor in the days that followed. I know now this is how we remember certain moments in our lives by the people and things that surrounded us at the time. We may not remember the actual event, but the things that were associated with it allow us never to forget these certain life changing moments.
I sit here in the hallway of the emergency room covered in Mikey’s blood and know that I’ll always remember the way his blood stained my hands. I know that I’ll always remember the look in my father’s eyes as he tried to control the bleeding. I’ll remember the sorrowful look the paramedic gave me when he asked who Mikey’s next of kin was. He wasn’t going to let me ride in the ambulance with Mikey the cops wanted to question me. I explained I was the only person Mike had in this world and he let me ride to the hospital with him. He told the cops that they were treating me too explaining that they could follow us to the hospital and question me there. He will never know how grateful I was to him in that moment.
I fear that every time I close my eyes, I will relive the moment we arrived at the hospital and how the paramedics started shouting for help from the doctors. They rambled off a bunch of medical terms and the doctors in the emergency room started hollering orders, but the one sentence that will always play back in my head is “He’s lost too much blood.” I don’t remember who exactly made the declaration but I know that when I heard those words I felt my heart shatter and hope diminish. After that, the nurse wearing the Hello Kitty scrubs pushed me aside and told me they needed to take him into surgery to remove the bullet. I must’ve opened my mouth to protest because she shut me down with a hard stare telling me Mikey would die if I didn’t let them do their jobs. That’s all she needed to say for me to retreat into the hallway watching as a team of surgeons and nurses ran wheeling Mikey out of my sight.
I leaned back against the wall and lifted my head to see my father walking towards me looking disheveled; his dress shirt untucked matching my hands covered in Mikey’s blood. His hair that was never out of place was a mess and his face looked worn and tired. There was a pair of police officers walking behind him, but they stopped by the door allowing us privacy. I watched his every step as he made his way beside me falling into the seat next to mine. I didn’t speak, and neither did he we just sat there for a few moments before he reached down and took my hand in his, squeezing it tightly.
“What if he doesn’t make it?” I asked barely audible.
“He will,” he said hoarsely. I turned my head to look at him realizing my father needed Mikey to live almost more than I did. I probably would’ve felt sorry for him looking as distraught as he did, but all I felt was anger towards him.
“Why is that because a Valente already died for a Pastore? If history repeats and it sometimes does, then Mikey will die taking a bullet for me just like his dad died for you,” I couldn’t hide the resentment in my voice not that I cared if I sounded bitter it was time my father knew how poisonous his lifestyle truly was.
“Mikey’s not going to die,” he said, raising his voice an octave higher.
“You don’t know that!” I said as I stood up on my wobbly feet and stared down at him. “You can’t guarantee me that he’s not going to die. You just hope that he doesn’t to save your own conscience,” tears started to well in my eyes as anger boiled in my veins. “I used to think you were my hero, the one person in my life I could always count on to make sense of things. I knew that you lived a shady life and your business endeavors were mostly illegal, but I always chose to brush that aside and see the good in you. There was even a point in my life where having a gangster for a daddy was enticing, but that was because you loved your family.”
“Don’t talk about my love for you in the past tense!” He said cutting me off.
“If you loved us as much as we thought you did none of us would be in the situations we are currently in. Some thug wouldn’t have kidnapped me and Mikey wouldn’t be fighting for his fucking life. Don’t you dare tell me you love us because if you did, you would’ve let your love for us drive your decisions and not your love for money and power. For years, I’ve watched my sister be so sad and never understood why, but your pal Deke enlightened me. What kind of monster sends the young man his daughter loves to prison? You sent Anthony to prison to avenge Val’s death, ruining his life and forcing him to break Adrianna’s heart. Don’t you get it? Every bad thing that’s happened to us has been at your hand!”
“Nikki, that’s enough,” Aunt Gina said, walking towards us with Nana beside her.
“Gina mind your business,” my father lifted his head, looking me in the eye. “Get it all out you’re entitled.”
I looked at him torn between wanting to scream and yell at him for all the horrible choices he made in his life and the need to wrap my arms around him just because he was my daddy the one man I measured every other man against even Mikey. I turned around putting my back towards him deciding it was better if I didn’t look at him anymore. There was nothing left to say. I took the bottle of Gatorade Aunt Gina offered me and waited for word on Mikey in silence. Aunt Gina took a seat next to my father and wrapped an arm around his shoulders.
“She’s been through a lot Vic she doesn’t mean it,” she said in an attempt to console her brother.
“Everything she said is true,” I heard my father say. I wiped away the tears that fell from my eyes he was still my dad no matter how angry I was. I still loved him and hated that my words inflicted pain on him regardless if he deserved it or not or how true the words were.
“Miss Pastore?” I lift my head to see two police officers standing before me.
“Yes,” I confirm that they’ve found the person they were looking for. I know that they aren’t here to give me an update on Mikey or tell me that he’s dead like the pair of cops that visited my grandma the day the man she loved died.
“We need your statement,” the female officer explained.
“For crying out loud you cops are relentless,” Nana says from her chair. “Poor girls been through hell and back and you’re going to make her relive it all.” She shakes her head disgusted and I look back towards the officers.
“It’s fine, let’s just get this over with,” I say running my fingers through my hair only for them to get stuck in the knots. I needed to shower to wash this nightmare away.
“Okay, can you start from the beginning?” the male officer asked, taking out his tape recorder while his partner reached into her pocket for a pad and pen. “Both you and Mr. Valente live in New York so what were you doing in Florida?”
I glanced over at my father who dropped his head to his hands a memory of him and me flashed through my mind of when I was a little girl and he’d take me in his arms and dance with me. Dancing was kind of our thing at every family party you could catch my dad and me on the dance floor.
“We were visiting my Aunt and my Grandma,” I watched as my father lifted his head his eyes fixed on mine. “Mikey wanted to surprise me for my birthday and take me away,” I lied because no matter what the man I was staring at was still my dad and I wasn’t about to throw him under the bus.
“Fast forward to the night in question where were you when Deke Rogers took you?” the male officer asked.
“I was sleeping in the guest room,” I said, thinking back to how I had fallen asleep in Mikey’s arms whispering to him that I loved him.
“Were you alone?” the partner took over asking the questions.
“My aunt and grandma weren’t home when we got back that night, but I didn’t go to sleep alone. I went to bed with Mikey but when I woke up, he wasn’t there either.”
“Where was he?”
