The older woman huffed, slipped off her shoes, and peeled away her knee-length pantyhose. She sank into the chair besidemine and lowered her feet into the water. Her stern face softened, and she released a deep, gratifying sigh.
“Nice, huh?” I wiggled my toes, getting a kick out of how Carina enjoyed this. The woman perfected her cold demeanor, even in the presence of her own sons. I doubt she treated herself to manicures, pedicures, or massages.
She glowered at me from her peripheral; her guard back up. The silence stretched, thick and heavy. I feared any more verbal communication might scare her away. I waited for her scoff, the inevitable dismissal of my silly pedicure offer. But it didn’t come. Hope bloomed inside. Maybe this little interplay was bonding us—by the tiniest fraction.
I dried my legs with the towel under my chair and knelt in front of Carina, the cool tiles a momentary shock against my knees. I shuffled the small stool containing the nail polish closer.
“What are you doing?” Skepticism laced her tone.
Why sound so wary? Did she assume I’d cut off her toes rather than paint them? I bit the inside of my cheek, dispelling my snicker. “Choose a color.” I gestured to the little bottles.
“No. You do yourself.” She waved a dismissive hand. “I don’t need—”
I clapped, cutting off her protest, a little trick I learned when working with toddlers. “Carina, choose.”
From the way her jaw strained, she disliked me bossing her. “Red.”
The color of blood to remind us both what this was all about. At least she responded. Progress, right? I dipped my hands in the water and lifted her feet onto the padded stool, then claimed a clean towel and dabbed her feet dry. In silence, she studied me as if a mythical creature pedicured her feet. I shook the red polish, unscrewed the bottle, and commenced painting her toenails.
Carina bent forward to observe my handiwork, probably expecting me to do a horrible job to slight her. I ignored her scrutiny and continued painting. She unrolled her shoulders and at last relaxed further into the chair.
I racked my brain for conversation starters, the suffocating silence a weight pressing me down. “Have you ever tried chamomile tea?” I blurted, barely pausing for breath before launching into a rambling explanation about the benefits of teas and herbs, the vitamins they contained, their health-boosting properties. It was a conversation I’d had countless times with my father. I didn’t expect Carina to engage, but the chatter, even one-sided, was better than silence. By the second coat, a soft sniffle sounded above me. I paused mid-sentence, forgetting all about the vitamin C in cauliflower, Carina’s pinky still in my grip. A single tear shimmered on her cheek. “Did I hurt you?” I analyzed her foot to see if Ihadscratched her by accident.
“No. I’m fine.” She wiped away the tear staining her cheek. “This must be what it’s like to have a daughter.” The last word,daughter, died on her lips.
I’d never seen this woman vulnerable. Now she cried over the idea of a daughter. “Have you always wanted a daughter?” I probed, hoping she’d tell me more. Thank goodness, she offered a small smile. For the first time, I felt something akin to warmth in my mother-in-law’s presence.
“Yes.” She released a breathy laugh. “Even though I had two boys, I desired a girl. Once, when Enzo was a baby, I was even tempted to put him in a dress since I’d bought so much pink, hoping for a girl.”
I waggled my brows. “I have a few dresses he ordered in the wrong size… we can make him wear them, if you’d like.”
Her lips twitched, a clear struggle, but her laughter burst out in a snort. “He’d kill us both, Gemma.”
The sound of our chuckles filled the room, a balm to my soul. I’d missed this. The amount of times Mum and I would paint each other’s nails and laugh about silly topics… It was nice sharing this again, even with my unloving mother-in-law.
Carina’s laughter died, almost abruptly, her usually guarded self reasserting with a sharp clearing of her throat and her lips pressing into a firm line.
I winced. She’d shut back down. The almost-moment… gone. No. I couldn’t lose her now, not when I’d made progress. I shrugged and continued the second coat on her pinky. “How come you never tried for a girl?”
Her smile faded. “I’d been five months along when I learned I carried a girl.”
The weight of her words hit. I swallowed and set aside the nail polish. Carefully, I examined Carina’s grief-stricken face. “What happened to her?”
Another tear traced a path down her cheek. “I miscarried the day I learned Lorenzo committed suicide.” She shrugged, the act weak. “The grief was too much to bear. My body succumbed to the stress. My tiny daughter did, too.”
Tears now burned my eyes. The pain she endured…. “You really loved him, didn’t you?”
She sucked in a breath, the sound painful. “We fell in love the instant we saw each other. He differed from my world, and I from his. Somehow, against all odds, we found a way to be together.” She shook her head as if the concept haunted her. “I gave up my entire world for him… and in the end, he gave up on me.”
She left her criminal family, disobeyed her father’s wishes to marry another made man, all for Lorenzo. She left her old life behind and handed everything to this man who broke her heart to the point the painstilldefined her. If she’d healed, there’d be no need to seek revenge. She lost her husband and her unbornchild in one day. No wonder she hated my mother. “Why’d you wait so long? Your father was a powerful don—why not exact revenge on my mother years ago?” Not complaining. Just curious.
“I wanted to…” She bit her lip and eyed me. “Once I learned Elisabetta gave birth to you.”
“Me?” So I inspired her revenge?
“How could a woman like her be given a daughter, yet mine died before ever taking her first breath? I called my father and begged him to help me, but he refused. Since I defied his wishes long ago and chose Lorenzo, he said I deserved my fate for dishonoring him. He’d even removed the hit he had on me. He saw my own suffering as worse than death.”
Good grief. What kind of father wanted his child to suffer more than death itself? Had anyone in Carina’s family ever shown her love with even a shred of tenderness? No wonder she owned a heart of ice. In her eyes, my mother bore the daughter she always wanted. Oh, how the news of my birth must have stung. Carina let the pain fester too, waiting for her sons to grow into men, so she’d handle me as a bonus in her personal vendetta. “I could be your daughter.” What made me say those words, I had no idea, but I meant them. I wanted her to experience the bond she’d been robbed of, the friendship… “Truly, Carina.” I gripped her hands in her lap, squeezing. “If you give me a chance, I could be like a daughter to you.”
