I blink away tears that don’t feel real.Guilt roars through me — a hot, animal guilt.I should’ve done something.I should’ve stopped it.I let it happen.Now I’ve lost something that should have been precious.
“He killed your baby, Ariana...that monster took it all away.”
Her voice trembles.The sentence hits me like a hammer.
I look down at my hands, fingers tangled together.I nod once, small and slow, because I can’t bring myself to meet her eyes.I can’t tell her the rest.The truth is a hard, dark thing I’ve carried alone for years.
“It wasn’t my first pregnancy that was terminated,” I say finally.
She freezes.“What?”
My throat tightens.I can’t meet her gaze; I keep my eyes on my hands and the pattern of the bedsheets.The memory comes up like bile.
“I was pregnant five years ago...with Alessandro’s child,” I confess.Saying it makes my breath hitch.The room closes in; memories of that night slam into me and I want to crawl into a hole.I’d never told anyone.It was a dark secret I buried because I couldn’t bear it.
Mom’s hand drops away from mine.She looks at me, then away, and the sharp twist of pain in my chest begins to burn.I start to cry as she turns from me — like she’s disappointed, like she’s left me there alone.
“Mom...please say something,” I beg, voice small.
She looks back at me, tears brimming.Her mouth trembles.Finally she speaks, voice fractured.“Ariana...you were so young...what were you thinking?”
“I—I don’t know, Mom.It just happened.”I reach for her hands; she lets me take them, but she still looks away.The rejection is a knife.For a moment I feel like I’m falling back into the bed because everything inside me unravels.
Silence presses us for a few long minutes.Then she asks, softer now, “Baby, why didn’t you tell me?Why did you go through this alone?”
I break.I crumble into her arms and the floodgates open.Mom pulls herself close, holds me like she used to, and for a second — the seconds I need — I feel safe.Her grief mixes with mine.She squeezes my arms until I remember what “home” felt like.She cries into my hair and the sound of it is everything I’ve been starving for.
“I don’t know, Mom...I couldn’t do it.I—I didn’t want to suffer anymore,” I choke out.“Are you angry at me?”
“No, no tesoro.I’m not angry,” she says, fingers threading through my hair.“I’m just...disappointed.I had the right to know.You were a teenager when you were pregnant.You needed help.”
Pinned to the truth, I grab her hands harder.“Mom, you’ve got to believe me — I wanted to tell you.I would have, but Dad didn’t give me a chance.Once he found out it was Alessandro’s child, he made sure I was no longer pregnant.”The words spill out; they hurt to say.
“Oh God, Ariana.I’m so sorry.”She squeezes me, shaking.“If I’d known...I would’ve killed him years ago for what he did.”Her voice is fierce and broken all at once.
“Stop blaming yourself,” I whisper, wiping my face.“It’s not your fault.It’s D’Angelo’s.”
She closes her eyes, tries to compose herself, but the tears keep coming.Her cheeks are red, her hands tremble when she wipes her face.“Give me a moment,” she says finally, and steps out of the room.
Left alone, something in me falls apart.The relief of finally telling her isn’t enough; I’m still hollow with the knowledge that she learned the worst part from me in the worst possible way.I press my palm to my stomach and try to imagine what might have been — a tiny life, a name, a future that never existed.
If that child had lived, what would it have been like?Boy or girl?Would they have known love?Would they have known a father?The answers I want aren’t there.Even the fantasy is poisoned: any life I could have given a baby would be marked by hell, by Nicola and D’Angelo.No father, no safety.Only the kind of suffering I can feel in my bones.
I close my eyes and let the questions roll through me until I can’t hold them anymore.
