Chapter 26

It’d been a week since I left home. I knew I shouldn’t have left Adrianna. I should have told her something, anything, including letting her know it had nothing to do with finding out about the baby. I had so much shit making me feel as if I was going crazy running through my mind. I’d suppressed the memory of killing Pa, and I needed to get it all out. I needed to relive the nightmare of the night, to know step-by-step what happened, and to know I was the one who was capable of committing it. I’d suppressed my memory so much so, I’d gone on a wild goose chase. I’d let Juan think I’d gone completely insane by trying to find Pa’s killer, when all along it was me.

Adrianna was in the library when I came home, all curled up on a chair reading, and I didn’t hesitate in telling her what was going on in my head. I knew there was no way I could ever forgive myself, but I had to know if she could do it, or rather if she would?

“I’m a fucking monster,” I repeated, over and over again.

Adrianna didn’t say anything as she heard my confession. I fell to my knees as if I was in church and she was my priestess, ready to give me my penance for renouncing my sins.

“Diego and Juan told me everything. Then again, maybe not everything, but the important part and why you stormed out of your father’s funeral. I don’t get it. Why go to Sicily?”

I said as my throat tightened, “I don’t know…”

She hesitated as she opened and closed her mouth. I was sobbing, as I tried to ask for mercy, but I retold the tale. The one I hadn’t been able to tell from the beginning, but as she said, if I wanted her in my life, if I wanted her to stay, I had to tell her everything because if she one day found out I was lying, she would be gone.

“I’d turned a blind eye to dad’s unhealthy obsession with women, and girls, little children pretending it didn’t matter. We killed, we were all monsters. It was no different from me killing a man, to what he did.”

“But he did more than that, you killed people in the business, he killed women, kids because they were poor, and they turned to him to survive and he abused it.”

I nodded in agreement. This was what I had told her, and it was the truth.

“What I can’t understand is, if you’d turned a blind eye to it… not only the abuse you suffered at his hand, but the abuse he inflicted on others, why did it drive you mad? Why did you feel the need to take matters into your own hand?”

I sighed, as I got up from my knees. Telling the truth was hard, so much harder than I’d ever imagined.

“Because I found out what he did to Ma. The truth, not the bullshit story, he told me. I found out she wanted us to run away, she wanted me out of this life, and I’d stayed, he made me stay. He fucking made me kill some people claiming they were part of the circuit who killed Ma. All one fucking big lie.”

She took my hand. “How did you find out?”

“My Uncle Pete left me a letter as part of his will. Funny, at the time I dismissed it, because I was too upset about his death. I didn’t even tell Pa about it. Then, one thing led to the other, and maybe I felt sentimental or something, but the day before I killed him. I read the letter. I read every sordid thing he did to her, he punished her like a dog. He held her in a dungeon like the one you stayed in.”

I looked away, ashamed of my actions in the past, knowing I couldn’t ask anything of her. I didn’t fucking deserve it. “But he let his crew rape her one by one. He shaved her. Fuck, you don’t want to know.”

I didn’t wait for a response, as I continued to tell the horrid past and fate of my mother. The one person who truly loved me and never did me any harm.

“Did you regret it?”

“What?” I asked as if I’d been woken up from a nightmare. I was talking and forgetting I was confessing because it was the first time I’d felt any sense of relief.

“I expected killing him to make me feel better, I would feel human again, not a monster. I wouldn’t let him harm others and especially me. I had a sense of relief, knowing I wouldn’t come home one day, and he would hold a gun to my head, make me get down on one knee and beg for mercy. Or he wouldn't be raping any little girls. I felt free of his torture not only of me, but of others too. Knowing he was gone made me feel better. I never believed in therapy, or even talking about things bothering me. Yet, talking to you has helped. A lot.”

She smiled. “It should because the idea you tried to help proves the one thing you’ve been saying all along: you’re not a monster. You’re nothing like him.”

I nearly choked on my words as I said, “If you knew all the things I’ve done, then you wouldn’t say…”

“True. I know you’re not a saint, but I do know you have saved women and children from the hand of your Pa. The women you have saved, by killing your dad, shows you have a heart. Whereas he had none.”

She was smiling at me, holding my hand and trying to console me, but it didn’t take away the one thing I was feeling right now, which was anxiety. I needed to know if she was going to stay with me.

“I need time, Ricardo. This has all been a little too much.”

I nodded. “I know.”

Then, I kissed her on the cheek and left her alone in the library, the one place I always felt solace. I had no idea what I was going to do now. It would be only a matter of time before word got out and everyone knew what I’d done. I’d have to get out of the business. My life, culture, the thing I’d known all my life, in the one way I’d never expected… I’d dug my own grave. I had a child who would be brought into this world, and I had no intention of letting him go down the same path. I needed to change my life. I didn’t have a clue how I was going to do it, but I knew with Adrianna by my side, I would find it.