The Pawns that Gleam [Bk 3]

ch.6 Lorenzo brothers

"As you know, your mother finished her schooling in Sicily in the spring of 1984. We graduated together. I was one of her best amicii actually" she smiled proudly.

I looked up at her in surprise. I never knew that she had been friends with my mom, even though it seemed like an important tid bit to know considering the way things worked out between my mom and dad and Uncle Marco and Aunt Lisa.

"Your mother really was something else. She was so-so admirable, bene bella, so pure and heavenly in a way that made every girl desperate to be her and every boy, desperate to get her" she smiled softly as she recalled a warm memory of my mom.

"I was one of those girls. Your papà and your Zio Marco were one of those boys" she told me.

I looked down at the picture of my mom, then I remembered how my dad used to call my mom his angel, "God only gives a man one angel, one angel to love and cherish and protect. God gave me two angels, so your mommy had to fly back to heaven"...

"Marco was a bit older than your mother and quite arrogant, what you say 'cocky'" she grinned. 

I laughed lightly.

"Yes, yes he was horribly proud and thought that he could impress her quite easily. And he did impress her, Dio, he impressed me, too" she nodded in embarrassment, but there was a teasing glint in her eyes. 

I nodded, urging her to continue.

"Well, your mom never went liked Marco but he thought her friendly smiles and polite waves were proof that she was interested in him. She wasn't" Aunt Lisa shook her head and laughed as if telling me an inside joke.

I cleared my throat, unable to picture my uncle wanting to be with my mom, the woman that his youngest brother eventually married and had children with.

But, then again, the way he had acted today was proof enough that he was in love with her once. So in love that he nearly kissed me out of his heart's imagination.

"Your Zio Marco had beat out every boy from his year for your madre's attention and he finally convinced her to visit his home on the coast of Palermo. It was a bello coastline, but a not-so-bello neighborhood. Your madre did not judge and she went” she told me casually.

“But that wasn’t the problem. Marco had forgotten about his biggest competition, his little fratello, your papà" Aunt Lisa grinned.

I smiled. My dad wasn’t the kind of man you just forget, he was the kind that made you do double-takes as if to reassure yourself that he was real.

"Well, your papà, the dapper, charismatic baby fratello was now a young man, much closer to your madre's age than Marco. He had the same eager curiosity for the world and the same golden heart. And your madre loved him. She loved him with every feather from her ivory wings" she nodded carefully. 

"But she was leaving to America with her family. And Marco and your papà were far from letting the love of their lives leave him..." 

"But business for the Lorenzo's and other leading families was very low. People were caught and jailed out of suspicion of any kind of racketeering or trafficking" she told me quietly. 

"And your madre had to leave with her family, just like so many newly struggling families. Though they never had ties to any of 'the business,' she was a Santini, a saint as her name calls, and her family despised the Lorenzo's and would never let their respectable daughter be seen with one, let alone marry one” Aunt Lisa shook her head solemnly.