Tainted Faith

Twenty Four: Venti Quattro [re-written 25/04/21]

Marcello stayed silent, and at his expectant stare, she continued hesitantly, repeating everything she had already explained to him a couple of nights ago. "My parent's marriage was arranged. She was ill fitted for a life amongst the mafia, and she was injured as a result of my fathers enemies, dying in the hospital a few days after my birth." 

Mercello's lips flattened into a thin line, and he cleared his throat as he rubbed at the back of his neck. "And that's why you were so against this marriage?" 

Liliana hummed. She glanced down at her hands, twisted and clenched in the fabric of her t-shirt. 

"Partially," she uttered under her breath, "and then there's the fact that I had never met you before and all I had heard about you was the consequence of your family. Meeting you didn't help." Her lips twisted into a wry grin, her amusement dry. There were many reasons why she did not want this marriage, her mother was the least relevant factor. Most glaringly was the fact that being forced into a marriage was dehumanizing, refusing her control of her life and stripping her of the right to say no.

He cleared his throat before murmuring quietly, "Our mothers had a lot in common, both victims of our fathers."

Like her own mother, Liliana knew very little about Marcello's, only knowing what she had learned in the last week. His mother, Alessandro Barbato's daughter, had killed herself. Depression, is what Barbato had believed responsible, and yet Marcello seemed to be of a different belief - or he believed his father had contributed. 

"Why the questions all of a sudden?" 

Mercello shrugged in reply and stood to his feet, moving to remove his shirt as he grabbed for the clean one already out and waiting for him to change into. His movements were slow as he slipped his arms inside the long sleeved shirt, as if giving himself time to formulate an appropriate answer - as if his initial response, the truth, should be ignored.

"I spoke to my father," he explained with his back to her as he dressed. "... about my mother, and about Alessandro." 

"Oh?" she mused. He had taken her advice after all. 

Marcello sighed, moving over to the books arranged on their drawers. He grabbed the worn Italian copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray, and brought it over to her. "This was my mother's," he explained in a soft murmur. "I don't have much of hers." 

He opened the book, finding the photographs within of his mother, Adriana, and her mother, Emiliana.

"For what little I knew my own mother, Emiliana was like a second mother to me. That's why I keep her photograph." Marcello's voice was tight as he frowned down at the creased photographs in his hand, a hand that shook ever so slightly. Liliana instinctively laid a steady hand on his forearm, offering a gentle squeeze. 

His eyes met hers, dark and intense, and filled with more emotion than she had witnessed from her husband before. Uncomfortable, and desperate to create some distance between them, Liliana looked away, withdrawing her hand to her lap. 

"I wish I could have known her, my mother," Liliana confessed, so quietly she wondered if he had even heard her. "I wonder if things would be different at all, if she were still here." 

"I wonder the same thing." 

"Tonight, with Roderigo," Liliana cleared her throat suddenly. "What are you doing?"