Bred In Violence (A Mafia Romance Book One) #𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝟏

Chapter 64

The past beats inside me like a second heart.

~John Banville~

Sophie

*Unedited*

"She was beautiful, your mother" 

My grandmother said one morning. I was standing by the kitchen sink washing dishes, singing out of tune and she was seated on one chair on the small dinning table placed on the opposite side of the sink. Leaning back, her small fingers crossed on her tummy. I didn't say a thing but I swear my heart stopped for a millisecond. 

This talk was to be held after our new year celebration but I guess my she didn't plan on waiting. I wasn't ready to hear it at this time, I had programmed my mind to be ready by then, to hear it all, but not now, not at this minute. I wasn't ready.

She looked lost and sad, or maybe her brain was re-living the past, her eyes looked misty, looking through the opened window but I doubt she saw anything. 

"The first time she ran away from home was when she was sixteen..." she paused, her voice trailing, her face thoughtful.  

'Your grandfather always told her she was the most beautiful girl in the world. The brightest and the belle of the county if not the world." 

One of my hand held the edge of the sink until it started hurting. My mouth trembled as I tried unsuccessfully to hold off the tears. I glanced up at my grandmother sitting strongly narrating her daughter's past, digging into a past that she hadn't spoken about for more than a decade and I knew this wasn't just hard for me, it was painful for her as well. 

"Her hair was the same color as yours. A smile that would make the recipient forget their problems. Her smile invited you to smile with her."  She smiled fondly, her expression steady and firm. 

"Her smile later changed to calculating and self serving." 

My throat constricted, my heart beat too loud I could hear it, my hands still trembled, my whole body was unsteady and I had to walk two steps to sit on the long stool at the kitchen aisle. 

"For more than forty-eight hours we didn't know whether she was dead or alive. The police couldn't find her, her friends didn't know where she was. No one knew her whereabouts. And for the first time since I met him, your grandfather broke down." 

"Oh God!" I groaned, tears shimmering with tears, my hands holding unto my stomach, I felt like throwing up except I couldn't, I needed to stay strong for her, for the stoutly way she held herself. She  needed me to be as strong.

"Then one evening on the third day she walks through the door and I heard you grandfather squeal, it was a sound that bordered between joy and pain and I wished never to hear it again. It was more pain than joy really"  she whispered.

"Your mother had on a miniskirt, she had dyed her beautiful hair black, her nails were painted red and huge a tattoo on her arm that was as disgusting as it must have been painful, but she looked oblivious to the pain, your grandfather said she must have been high." 

"What was the first thing she said?" I asked flatly, my voice controlled

"She didn't." Nana paused for more than a heartbeat before she continued "She waltzed to the house, walked past both your grandfather and I without saying a single word. No apology, or where she had been. Nothing, not even acknowledgement" 

My eyes widened, opened my mouth to speak but no words came out, but worst of all I felt ashamed. I was filled with shame for having come out of two of the most selfish, cruel people I've ever known.