Of volume lineage

“He will kill me if he finds out.”

“Your uncle said he won’t hurt women and children.” Neither of us believed that.

“I won’t be a woman to him if he finds out I’m spying on him,” I said. “I’ll be the enemy. What do you think he does to his enemies?”

She clucked her tongue affectionately. Some part of me wondered if my mother had hit her head and forgotten how to be the cold distant parent she had succeeded at for the past twenty-three years. “It won’t take long, Isabella. Just a few months.” She pushed back a strand of my hair, tucking it behind my ear. My heart squeezed. “I know you feel suffocated by this life, by the expectations of a Lombardi princess. But trust me, my perfect Isabella, if you destroy the Vigliano famiglia, you will be a hero. No soldati or man will ever command you again. You will have power and respect. You will have fear.”

You will have power and respect. You will have fear.

I liked the sound of that.

“I won’t have to marry,” I bartered. “I can paint and be left alone.”

Maria looked faintly disappointed at my request. Had she wanted me to demand more? “You will have whatever you want. No one will deny the hero of the Lombardi Mafia.”

I want the pictures of the first Isabella removed, I almost said but bit my tongue. My mother’s grace only extended so far.

“What will happen to you?” I asked.

“Your father and I will go underground. We will build alliances and gain back our strength. The other New York bosses will not join us, but we still have allies in Sicily.” My mother’s eyes drifted off as her mind plotted. “The Lombardis have ruled Manhattan for decades. We will not be beaten by the son of a whore.” Her lips curled sourly. “He is the enemy, the bastard usurper. He is wearing a crown that does not belong to him. Steal it back, Isabella.”

She snapped her gaze back to me. People used to say we looked alike, but it was said out of politeness rather than honesty. Maria had always had lovelier features than me, classical in a way that made her look like she had stepped out of a Renaissance painting. I took after my father more, I supposed.

She opened her mouth to say something but a loud noise sounded from outside the room.

My mother removed her hands, my heart crying at the loss of contact. She grabbed my suitcase.

“If I had brought my suitcase, your uncle would’ve known,” she told me at my questioning look. Before she left, she pressed a kiss to my cheek. “Remember, Isabella. He needs you. Not only as a wife, but as a mother and queen. You are the bridge between his organization and your father’s organization. He needs you–don’t ever forget that.”

Then she was gone.

The room felt significantly colder without my mother’s rage warming the air. I meandered to the window, watching the light snow begin to fall as the sun began to rise over the horizon.

I sat with my devious plan, tossing it over and over in my mind until my brain felt strained. I had never done anything like this before, my lying usually reserved for sneaking out to parties and robbing my father’s liquor cabinet. Would the Vigliano Don suspect me? Or was Mother right about his assumptions?

Worry filled me but it wasn’t nearly as strong as the delight that heated my blood. My family needed me; my mother had asked for my help.

When the confines of my room grew too great, I stepped out onto the balcony. Auntie Lucia’s strawberry plants were covered for the season. Every Spring they grew juicy red berries which melted in your mouth. She had died when I was a baby, but I knew Uncle Angelo continued to mourn her, why else would he tend to her small garden every year?

My parents would’ve thrown the plants into the bin the minute they could.

Snowflakes gave me icy kisses as they landed on my cheeks. The first fall of the Winter–how ironic that the entire world was coated in white the day blood soaked the hallways of my home.

That evening, after Uncle Angelo discovered my mother had disappeared and spent the rest of the day yelling at everyone, I set up a canvas and some paints. This time when I painted my family, I painted all of us together. Father, Mother, Junior and me. Mother and I were holding hands, standing on the edge of a playground. Just like those mothers and daughters I used to watch from my classroom window.

The words resounded in my head, haunting me all night long. They need me, they need me.

Then much quieter but with no less joy, my soul whispered: she loves me, she loves me.