Nick lifted a brow at her inquiringly. “Then why the hell are you going?”
She sighed, rolling onto her side to face him. “Duty. Obligation. Bad habit. It’s expected, you know? My oldest sister is cooking this year and a bunch of her husband’s family will be there, so it would look odd if I didn’t show up.”
He snorted in derision. “What a load of bull. Do you really give a shit what your sister’s in-laws think?”
“No, not really.” She trailed her fingers up and down his bare, sinewy arm. “It’s just – well, I’m already so alienated from my mother and sisters that I don’t want to intentionally do anything to make it worse, you know?”
Nick shook his head. “Can’t say that I do, Angel. Especially since I have no idea why you have such a fractured relationship with them. Maybe it’s finally time for you to spill the beans about that.”
She immediately felt her chest tighten at the very idea and shook her head emphatically. “No, Nick. I’ve told you before that I don’t like to talk about them.”
He reached out and brushed his thumb over her bottom lip. “All the more reason for you to unload. Hey, I never talk about my family, either, so I get it. But I’ve learned to deal with all that shit, sure as hell don’t let it bother me, and you can be damned certain they never try to guilt trip me into spending time with them. Not that I don’t feel a certain sense of obligation like you do, but it sounds like it goes a whole lot deeper than that for you.”
“Yes.” She scooted up to sit beside him, shoving a pillow behind her and pulling the duvet over their lower bodies. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and she cuddled up against him eagerly. It was rare for Nick to indulge her with this sort of behavior, this uncharacteristic affection. On a typical night with him in her bed, he was insatiable and demanding and it usually took two or more rounds of aggressive, domineering sex before he took even a short break. His powers of recovery had to be the stuff of legends, how quickly he could get hard again, and his stamina was undoubtedly record setting. She was surprised, therefore, that he was evidently putting his satisfaction on hold for a bit to initiate this very unwanted conversation on her part.
He kissed the top of her head. “Tell me. All of it. Maybe if I understand it all a little better I can help you find a way to deal with it, and not have it make you an emotional wreck all the time.”
Angela shrugged. “I usually deal with it by keeping my distance. I make the obligatory phone call home once a week to check in – provided my parents aren’t away on yet another vacation, of course – and that very awkward conversation lasts five minutes or less. And I only go home when I absolutely have to. Though with my family, every holiday, birthday, anniversary, graduation, etc. seems to require my presence. To keep up appearances, of course, because it would be too embarrassing for my mother to explain my absence to my aunts.”
“I can’t believe that’s all of it,” soothed Nick. “I mean, your parents must miss you, look forward to your visits.”
She shook her head. “My dad, yes, though he’s pretty much told what to say or think or feel most of the time. My mother – aside from keeping up those appearances to the family, I can honestly say she wouldn’t give a damn if I ever came home again.”
He frowned. “Something pretty major must have gone down between you and your mother at some point for her to feel that strongly. What the hell happened?”
Angela closed her eyes, but couldn’t prevent a single tear from tracking down her cheek. “I was born,” she whispered.”
***
“My mom was forty-one when she had me. Not all that unusual for women to have babies at that age nowadays, but back then it wasn’t quite as common. But that wasn’t even the issue. After having my sisters so many years before, she’d figured her family was complete. And with Marisa and Deanna both in their teens, my mother was already starting to enjoy more freedom, to make plans for when my sisters would be eighteen and she could get on with her life, pursue her interests.”
“What sort of interests?”
“The stuff I mentioned to you at dinner that one night – traveling, joining clubs, taking classes. She was even thinking about going back to college and getting her degree. All the things she had to give up when she got married and started a family.”
“Hmm.” Nick regarded her curiously. “Why did she have to give it up? Your mother’s in her early sixties, I’m guessing? It certainly wasn’t unheard of for women of her generation to go to college.”
“Not for good Italian girls raised by very old-fashioned immigrant parents,” corrected Angela. “My mom was one of seven children, four of them girls. Her parents – especially her mother – were very strict, very set in their ways. It was drummed into my mother from an early age about what was expected – get a good steady job somewhere like a bank or the phone company, marry a nice Italian boy, and have babies. And as much as my mother wanted to rock the boat and have a different sort of life, she gave in and did what her family pressured her to do.”
“Your mother told you all of this?”
She gave a short, bitter little laugh. “Hardly. My mom speaks to me as little as possible, ignores me as
much
as possible. No, I heard all of this – and a lot more – from her cousin Carla. She and my mom are the same age and grew up together, were even closer than sisters at one point in their lives. It was at my grandmother’s funeral – I was around twelve at the time – and Carla could see how unhappy I was, how much my mother and sisters shunned me. So she tried to explain a bit about why that was, about the things that made my mother the way she was.”
She drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them as if for comfort before continuing. “When my mom and Carla were in high school, they started to make all sorts of plans for what they were going to do with the rest of their lives. And while Carla actually followed through with hers, my mother gave up her dreams and caved into family pressure instead. Carla said at one time my mom talked about going away to college – as far away from Monterey and the family as possible – and working as an interpreter since she spoke fluent Italian – like at the U.N. or an embassy. She wanted to travel, have fun, enjoy herself for awhile before settling down and starting a family. Instead, she got a job at my uncle’s insurance agency, married my dad when she was only twenty-two, and got pregnant two years later.”
“I take it Carla followed a very different path?”
“Absolutely. She got her degree from UCLA and settled in southern California. She works in the movie industry, some sort of film editor. She’s been divorced twice, has no kids, no obligations, and in her own words, ‘does whatever the hell she wants whenever she wants’.”
Nick’s mouth quirked up at the corners. “I get that. Sounds like a woman after my own heart. So is that what your mother wanted for herself when your sisters turned eighteen?”
“Not exactly. I mean, as much as she pushes my dad around, she’d never consider a divorce. I think she just wanted the freedom to do her own thing and have more time to herself. What she definitely
didn’t
want – or plan on – was getting pregnant again. It was a very, very unwelcome surprise. She, ah, wanted to have an abortion, didn’t even want to think about having another baby at that point in her life. In fact, she’d already made an appointment to have the procedure done. And then my dad found out what she was planning.”
“And the shit hit the fan, did it?”
“That’s a gross understatement. My dad is a quiet man, doesn’t say much or speak up for himself very often. But he refused, absolutely refused, to let my mother go through with it. Told her if she had the abortion he’d divorce her, get custody of my sisters, and cut her out of his life for good. It was probably the first and only time he ever stood up to her but it scared her enough to go along with his wishes. As it turned out,” she added sorrowfully, “we would have all been better off if he’d just let her go through with the abortion.”
“Angela.” His voice was reproachful. “Don’t say things like that, hmm? Why would you ever say such a thing?”
She closed her eyes, the lashes wet with tears. “Because it’s true,” she whispered huskily. “My mother gave birth to me but she resented the hell out of that fact my entire life. I’ve spent twenty two years being ignored by her, pushed away, unloved. To make things worse, my sisters resent me, too. It was mortifying for them to bring friends or boyfriends to the house and have them see their forty year old mother was knocked up again. And then, of course, they got stuck with the bulk of the babysitting duties and taking care of me because Mom couldn’t be bothered. Marisa and Deanna have never let me forget that, always harp on the fact that they missed out on all sorts of stuff as teenagers because they had to stay home with me.”
“Didn’t your father help out or notice what was going on?”
“He worked a lot back then. A
lot
. I know there was a huge building boom for several years, but I think part of the reason he stayed away so much was because my mother was even more of a bitch to live with than usual. She never, ever let him forget that it was his idea to have another baby, that he forced this on her. I think he stayed away as much as possible because he didn’t want to fight with her constantly.”
Nick shook his head in disgust. “I can maybe understand your mother feeling resentful at first about having another baby at her age, about being angry at your dad for forcing the decision on her. But to take her anger and frustration out on an innocent child – Christ, she wasn’t a first time mom, after all, or a young girl. She should have been able to put aside her own needs and take care of her baby, for God’s sake.”
Angela gave him a sad smile. “That’s almost exactly what Carla told her when I was about three years old. They had a huge falling out about it, though they’d already been drifting apart for years. My mom was resentful of the fact that Carla had been brave enough to defy her family and live the life she wanted. And when Carla dared to criticize the way I was being brought up, that was the final straw and things have been completely strained between them since.”
“Sounds to me like your mother is a very unhappy woman. A jealous one, too.”
“Yes.” Angela nodded. “In fact, Carla was convinced my mom was jealous of me. First because my father would have chosen me over her – would have divorced her if she’d gone through with the abortion. And second because – well, because I looked so much like my other grandmother – my father’s mother. Apparently Mom did not like Nonna Isabella at all.”
“Dare I ask why?”
“I don’t remember much about her – she died when I was around six – but I know from what I was told that she didn’t like the way Mom treated my father – how she bossed him around, belittled him, would never let him speak up for himself. There was always tension between the two women and my mother refused to have much to do with her.”
Nick squeezed her shoulder. “And you look like her? Your grandmother?”
“A lot. She was tall, like I am, like my dad. And beautiful, really, really striking. I have a picture of her somewhere around, where she was all dressed up, her hair and makeup all glam, and she looked almost exactly like Sophia Loren.”
“I’d like to see that picture sometime. I can just imagine how much you must resemble her.” He brushed his lips against her cheek tenderly. “In fact, that’s how I want to dress you one of these nights – like a sexy, voluptuous Italian screen goddess.”
She grinned. “I’d need another ten pounds on me – at least – before I could be considered voluptuous. But don’t get any ideas. This is the most I’ve ever weighed in my life right now and I really don’t want to gain another pound.”
“Okay, we’ll settle for sexy Italian screen goddess only. Does this mean your sisters didn’t take after Isabella?”
“Not even a little. They look exactly like my mom – short, kind of plump, wavy brown hair – the three of them could be triplets. So of course I really stick out like a sore thumb when I’m with them. By the time I was nine years old I was already taller than they were.”
“Did your sisters play sports like you did?”
Angela snorted. “God, no! Marisa would have had a fit if she got dirty or her hair got mussed, while Deanna would have cried if a ball hit her or someone shoved her too hard. Plus, my mother didn’t think it was ladylike for girls to play sports, so they got pushed into taking ballet instead. My sisters got bossed around just like my dad, and now history is repeating itself because they’re treating their husbands and kids the exact same way.” She shuddered. “It’s an awful thing to see unfold. And there is no possible way I’ll ever have that messed up kind of marriage. If I ever get married at all, that is.”
Nick fell silent for long moments and she mentally kicked herself for even mentioning the evil “M” word – marriage. But he didn’t seem annoyed or angry, just thoughtful.
“What about kids?” he finally asked. “Do you want a family someday?”
“Honestly, I don’t know,” she admitted. “I had such a screwed-up childhood – dumped off at daycare or with a sitter or at a relative’s – and then virtually ignored by my mother when she couldn’t find anyone else to leave me with – that I don’t have much of a role model to emulate, you know? I don’t think I’d know the first thing about raising a child. And given my lousy genes, I’d probably screw things up big time.”