Vicious Minds: Part 3 (Children of Vice 6)

“Are you talking about the staff or the family?”

I looked at her face, a few more wrinkles there than last year; she looked tired. “I’m talking about everyone, Nana. You must know what is happening.”

“I do.” She frowned. “And I do not like it.”

I frowned as well, looking away from her. “So, you believe I am blind as well?”

“I do not know,” she said with heaviness in her breath. “I do not know anything. Who’s right.? Who’s wrong? What caused what? Who did what? What happens next? I’ve never known. I am not smart enough.”

I did not like the way she said that. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I was average. Your grandfather was average, too. He had to work very hard after his brother’s death. He pushed himself over and over again. And it was hard and trying for him, which was why he was so happy when your father seemed to have an instinct for it. He wanted to do his part and go back to being average with me.” She smiled to herself. “The plans your father and mother made were above my head. The plans you make are above my head. I do not understand any of it. I’ve come to terms with it and simply want to be a support.”

“And who do you support.”

“The Callahan family…you all figure out everything else. I’ll focus on simpler things…like my great-grandchild.”

And right on cue, there was a thud from her closet door, and I rushed toward it. “Gigi—”

“I’m okay,” she said, and when I opened the door, she was jumping up and down, trying to get her zipper up. When she saw me, she frowned? “Papa, go away! I’m getting ready.”

“But your zipper—”

“I got it.”

Was she already at the stage where I couldn’t help her get dressed?

That was fast.

I disliked that.

She jumped again, trying to reach the back of her Tinkerbell costume. Why her school was doing Peter Pan in November, I wasn’t sure, but she was very excited about it and the role she’d gotten. When I asked her why, as she had no lines, she said it was because she got to make faces all day at the kids she didn’t like and she didn’t get in trouble.

Rip.

It was the next sound, and she froze, turning to look back at me, and I tried not laugh. She took after her mother a lot with their shared expressions.

“Oh, no, Papa!”

“See what happens when you eat too much bauducco chocottone?”

We both turned at the sound of that voice.

“Mommy!” Gigi called out, rushing to her.

She stood there in a dark robe with even darker circles around her eyes. Her skin had paled, and her scattered hair was a mess. She was clearly still ill, but Gigi did not seem to notice, grabbing her mother’s hand and bringing her into her closet.

“Papa said you were sick, but I knew you’d come.”

“Me, sick? I don’t get sick,” she lied, glancing up at me. She gave me a slow blink and smile as if that were enough to make me believe she was okay to be standing and not in bed.

“I told him that.” Gigi smiled at me, too.

I remembered when my parents would lie to me. When they told me they were fine when they weren’t. Sighing, I knelt before her and turned my daughter around so she looked at her mother.

“Ethan,” Calliope seemed to know what I was doing.

But I shook my head, as I would not stop.