Protected By the Monster

I hadn’t been involved with the mafia since my father died when I was a little girl. I barely remembered the mafia at all, if I was being honest. They were just a blur in my memory, just a bunch of older guys that were always hanging around with my dad, making jokes and laughing.

I remembered liking them. I remembered Uncle Luciano was nice to me, gave me candy when my parents weren’t looking.

But it’d been so long.

The idea that I was still mafia made my blood run cold. My mother didn’t talk much about my father and she stayed away from her family back in Chicago. What stories she did tell were never good: violence, darkness, danger, depression, death. She talked about uncles drinking themselves to an early grave, about brothers hitting their wives, about cousins killing political figures.

Every time a mafia movie came on TV, every time I expressed any interest in watching The Sopranos, she always made sure to tell me exactly what she thought of the familia.

I turned on the cold tap, splashed freezing water in my face, dried it off with a scratchy thin towel. I turned away from the bathroom, years of my mother telling me how dangerous the mob is, how much I should hate them, how I’m not a part of their world flitting through my head.

And now, even though I never asked for it, even though I hate the idea of it, I’m very much a part of it all.

I walked to the bed and sat at the edge. I took out my phone, stared at the screen.

For a brief second, I thought about calling the cops.

But that would be stupid. Uncle Luciano owned Philadelphia. I could get the cops to come here, even though I didn’t know where I was exactly, but they could probably locate my phone. And when that happened, what next?

Uncle Luciano would hunt me down, drag me back here, and punish me.

Instead, I found my mother’s number and called her.

“Hi, sweetie,” she answered after a couple rings.

I could hear the radio playing WXPN in the background.

“Hi, Mom,” I said. “What are you up to?”

“Oh, you know, the usual,” she said with a dramatic sigh. “Trying to work on this new piece, you know, and it’s so dreadful. Then I have housework to do and all manner of tidying up. What about you, sweetie?”

“Not too much,” I said, kicking my legs, staring at my feet. “What’s the new piece?”

“Oil on canvas,” she said. “Trying to make a passage still life, but instead of painting an orange and flowers, they look more like monsters from outer space trying to eat each other.”

I smiled a little bit, my heart beating fast, my stomach a mess. Ever since I was younger and we moved out on our own, my mother has been into art. She did paintings, sculptures, even had an intense pottery phase and sold a few expensive pieces. But lately she was back into traditional paintings, and even though she acted like she was terrible, she had an incredible talent.

I didn’t know why I called her or what I wanted out of this. I knew she would be upset as soon as I told her what was going on, but I needed her to know, needed to hear her voice. We talked on the phone almost every day, but I haven’t spoken to her since I heard from Uncle Fazio’s lawyers.

About the inheritance. About the money and the property.

“I’m sure you’re exaggerating,” I said. “And even if you’re not, I bet you could title it ‘Aliens Kissing in the Moonlight’ and sell it for ten grand.”

She laughed at that, light and breezy. That was my mother these days, light and breezy. Not like back when I was a little girl, back then she was always looking over her shoulder, always sure something bad was around the next corner.

But after years of the world not ending, I think she’d settled into a bit of a routine.

“I’m not so sure about that, but it’s nice of you to say so,” she said. “You know, I haven’t heard from you in a few days. I was starting to think you found a new boyfriend.”

“No boyfriend,” I said. “Just busy.”

“Work’s treating you okay?”

“Sure,” I said, and it occurred to me that I likely wouldn’t have a job after this. I’d been doing PR for a conglomerate of local art galleries, a job my mother managed to wrangle for me, actually. I loved it, and was good at it, but I was going to get fired once they realized I was taking a forced vacation for some undetermined amount of time.

“No boyfriend, work’s okay,” she said, “so why the radio silence, sweetie?”

I chewed my lip for a moment, couldn’t put it off.

“Look, Mom,” I said. “I have to tell you something.”