The Life: Sacrifice (The Life 3)

That’s what I came for. I didn’t want her worrying about him while away, something I knew was a possibility even though she tries to pretend she won’t. I, of course, didn’t let on that I knew what he was planning because I didn’t want him to change his mind. I’m still one hundred percent positive that she doesn’t need him in her life until he gets some help and comes to terms with the fact that he’d failed her as a parent.

I hate people who sweep shit under the rug and never deal with their shit, only moving on as if nothing happened and expecting everyone else to go along with their pedantic bullshit. With that out of the way, it was easy to see that it was the right call because she seemed much lighter and even happier when we finally said our goodbyes.

I’d done all I could as far as her issues go; now it was time to turn all my attention to Sicily, which I’d gone as far as I could with that until I get there personally. There’s only so much you can do from behind a computer screen, after all, when you don’t know the players on the ground.

One of the biggest hurdles has been finding out where my grandfather disappeared to almost twenty years ago, along with trying to learn the identities of all the people who were there the night my mother was harmed. It was something she’d said in her story telling that had stuck with me, something she only seemed to gloss over and never paid too much mind to, but for me, it was very important.

You see, on the night of her violation, there were other people around, people who knew, people who laughed at the situation. To her, Ricci was the only one at fault; for me, they were all culpable. I never told her that, never mentioned that I held them all to blame, not only for not stopping it from happening but for never coming forward after the fact.

I’ve spent years trying to find them without knowing so much as a name. It hadn’t been easy, but with painstaking patience, I’d pieced together a picture by going back through Ricci’s life from the bits and pieces I picked up from the internet over the years. I simply went through his friends, those he was photographed with, and those who were mentioned with him in any capacity.

From there, it was easy to go back as far as his high school and college days until I had a rough idea of who his core group of friends was. I couldn’t ask Ma. I never bring that awful shit up to her, no matter how easy it would’ve made things for me. In my way of thinking, if those words were still etched so clearly in my mind after hearing them only once, I can just imagine how it is for her who’d lived through it.

I still haven’t been able to find my grandfather, something that bothers me still, but I think I was able to find the last person that was there that night. She’s the only one that seemed to have fallen off the face of the earth not long after, and for some reason, I think there’s more to her disappearance.

I’d started to think maybe she was dead, but once I got help on the ground through gramps’ connections, I later learned that she was very much alive, just completely removed from the life she once lived. Since she’d pulled this disappearing act so soon after mom’s assault, I can’t help but think her disappearance had something to do with that night.

Although I’d been able to put together who Ricci’s friends were at the time, I still had no idea who’d been in the room that night. So far, all I know about these people are their names and what little has been said about them on social media, which we all know is bupkis. So, my first order of business when I reach Sicily is to find this runaway friend and get the information I need out of her.

Aside from Pop, Ma is the one I’ve been most worried about. I know she’s going to feel some kind of guilt from my actions, even though she’s the one that brought this shit to my attention. I’ve never resented her for it; how can I? But with Gianna in the picture, I sometimes wish she’d never told me about that night, which leads to me thinking I’m a selfish asshole for those thoughts. She’d lost her whole life essentially, even though things had turned around after she met Pop.

Still, that doesn’t erase the horrendous shit she’d endured, and I, more than anyone, have no right to resent anything that she’d chosen to do. This is one of the reasons I need to put some space between Gianna and me, no matter what road my trip to Sicily takes. Whether it will be a long-drawn-out ordeal or something I take care of in a week, the end result will be the same.