The Life - Rebirth (The Life 4)

I’m torn between relief that it was all out in the open now, that I no longer had to spend days wondering if I’d made the right decisions, and dreading the days ahead now that things had come this far. And knowing that Gabriel had intended to give up his life, and that was his reason for sending me away, just adds a whole new spin on this mess.

GABRIEL

The place was a madhouse. Ma moved everyone over to the main house, and there were more hands than were needed to help with the babies. Lancelot and the twins were already fighting over who got to carry who, but my daughter settled the argument by choosing her uncle.

Since I don’t know much about kids, there was a lot that I wasn’t sure about, but the kids seemed quieter than I would expect. But it wasn’t so much their silence that caught my attention, but their attentiveness. The three of them sometimes seemed to be in a world of their own, and the boys especially kept their mother in their sights at all times.

Gabriella, on the other hand, was like a social butterfly; she had her grandfather wrapped around her little finger in ten seconds flat. I realized after five minutes, when my uncle and his wife came over from next door, that there were a few people missing. “Ma, where are Natalia and Jr.?”

“They’ll be here soon. There was an incident, so your grandparents took them home with them last night.”

“What incident, what happened?”

“Your grandpa Antonelli had a relapse. He thought Jr. was his, was Alonzo. Shelia’s been with him. That’s why she’s not down here with us right now. He’s not doing too well. And your sisters, that’s a whole other story. I was waiting for your father to come home so we could tell them together, but Natalia let slip that she’s your sister, and they did not handle it well.”

“I figured something like that would happen; that’s why I wrote you the letter.”

“I know, I know, but you know how your sisters are; they’re very protective of you. We just need to give them some time, they’ll come around, but we can’t force it, ya know.”

“Ma, do you see those three babies over there? How do I pick and choose which one of them to share my life story with? Which one should I tell that I was about to forfeit my life? If something happens to me, which one of them should be burdened their whole life with thoughts of revenge?”

I’m not sure why I got so angry at her or why I spoke to her in a way that I never have before—but hearing her be so protective of her other children while sending me into the depths of hell pretty much since my early teens just rubbed me the wrong way. Or maybe I had this in me all along.

Or maybe the thought of what I could’ve lost has put me on edge. Now that I’m facing this new reality, the responsibility I’d incurred in the last two hours or so, I can’t imagine burdening any one of them the way she had me. I don’t blame her for my decision to end it, that’s a separate issue that stems from my own personal beliefs, but now looking at those little faces, I can’t imagine wanting them to know something like that.

I’m sure she didn’t think of what it would do to me or where I would go with it. For all I know, she was still very upset when she finally got around to telling me and was just getting it off her chest. And before this, before today, before I realized that I could’ve died and left my children to fend for themselves, leaving a young girl alone and a mother of three, it never entered my mind to doubt or to question.

She’s my mother; I will always stand in front of her no matter what. But as a new dad, who hasn’t even experienced true fatherhood yet, I can’t wrap my head around it. Granted, I wasn’t as young as the triplets when she told me, but still. That little girl who’s toddling around the room from person to person, with nary a care in the world, would I someday, could I someday, lay some heavy shit on her that would sidetrack the course of her life?

The thought made me ill. So how had it been so easy for her to do it? How had she not known all these years where I was headed? I know why I’m like this; I’m not really mad at Ma; I’m scared. I’m scared because of the mistake I almost made. I’m scared because of this love that I never felt before that now consumes me.