by Debra Lee
“I didn’t mean to wrinkle the nice threads.”
“You can wrinkle my threads anytime you want,” Jackie told him with a warm smile.
“God, it’s good to see you, sis.” He helped her down on a bar stool. “What can I get you?”
“Nothing, thank you.”
Frankie was gaping at her again like he could hardly believe what he was seeing. “You’ve done well for yourself, yes?”
Jackie had to give that one a moment of thought. Financially she had, as her brother put it, done good. Emotionally, she believed she wasn’t quite crippled, but certainly handicapped. The reason she had come home.
“I’ve done okay,” she said and smiled.
Her brother’s cheerful smile suddenly vanished. “Mama would be real proud.”
“Would be?”
“Mama died last winter, Jackie. The flu turned into pneumonia. She just wasn’t strong enough to fight it.”
A lump formed in Jackie’s throat as she listened to her brother. She couldn’t help wondering if the woman had given up because she had nothing left to live for.
“I didn’t know Mama was sick.”
He frowned. “Would you have come home if you had?”
Jackie had difficulty looking into his sad eyes. How could she answer him when she didn’t have one? But maybe she did. Last winter her family was dead to her, everyone buried years before.
“And Papa-is he…”
“Papa is still living. But he’s changed.” Frankie sat down on the stool next to her. He had a far away look in his eyes. As if he’d traveled off somewhere. “He was never the same after you left. He didn’t give up at first. For a long time he combed most of Italy for you. Then one day he just stopped looking. After that, it was like a part of him died.”
Jackie blinked back tears. It wasn’t supposed to hurt to hear how Papa had suffered. The man had robbed her of so much. He deserved to suffer.
“Where is Papa now, Frankie?”
“Today is Friday, so he’d be at the cemetery. Mama died on a Friday. So every Friday morning he goes to visit her grave.”
A child entered the restaurant from the kitchen. “Papa… Papa…”
Jackie watched her brother hop off the stool and scoop the dark haired beauty up in his muscled arms.
“Elizabeth Maria, this is your Aunt Jackie,” Frankie introduced after plopping her down on the countertop in front of Jackie.
“Hello, Aunt Jackie.”
Jackie smiled. “Well, hello to you, Elizabeth Maria.”
“I like Lisa better.”
“But of course you do, Lisa.”
“Lisa Maria, what did I tell you about bothering your papa when he’s with customers?” The plump young woman scolded as she came through the kitchen doorway and lifted Lisa off the countertop.
Jackie watched her brother slide his arm around the woman’s waist. She immediately blushed and smiled from his touch.
“Anna, I’d like you to say hello to my sister. Jackie, this is my wife, Anna.”
Jackie smiled. “Hello, Anna.”
Anna continued to blush as she nodded Jackie a hello before giving her husband a puzzled look.
“So you think I will find Papa at the cemetery?” Jackie directed to Frankie.
“That’s where he’ll be. Do you know where the cemetery is?”
Jackie slid off the stool. “The hillside where Grandma and Grandpa Bertoni are buried. Am I right?”
Frankie nodded yes. “Do you want me to come along?”
The way his eyes studied hers, Jackie believed he sensed her uneasiness about seeing Papa again after all these years. She finally managed an appreciative smile. “No. I must do this on my own. But thanks anyway.”
“You are coming back then? I mean we will see you again before you go back to-guess you didn’t say where you’ve been all these years.”
“America. Los Angeles, California.”
Frankie smiled proudly. “I suppose I knew that. And so did Mama. She always said if any of us would get to America, it would be Jackie.”
“Mama was a wise woman.”
“Yeah, she knew everything.”
A stabbing sensation cut at Jackie’s heart. It had taken Frankie’s words to confirm what she never wanted to believe. Mama knew everything. The woman knew about the bad things she and Papa use to do. So why had she let it go on for so long?
“Bye, Aunt Jackie.”
Jackie glanced down at the adorable child standing next to her. She knelt so she was eyelevel with her.
“Would it be okay if I come back again? Maybe we could find us a toy shop on the harbor, yes?”
“Bruno’s has lots of toys.”
“Bruno’s you say. Well, maybe your mama and papa will let you show me where this Bruno’s is when I return.”
“Can I Papa? Can I Mama?” The child pleaded after running over to where Anna stood and began tugging on her apron demanding an answer.
“We will discuss it.”
Jackie left the restaurant after accepting Anna’s warm invitation to dinner. Frankie’s offer to spend the night, week or as long as she liked was an invitation she could not respond to just yet. First, she needed a conversation with Papa.
Chapter Twenty Nine
Marcus asked Tony to take a walk before he locked himself inside his office in the new home off
Bel Air Road. He picked up the phone and poked in the number for Sinclair Productions. He listened to three rings before he heard, “Good morning, Sinclair Productions, may I help you?”
“Yes. I want to speak to Jackie.”
Peggy recognized his voice immediately. The man had called at least a half dozen times the day before. Each time she’d told him exactly what Jackie had instructed. Miss Bertoni is out of the office on business. Four of those times Jackie had been sitting across the desk from her.
“Miss Bertoni isn’t in the office.”
“What do you mean she isn’t in the office? She has to be there,” roared Marcus.
“I’m sorry, Mr. DeMario, but Miss Bertoni is not here. I don’t expect her until some time next week.”
“Next week!” He took a deep breath to try and bring some sort of control to his frustration. Then he cleared his throat and wet down his lips. “Okay, then just give me the number where I can reach her.”
“I don’t have a number, Mr. DeMario.”
“Don’t give me that. Jackie had to have left you a number where she could be reached.”
“Well she hasn’t yet. But if she checks in I will be sure to tell her you’ve been trying to reach her.”
“You do that.”
Marcus slammed down the receiver. A moment later he tempted to pick it up again and call Jackie’s home. But he decided against it. He’d heard her housekeeper tell him exactly the same thing Jackie’s secretary had the countless times he’d called her home already.
So where was she? Why would she just take off without leaving a number where she could be reached? “Damn it, Jackie, where are you?”
He tossed back his head. His eyelids closed. Maybe if he calmed down and went back over things he could come up with an answer that would explain her sudden disappearance. The night before last had been incredible. Jackie had done things to him no other woman ever had. The way she caressed him and ran her tongue over him drove him crazy. The thought had him aching for her. They had pleasured each other until exhaustion won out. Marcus woke some time around midnight to find he was alone. He found her note on the pillow next to him where the sweet scent of her perfume lingered.
In the outer room he found a copy of the document he’d signed. The paperwork put Jackie in complete control of the production company. An uneasy feeling washed through him as he held the papers. He had a gut feeling he’d made a horrendous mistake.
Talia had been waiting up for him when he arrived home that night, pacing around the bedroom as he undressed. Just when he dropped on the edge of the bed, eager to get a few more hours of sleep, she fired the qu
estion.
“Marcus, are you having an affair?”
He knew telling her no and expecting her to believe it was pointless. He had to prove it to her. And the only way he could was to show her how much he loved her. A few kisses, a quick massage to a breast before he mounted her. But he had no desire to bring her to the kind of pleasure he had Jackie. Talia was his wife. A good woman. A good mother to his children. And he did care about her. But Talia was not the woman he dreamed about.
Alone in his home office mid-morning, he picked up the phone and called Sinclair Productions. He’d give Jackie’s secretary one more chance to tell him what he wanted to know before sending Tony to see her.
“The last time I spoke with Jackie she gave me a message for you.”
“I’m listening.”
“She said to tell you Desmond was her teacher. What he was going to do before he got rundown Jackie did.”
Marcus’s fingers tightened around the receiver as his insides erupted with rage. He heard the woman ask if he was still there right before he threw the phone across the room. The knock on his office door forced him to take a breath.
“Marcus, there are men here to see you,” Talia said. “The police.”
He reached for the doorknob when his wife’s last words filtered through to him. Even though instinct told him he should use the French doors that led to the patio, he decided against running. His lawyer would have him back home in an hour. Then he’d personally deal with Jackie Bertoni.
Marcus swung open the door. A man in a coat and tie stood in front of three uniformed policemen.
“Marcus DeMario,” the plain clothed man began, “I have a warrant for your arrest…”
Chapter Thirty
Jackie drove the short distance to the hillside cemetery she remembered from her childhood. Almost weekly she would accompany Papa to the family plot where a fresh basket of flowers was placed in front of the headstone of each grandparent.
She brought the car to a stop at the foot of the hill. She held her breath as her eyes searched the hillside. When she spotted a man near the top, she released the hold on her breath. She didn’t understand why she felt more anxious than afraid to step out of the car and begin the climb.
She stopped a few feet from where the hunched over little man stood with his back to her.
“Papa…” Slowly, he turned toward her. Jackie’s heart jumped to her throat. The eyes she recognized, but the face had turned into an old man. “It’s me, Papa. Jackie.”
His eyes widened. “Jackie.” His smile revealed missing upper front teeth. “My precious angel.”
Jackie expected him to be surprised. But when he turned back to the headstone, ignoring her, she was the one stumped.
“Papa.” She stepped closer when he continued to ignore her. “Papa, we need to talk.”
Anthony Bertoni unexpectedly jerked around. He glared at his daughter, sober-faced. “Why Jackie? Why after all these years do you come back here?”
“I needed to see you, Papa.”
“It’s a little late to apologize for leaving me. No explanation. Not even a goodbye.”
“I didn’t come back to apologize, Papa.”
The fragile looking man’s voice filled with strength. “Then why did you come?”
“Because I needed to know why you treated me like you did,” she said, unaware of where she found the courage to stand up to him. Especially when his eyes held hers in that hypnotizing way just like when she was a child.
“You think I treated you badly? I never even spanked you. Maybe you were treated too good, yes?”
“That depends on what you mean by good.”
“Just what I said,” Anthony declared before throwing up his arms and once again turned his back to her. “Take your brother Johnathan.” He pointed at the stone in front of him.
“Johnny!” Jackie gasped when she stepped forward and read the engraved letters on the front of the stone. “Johnny is dead?”
“Your brother was a good boy. A hard working man.” Papa shook his head. “A man shouldn’t have to suffer like that.”
“What happened to him?”
“Cancer. Three years my boy fought before the ugly disease got the best of him.”
Jackie did feel a twinge of heartache. But she couldn’t stop thinking about the day Johnny shoved her out of his path and she hit the back of her head on the wall. He hated her when all she wanted was for him to like her.
“I’m sorry, Papa.”
He glared at her. “For your brother or your mama? She is gone, too. And your other brothers, well, they don’t come home any more. Just Frankie. He and his wife run the restaurant now.”
“Frankie told me where to find you.”
“He is a good son. Never complains about the way he was treated.”
“Maybe he should.” Jackie had no idea where her courage came from. But she felt proud.
“So, you came back to show your papa disrespect.”
“I came to tell you what we did wasn’t right.”
“Loving you was wrong? Is that what you are telling Papa?”
“Love! I don’t know what that word means, Papa. Was keeping me all to yourself love? I had no friends. My brothers resented me because you gave me all of your attention.”
His eyes narrowed as he glared into hers. “You didn’t seem to mind.”
“I was a child. I didn’t know other girls weren’t getting raped by their papas.” Jackie was shocked by her bluntness.
A tear trickled from the inside corner of his right eye. “I loved you, precious. I couldn’t help myself.”
Jackie fought some of her own tears. She had a desperate yearning to throw her arms around the frail man and tell him she didn’t blame him. It wasn’t his fault she had thought love meant possessing another. Smothering the one you love until the life drains from them because expanding ones self was not allowed.
The thought set a fire deep inside her.
“You robbed me of my childhood, Papa. In America, television and people’s openness made me see the way my childhood should have been. And still, for so many years, I chose to forget that I even had a childhood. For so many years I lived like I had been born a woman.”
He focused on the ground. “I only know I loved you. When you left I saw I had loved you too much.” He peered up at her. “I loved you in the wrong way. And for this, I am sorry.”
His eyes begged for her forgiveness. But how could she? How much longer could she allow the pain to continue eating away at her? She wanted, needed to let go of the hurting. “Maybe some day I will be able to forgive you, Papa.”
A smile slowly came and he extended his arms, about to put them around her, but Jackie stepped out of his reach. “I want to show you the right kind of love,” he said.
“For now, you can show me without touching.”
He nodded. “No more touching.”
“Thank you.”
“Will you walk home with me? Remember how we used to.”
“I remember.” She glanced at her mama’s grave. “But I’m not ready to go back yet.” She saw the disappointment in his expression. “You go ahead. I’ll be along in a little while.”
“You’re not going to disappear again?”
“When I leave again, I will tell you I’m going.”
“Then you’re not staying for good?”
“I have a new life in America, Papa.”
He threw up his arms. “This is your home. You can make a new life here in Italy.”
Jackie listened to his words. Words she interpreted as Papa’s way of attempting to control her again. “America is my home now.”
It took a few moments for him to concede with a nod, then smiled. “I always wanted to see the great country of freedom people are always talking about. Maybe I’ll come visit you, yes?”
Jackie shrugged. “We’ll see.”
She watched him start down the hill. Once he reached the winding road and disappeared around the curve,
she turned back to the two graves.
She read: Johnathan Michaels Bertoni, Beloved Brother and Son.
“Beloved brother,” she said out loud.
Was Johnny her beloved brother? How could he be when she barely knew him as a boy and had not known the man?
She looked to the stone marking her mama’s grave. A cold chill shuttled up her spine.
“Did you love me, Mama? Or did you send me away because you wanted your husband back?” Tears began cleansing her eyes. “I’m sorry we never got to know each other better, Mama.”
Jackie remembered the day she came home from school early and her mama carried a cup of tea up to her room.
“You struggled so that day, Mama. Struggled for the way to tell me I’d become a woman. You had seen my bloodstained sheets. Remember Mama? The blood wasn’t because I started my period. Maybe if we’d been closer, maybe then Mama I could’ve told you the bloodstain was evidence I’d lost my virginity.”
The instant Jackie returned to the restaurant Lisa reminded her of her promise to visit the toy store. Jackie wasn’t about to go back on her promise.
While Anna fixed Lisa’s hair in two long braids down her back, Jackie placed a quick call overseas.
“Sinclair Productions.”
“Hello, Peggy. Everything okay in paradise?”
“All except for the dozen or more phone calls from Marcus DeMario.”
“You didn’t tell him where I was, did you?”
“I gave him the message you said to the last time he called.” She took a breath. “I told him you said to tell him Desmond was your teacher and what he was going to do before he got rundown, you did.” Jackie clutched her chest, unable to breathe. “I haven’t heard from him since.”
A combination of fear and regret tugged at her heart. She glanced down at the adorable child standing at her side anxious to go shopping.
“I’ll check in tomorrow, Peggy,” she managed to mutter.
They started out holding hands. But it wasn’t long before Lisa broke loose and skipped ahead. Jackie smiled as memories came flooding back.
It felt good to be walking along the harbor again. Watching Lisa was like turning the clock back to her own childhood.
