They think I’m the man.
I’m no man without my woman.
The guard escorts me to the phones and I grab the first receiver I see, not bothering to stand in the line with the other inmates. Leaning against the wall, I dial our house number first. I wait for her to answer, sending up a silent prayer that she’s home.
Please answer, Gracie.
“Hello?”
A faint smile appears at the sound of her voice but quickly disappears when I hear her sniffle.
“Gracie, love, it’s me,” I rasp.
“Oh, Victor,” she whispers, clearing her throat before she speaks again. “Wait a minute I thought you couldn’t call.”
“They reinstated my phone privileges,” I explain, pausing for a moment. “It’s so good to hear your voice. How’s my beautiful girl?”
She laughs through her tears. It’s a laugh full of sarcasm rather than one of joy but still manages to warm me deep down, all the way to my bones.
“You wouldn’t be calling me beautiful if you could see what I look like right now,” she accuses.
“Nonsense,” I admonish. “You’ve always been beautiful in my eyes.” I swallow the lump in my throat and smile. “Always will be too,” I whisper.
“Always the sweet talker,” she says sadly.
True.
In the beginning I dazzled Grace with my fancy words and grand gestures until I learned she didn’t need all that—having me was all she needed. Even after realizing that I still sweet-talked her and surprised her any chance I could get.
“What’re you wearing?”
“Victor!”
Trying not to succumb to another coughing fit and ruin one of our final moments I try to keep my laugh at bay.
“Paint me a picture, Gracie,” I plead. “Please?”
The sound of her soft breath sings against my ear as she remains silent.
“Where are you?” I coax.
“In our bedroom,” she responds hesitantly.
Closing my eyes, I picture her sitting on the foot of our bed with the phone to her ear.
Go stand in front of the mirror, Grace,” I instruct, keeping my eyes closed as I envision her slowly rise from the bed and pad across the worn carpet of our bedroom to the floor to ceiling mirror we keep perched against the wall in the corner.
“Are you looking at yourself?”
“Yes,” she whispers.
“Tell me what you see. Start from your head and work your way down to your toes.”
“My hair is up in a bun…”
“Let it down, Grace. Please.”
“Okay,” she murmurs, the phone shuffling around before her sweet voice fills my ears again. “It’s down.”
“Good girl,” I whisper. “Do you have your glasses on?”
“No, today isn’t the day for this, I’m not wearing any make-up and the dark circles beneath my eyes are on display. I’ve got more wrinkles than I care to admit and the lines that pinch the corners of my eyes seem to have doubled overnight.”
Her hair was dark brown when I first met her but after she turned forty, she started dying it hoping to restore her youth, and now my Grace had blonde highlights. I picture her blondish hair flowing around her face, a perfect contrast to her olive skin freckled from the sun. Her brown eyes are no doubt tired and dull from the stress she’s been under but I try my hardest to see the eyes of the young girl I fell in love with and not the woman I broke. The lines she describes match the ones I have on my face, they are the lines that tell the story of our life together. For all the thousands of smiles there are faint lines on each of our faces. For every hundred tears is another bunch and the rest are made up from the ups and downs of life, the seasons of change and the lessons we learn, both beautiful and trying at times.
“My lips are pale pink and there is a beauty mark on my lower lip that just won’t go away,” she continues.
I smile as I think of all the times I kissed that beauty mark and all the others she keeps hidden beneath her clothes. Like the one on the back of her upper thigh or the several that pepper the swell of her breasts.
“I’m wearing my favorite nightgown, the blue silk one you bought me three Christmases ago. Do you remember it?”
“How could I forget it?” It was October when I bought the silk nightgown and matching robe and for two months I pictured her wearing it. When I finally gave it to her on Christmas morning, I made her run upstairs and put it on. It wound up on the floor twenty minutes later.
“I’ve lost weight, so it’s gotten big on me but I can’t part with it,” she admits, growing silent for a moment. “When I’m lonely or missing you I put it on and I feel close to you.”
I lift my hand to my face and brush away the tear that betrays me and slides down my cheek.
“I miss you too, Grace,” I whisper before clearing my throat. “Keep looking at yourself in the mirror and let me tell you what I see, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I see my bride, my wife, the mother of my children and the woman I share grandchildren with all wrapped up in the beauty staring back at you. I remember when I first met you, I thought there wasn’t a more beautiful woman in the whole world but you proved me wrong with every passing year becoming even more exquisite. When you look in the mirror, I want you to remember this conversation, remember my voice telling you how beautiful you are, and with every passing year remember you only become more beautiful. When you stare at the lines upon your face, embrace them, for they are the story of us etched into your skin.”
Her sobs make me pause giving us both a chance to collect ourselves.
“Every year you age I want you to remember how beautiful you are,” I persist, choking on my words as I bow my head and lean my forehead against the wall. “I won’t be there to remind you but when you look in the mirror, I want you to recall this conversation and know wherever I am I’m whispering in your ear, telling you you’re still the most beautiful woman in the world,” I finish hoarsely.
“Victor, I can’t do this. I’m not ready for goodbye,” she whispers.
“This isn’t goodbye,” I insist. “This is me reminding you of the man you fell in love with, reminding you why you ever took this crazy journey with a man like me in the first place. This is me giving you the attention you deserve, Grace. I know I’m late but better late than never,” I say as my throat tightens.
“I don’t need a reminder as to why I took the journey, my heart reminds me with every beat it takes,” she whispers.
“You got good at the sweet talk too,” I joke, fighting the cough but failing. The next few moments are quiet on her end as she listens to my lungs fail me and the cancer rear its ugly head. I drop the receiver attempting to shield her from my fate. Once I finally have it under control, I lift the receiver back to my ear.
“Victor?”
I’m here,” I rasp.
“I filed a request with Bureau of Prisons for permission to have you treated by a private doctor,” she reveals.
“Grace—”
“I’ve stood by your side through everything, Victor, every single thing and most of the time I didn’t even blink an eye. But now it’s your turn to remember something. I need for you to remember the vows we took and how I promised before God to love you in sickness and in health. I’m sorry but I can’t sit back idly this time.”
I could argue with her but what’s the point, they won’t grant her the request, and by the time she gets her answer I’ll probably have already passed. There was no crime in letting her hang onto hope while I restore what’s left of us.
“Okay, Gracie,” I pacify. “We’ll play it your way, sweetheart.”
“Wow,” she whispers. “I didn’t think I’d ever hear those words.”
“First time for everything,” I tease. “I am running out of time and the COs already tapped his watch ten times, but tell me, how are our girls?”
“I told them the truth,” she admits. “They’re heartbroken to say the le
ast but they will come and visit this week.”
“I’ll fix it,” I promise. “I’ll make it okay for them to let me go,” I assure her.
“That’s not up to you,” she argues. “They’re entitled to feel however they want. You’re their father for crying out loud. You can’t fix death, you can’t repair the hole it leaves in one’s heart,” she says heatedly. “I’m sorry I don’t mean to yell.”
“It’s okay.” I draw in a deep breath, rubbing my chest as I fill my black lungs with air.
“There’s something…I have to…I have to tell you,” she hesitates. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but I never liked being kept in the dark and you have a right to know.”
“Tell me,” I urge.
“Nikki is having some medical issues. They took all kinds of tests and tomorrow she will get the results.”
“What kind of medical issues?” I ask. My bravado disappearing as the question leaves my lips.
“She went to the gynecologist because she was having irregular bleeding and severe cramping so the doctor sent her for a full checkup.”
“Well, what are they testing her for?”
“A bunch of things,” she says vaguely.
“Gracie don’t beat around the bush,” I demand hoarsely.
“It could be anything, a cyst breaking down or maybe it’s endometriosis but they want to rule out uterine or ovarian cancer as well.”
Tears well in my eyes as I imagine my youngest daughter. Her smile always so big and bright just like the biggest star. A light that can never be dimmed, no matter how hard she was pushed.
Please, keep shining.
“I’m going to the doctor with her and Michael tomorrow when they get the results,” she continues. “She’s going to be fine,” she assures me.
“Of course she is,” I rasp, blinking away the tears. “You need to believe that too,” I remind her knowing she was probably driving herself mad with worry. The urge to scream fills me as I realize I am forcing Grace to endure something alone. Again. I should be there holding her hand as she forgets about herself and becomes Nikki’s strength.
“God wouldn’t do that to me,” she utters. “He wouldn’t take you and our girl from me. He isn’t that cruel.”
“Listen to me, Gracie, she’s going to be fine. God’s just testing her. He’s going to teach her a lesson by showing her how strong she truly is.”
“Pastore, it’s time,” the guard calls.
“I’ve got to hang up now, Gracie,” I say regretfully. “I love you, beautiful,” I whisper.
“I love you too, Victor,” she cries.
I couldn’t bring myself to say goodbye and knew she couldn’t either. I hang the receiver up gently before releasing an anguished scream and lifting the receiver into my hand again, slamming it down over and over before dropping it and turning around to the CO.
“Take me back to my cell,” I ground out.
Once the cell closes, and I am alone in my cage, I close my eyes and there she is—my Gracie.
Only this time she wasn’t alone. This time she was with Nikki.
Twelve days.
Three visits.
One more phone call.
Chapter Twenty-One
There is nothing worse than waiting, and it seems like that’s all I do lately. I waited for my test results, I’m waiting for the fucking nurse to call my name and then I’m sure I’ll wait some more once they stick me in a room and tell me the doctor will be right with me.
I’m hanging onto my sanity by a thread. Between my health scare and learning my father’s dying, I don’t know what to do with myself. One minute I want to lock myself away and cry, the next, I want to scream and hit something. In the end my tears win and I cry for my father, for my mother, and for me and my sister.
Growing up a mobster’s daughter was never easy, me and my sister lived life differently than our friends. We followed a different set of rules than them and were overcompensated for the things we couldn’t do because our father was a dangerous man. Friends never slept over at our house because their parents wouldn’t allow them to, too freaked out by the bullet proof windows and the bodyguards lurking around the front door.
Dating was no picnic either. The few guys brave enough to date us went through the ringer. Look at Anthony for instance, my father fucked him harder than anyone. Then there was the other type of guy that went after the mobster’s daughter, the one who hoped one day to be part of the Pastore organization. Let’s not forget the guys like Rico who used and abused me to get close to my father. That ended in bloodshed.
However, all of those things weren’t as bad as waiting for the dreaded day the inevitable happened and we got the call that daddy’s not coming home. I always thought my father would die just as Mikey’s dad did, caught off guard, shot in the broad day light, his lifeless body lying in a pool of his own blood. If you ask Adrianna, she’d tell you our dad would go down guns blazing until he couldn’t physically pull the trigger anymore.
If someone really wanted to kill daddy, they’d have to blow his trigger finger off.
Those were her exact words.
Surprisingly, we were both wrong and I don’t know if I should be grateful for that. Is suffering from cancer better than dying from a gunshot wound? Which is the lesser of the two evils?
I was just accepting the fact he’d be in prison for the rest of his life, thinking he’d live to a ripe old age and I’d still be able to see him, still be able to speak to him on the phone and even write to him. Bottom line is he’d still be in my life one way or another.
Now I have to get used to the fact my dad is dying and by the time I do he will already be dead and I’ll have to live with the fact I no longer have my father in my life.
It’s a vicious cycle.
I think we all sometimes think about losing our parents; we wonder how we will feel, how our lives will go on and imagine how empty life will be, not just on holidays such as Mother’s Day or Father’s Day but the ordinary days, the days when you get a speeding ticket and you want to vent to your dad. For so long your parents are by your side, guiding you, cheering you on and making sense of the things you don’t understand. Even as an adult they never cut the cord, they simply take a step back, never too far, always there for you as you face the things that scare the shit out of you.
There was a time in my life when I felt bitter, when I resented my dad for his lifestyle, a time when I blamed him for everything wrong in our family. My dad made a lot of mistakes in his life but he’s still my daddy, my first hero, my first love, the first man who ever loved me unconditionally and the man who brought back the love of my life. He gave me my eternal love; he gave me Mikey.
I only hope that he knows how grateful I am.
I turn to Mikey and watch as he flips through a parenting magazine, shaking his head in amazement at the article he pretends to read. I lean close to him, placing my hand on his knee and wait for him to turn his gaze to me.
“Remind me to thank my dad when we go see him,” I whisper.
“Thank him for what?” he questions, closing the magazine and taking my hand in his.
“Everything good in my life,” I reply, glancing across the room at my mother sitting in her chair reading her prayer book.
I smile at her, she took that little green book everywhere. She’s had it since I was a kid, starting every morning with a cup of coffee and a prayer to Saint Anthony. Some people pray to Saint Anthony when they lose something or when they really need something good to happen, my mom prays to Saint Anthony because her father’s name was Anthony and praying to his patron saint makes her feel close to him. She prays for our health, for our happiness and for my father. She always prays for my father.
For his sins and for his redemption.
After all, he’s her eternal love, and she’s praying they end up in the same place.
“Your phone is ringing,” Mikey whispers, brushing my hair over my shoulder, pulling me away from my though
ts. I grab my purse off the floor and sift through all the useless shit I stuff in there before pulling out my phone.
I don’t recognize the number, but it’s not the familiar numbers of creditors that are usually looking to get me. I accept the call.
“Hello?”
“Nikki, it’s daddy.”
My fingers tighten around the phone as tears cloud my vision. His voice is different; the baritone voice I remember is now hoarse and raspy—breathless.
“Nicole, are you there?”
“Yes,” I cry. “I’m here Dad.”
My mother lifts her head and her eyes peer into mine as I nod.
It’s really him.
Watching me intently, Mikey closes his hand over my knee.
“How’s my girl?”
It was a question I had heard him ask me countless times. A question I usually gave a half-assed answer to, but now it was a question that had tears uncontrollably rolling down my cheeks.
I’m not good.
I’m brokenhearted.
I’m scared of what the doctor’s going to say.
I’m scared I’m sick.
I’m scared to visit you because I know it’ll be the last time I see you.
I’m scared of losing you.
I’m scared of living without you.
I’m not good, Dad.
“I’m okay,” I lie, swallowing the lump clogging my throat and all the things I truly want to say.
“Your nose is growing,” he says, clearing his throat. “I spoke to your mom yesterday and she told me what’s been going on.”
Mikey stands and walks over to the nurse, returning with a box of tissues as he kneels before me and dries my eyes. As quickly as he wipes my tears they are replaced with new ones.
“I’m a little nervous,” I admit.
“I know you are, sweetheart, but you’re going to be fine,” he says adamantly. “You know how I know that?”
“How?” I ask, glancing across the room at my mother who was staring up above with tears running down her face.
The Tempted Series: Collectors Edition Page 173
