“Anyway.” He pauses again and if I’m not mistaken, seems a little nervous.
“What is it?”
He goes to his suit jacket that’s still sprawled over the couch and retrieves something from the inside pocket, he passes it to me and I frown.
It’s a photograph of my mother and father…and Angelina. Dad has his arm around Angelina, but my mother is heavily pregnant, Lorenzo is there too.
Huh?
My eyes rise to his. “When is this from?”
“The date is on the back of it.”
I turn the photo over and see the date. “It’s the year I was born.” I frown and turn the photo over to study it again. “Since when….” I screw up my face in confusion. “My mother is pregnant, but Angelina is there, his arm is around her? I don’t understand this photo, it doesn’t make any sense.”
“I know.”
“And what’s Lorenzo doing there?”
“Precisely.”
“Hmm.” I stare at it. “What do you make of it?”
“I mean.” He sighs heavily. “From a first glance, if I didn’t know better, it looks like a double date. My father and mother and your mother and Lorenzo.”
I put the photo down onto the counter and stare at it as I bite my thumbnail. “You’re right, it does.”
“And we know that Lorenzo and your mother started dating when you were young.”
“But Angelina and my mother hated each other.”
“But did they?” He gestures to the image, “Does it look like they hated each other? They are both smiling in that photo.”
My eyes rise to his. “What are you saying?”
“It’s possible that Lorenzo and your mother were in love earlier than we were led to believe.”
I blink in surprise.
“Is it possible that Lorenzo and your mother had my father’s blessing to be together well before you were conceived?”
I put my hand over my mouth in horror and my eyes rise to meet his. “You think Lorenzo could be my biological father?”
He shrugs. “Would explain a lot of things.”
“Like what?”
“Like why your mother got pregnant to a man who had declared his love for another woman and had given her a child only a year before.”
My eyes search his. “Could this be real?”
“Does it make me a bad person if I hope it is?”
I put my head in my hands.
“Chesk, do you know what this means?” he says as he grabs my hand in his. “It would mean we are not biologically related.”
My saucer-sized eyes hold his.
“We could be together. Properly together.”
“But why would they lie?”
“Can you imagine the public uproar if one of my father’s men got his wife pregnant? He would be immediately killed by my father’s men for being a traitor, your mother too for that matter. Think about it Chesk, your very protection comes from you being a Ferrara, if you are not a Ferrara, in the eyes of his men, you are the child of a traitor and would be disposed of.”
I hold my temples with my fingertips.
“Think about it, he left your mother for Angelina and had a baby with her. We know that he cared for your mother as a friend and that he wanted her happy. It would have been the perfect scenario for her to secretly date his closest friend, someone he could trust in his home with his children. He gets to live with the love of his life and his beloved wife is happy and safe in the arms of another man.”
“But…she fell pregnant,” I whisper.
“So, they had to lie…or all of them would have lost face.”
The pieces of the puzzle all fall into place and my eyes rise to meet his. “Jules.”
“I know.” He smiles hopefully.
“If this is true….”
“We can get married, Chesk.” He picks up my hand and kisses it. “We can have children, we can be fucking normal.”
My face falls. “But…what if it’s not?” I whisper.
“It is, I know it is. I can’t love someone as much as I love you and not be able to celebrate it. No life could be that cruel.”
Oh…my heart.
My eyes well with tears and I wipe them away with a nod. “True.” I think for a moment. “I’ll go and see my mother.”
“Do you want me to come?”
“No, it’s okay. I’ve got to do this alone.”
We smile at each other and for the first time in a long time, something different buzzes in the air between us.
Hope.
I walk into my mother’s house at just on eight a.m., I couldn’t wait a moment longer.
“Hi, Mom.”
She frowns. “Hello, darling.” She kisses my cheek. “You’re up early today, I didn’t even know you were in Milan.” She’s dressed in her workout gear and looks like she’s been up for hours.
“Work. Work meetings, all the work meetings,” I splutter. “Very busy working.”
Shut up, you’re wrecking it. Why am I such a terrible liar?
“Would you like a cup of coffee?” she asks.
“Yes, please.”
I follow her out to the kitchen and sit down at the counter and she gets to making coffee.
My heart is pumping, and I feel sick, a lot depends on this meeting.
My entire future.
She makes us both a cup of coffee and sits down opposite me. “So? What’s up?”
“Why do you think something is up?”
“Because you never get here at eight a.m. unannounced. I’m your mother, Francesca, I know you better than you know yourself.”
“Mom.” My eyes search hers. “I’m going to ask you a question and I need you to promise me that you’ll tell me the truth.”
She frowns.
“Because there is no right or wrong answer to this question.”
“What are you talking about?”
“And there is no judgement, the past is the past and we are all happy and love each other.” I wring my hands together on my lap nervously.
“Francesca,” she snaps. “What is it?”
“Is Lorenzo my father?”
Her face falls. “What?”
“Did you start dating Lorenzo before I was conceived? It’s okay if you did, I completely understand.” I smile hopefully. “Dad was a cad, I get it. I completely get it.”
“Honey….” She sighs.
I pass the photo over to her. “I found this and I know that it doesn’t marry up with what I’ve been told and I love Lorenzo. So….”
She stares at the photo and puts it down onto the counter. “No.”
“No what?”
“Lorenzo is not your father.”
My nostrils flare as I try to hold in the tears. “What do you mean? How could this photo….” Words fail me.
“This was taken at the public library; your father and I had split up for good and I was friends with Lorenzo. Not wanting to go alone, I asked Lorenzo to take me to an art show, when we got there we ran into Giuliano and Angelina.”
My heart drops as I stare at her.
“I saw them, not a second later a photographer asked us to stand together and smile, not wanting to cause a scene we did.”