A Legacy of Secrets(55)

‘Santo!’ She was panicking, appalled at what must have taken place, what her mother was going through at this very moment. As she went to rise from the bed, he grabbed her, pinned her down with his weight.

‘Your mum’s here,’ Santo said. ‘She is staying for a couple of nights with my nonna and then we will take her to meet with her sisters.’

It was too much to take in. ‘She left.’

‘She was scared to, but yes. She came back on the plane with me,’ Santo said. ‘You have to understand our ways. It is the same for my grandmother—they are loyal, their vows are more important than themselves.’

‘How though?’ Ella asked. ‘She wouldn’t leave for me. How did you convince her?’

‘I spoke to my nonna.’ He looked at Ella. ‘I wanted to better understand...I wanted to know what best to say when I spoke to your mother.’

‘How would she know?’ Ella didn’t get it. Yes, the two women were similar, both very locked in ways of old, but their lives were completely different. She looked to Santo and saw that for once he was struggling with words, not avoiding talking and not deflecting, just breaking a lifetime of silence. Ella knew how hard that could be.

‘Salvatore beat her.’ Santo’s lips were white as he said it, curling in disgust at what his own blood had done.

‘She told you?’

‘Never.’ Santo shook his head. ‘That is one reason she liked you. You played by family rules. You say things are fine, you stay for dinner, you do what a good Sicilian girl should, but I have told her that that ends now. There will be no silence on certain subjects and my nonna agrees. She had held her secret for too long.’

‘How did you know?’

‘That birthday party she was talking about. I was listening at a door—I did a lot of that—and I heard my father confront him, said what he had seen all those years ago.’

‘What did Salvatore say?’

‘That is was just once.’ Santo looked at her. ‘That is no excuse.’ Ella just lay there. ‘No one else knows this, not even Benito, and I have told my nonna I will not repeat...except to you. It is her story to tell if she feels she needs to.’

‘Why wouldn’t he have told Benito?’

‘To spare him perhaps?’ Santo shrugged. ‘They were rivals, but at the end of the day they were still brothers.’

She couldn’t believe he would go and speak with his nonna, that he would confront so boldly a shame from the past, just to better help her, and she told him the same.

‘Of course I would,’ Santo said. ‘I will always stand by you as in the coming months you will stand by me as my family tears itself to shreds.’

‘They might not,’ Ella said. ‘There must be some bond there—you’re related.’

‘The worst enemies to have,’ Santo said. ‘Because they never go away. But at times they prove to be the best allies too. My nonna said that despite all he had done, your mother would be scared for your father too.’

‘I’m scared for him,’ Ella admitted, for though she loathed all he had done, the thought of him alone and suffering did not bring comfort when once she had thought that it would. ‘I’m scared for him too.’

‘You don’t have to be,’ Santo said. ‘I have arranged a nurse daily, a housekeeper. He will be looked after, but not by your mother. I promised your mother all these things to get her to leave, and I did not hit your father back, but had I known what I do now, I might not have managed such restraint. I spoke at length with your mother. It is a long flight from Sydney to here.’ He watched the colour spread across her cheeks and the tears pool and then fall from her eyes.

‘He beat you.’

‘Once.’

It was a pale defence of her parents and his expression struggled not to move.

‘I left home as soon as I could and I got a place and enough money. Then a few months ago I went back to get her....’

‘How badly did he beat you?’

And he insisted on details—he did not believe her mother’s version, he only believed in her—and so she told him. She pulled back her head and showed him the scar and that capped expensive smile, and his face never moved a fraction. ‘I should have gone to the police—pressed charges. But I knew that it would only make things worse for her. I just could not believe she would stay after what he did to me.’