Mack Daddy(65)

“I can’t face her right now.”

“You have to, Francesca. Will you be able to sleep tonight if you don’t?

Letting out a long, shaky breath, I said, “Probably not.”

“I’m going to call her. Okay? Can I do that? I won’t divulge the reason…just that we need her to come by, to discuss something with her.”

Hanging onto a chair for balance, I nodded. “Yes.”

Victor retreated to the den to call my mother. I couldn’t fathom the possibility that the person I had trusted most in this world had lied to me all these years. This news was just devastating on so many different levels.

After Victor returned to the kitchen, he came up behind me and massaged my shoulders slowly. “Take a deep breath. I’m gonna make you some tea. I want you to drink it down and try to clear your mind until she gets here.”

Vic went over to the stove to boil water and prepared two steaming mugs.

He then sat with me as we drank the tea in silence while he rubbed my back.

“If you can’t speak, I’ll do the talking for you, okay?” he said, reaching over and taking my hand in his.

It was the first time tears started to fill my eyes. The fact that after everything I’d done, Victor was so comforting to me touched me beyond words. I didn’t know what I would have done if I were alone when that envelope arrived. His being there for me was like being thrown a life raft after getting suddenly tossed overboard.

When the doorbell rang, I jumped. Victor placed his hand on my shoulder. “You stay here. I’ll let her in.”

My mother’s dark hair looked windblown, and her nose was red from the cold. She was wearing her typical bright, neon pink lipstick. I knew she had no clue why we’d called her here. She was probably even more confused by the fact that Victor was involved when we were supposedly broken up.

“What’s going on? Why have you been crying?” She approached me. “Are you pregnant?”

“Please sit, Karen,” Victor said.

He handed my mother the envelope, the contents of which said it all.

Her lips quivered as she closed her eyes and collapsed down onto one of our kitchen chairs. “Oh, God,” she whispered, covering her mouth and repeated, “Oh, my God.”

My body was starting to tremble. “So, it’s true?”

She just kept nodding for a while before she finally said, “Yes.”

Tears were now pouring down my cheeks in a steady flow. “How could you have kept this from me?”

“There’s so much to explain, Francesca. But please know…it’s all been to protect you. I don’t even know where to begin.”

“You can start from the beginning,” I cried.

Victor put his arm around me for support as my mother began to speak.

“I know I’ve led you to believe that you were born in Boston, that my family is from here, but I actually grew up in a section of Philadelphia called Kensington. My grandfather, Patrick, was involved in the local Irish mob.”

She rubbed her eyes and continued, “When I met Freddie, he was one of your granddad’s acquaintances. He was much younger and better looking than most of the men who’d come around, but he was older than me by five years. I was seventeen. He was twenty-two. He really wanted to change, get out of the mob, but he was in too deep. It was the only world he’d ever known. I do believe that deep down he was a good person, but he got caught up in it with no way out. He was forced to do some terrible things.”

I just shook my head and muttered, “I can’t believe this.”

She went on. “His own life would’ve been on the line if he didn’t adhere to what he was told to do. That didn’t make it right, but that was the way it was. I almost didn’t tell him I was pregnant, but I couldn’t live with the guilt. He wanted to be a part of your life, but by the time you were born, it was just too dangerous. Someone would have killed us—you and me. My parents did what they felt they had to. They moved to Boston and took us with them. We were lucky that no one had really caught on to my pregnancy. No one ever followed us to Boston. Freddie didn’t tell anyone about you being born because he knew that it would put you in danger. I chose not to tell you who your father was for your own safety. I was afraid you’d go against me someday and try to see him. Even though he’s in jail, those people have ways of finding certain things out. There are a lot of informants in prison. So, telling you was just too big of a risk because if anyone were to know about you, they could try to come after you to get back at Freddie.”

“So, my father is alive. He’s in prison. Have you ever contacted him?”

“No, I haven’t. He’s in jail, but if he weren’t, he’d be dead, Francesca. It’s actually a good thing he’s in there. There are still people out there to this day looking to enact revenge in some way for what Freddie and his partners did.”

“You could’ve told me. I would’ve heeded your advice and stayed away. But I’ve spent my entire life thinking that my father was some standup person who simply wanted nothing to do with me. That’s not exactly the case.”

“I know. And I’ve felt extremely guilty about that. It was always the worst part of keeping this from you. I still feel like it was the only choice I had.”

Feeling utterly floored, I said, “I honestly don’t even know where to go from here. I think I’m just still in shock.”