I realized now with a suffocating feeling, that from now on this would be my life. Outside ? I would be smiling and people would be thinking how lucky and privileged I was, and inside ? I would be a shriveling, embittered, lonely mess. As the years went by, I’d probably end up hooked on pain meds. I sniffed even harder when I thought about my future.
A small tap came on my door, and I startled. It could only be Angelo. I jumped to my feet, my heart thudding painfully in my chest. I wiped the moisture from my eyes and cheeks just as the tap came again, and then pulled the door open.
It wasn’t him. It was Nonna bearing a small wooden tray with some pastries and a steaming mug of hot chocolate. There were even marshmallows in it.
I didn’t have the appetite for any of it, but I knew she had fixed the tray for me herself. I felt touched and I wondered if she could see me, unlike everyone else, if she could understand the despair, slowly killing me inside. “Hi, Nonna,” I whispered, my voice thick from sobbing. I bit my lower lip to stop it from trembling, but it wouldn’t stop, so I turned away from her, walked to my bed and slipped under the duvet. It was a hot night, but I felt cold. The cold coming from deep inside me.
“Sit up, my child,” she said, putting the tray on the bedside table and sitting next to me on the bed.
But I couldn’t. The tears were just rolling out of my eyes.
She reached out a hand and wiped the tears away. “My poor, poor Sienna. You’ve had a rough evening, haven’t you?”
I didn’t know how to respond, so I just stared at her, doing all I could to choke back even more tears.
She lifted the mug of chocolate and offered it to me.
I shook my head and worked up some semblance of a smile. “No, Nonna, I'm not hungry or thirsty.”
“I watched you all night,” she said. “You barely ate anything.”
“I did,” I replied, “before Fabio’s announcement.”
She returned the mug back to the tray, then rubbed her hand up and down my arm. “I’m sorry, Sienna,” she said. “When your parents discussed this marriage agreement with me, I didn’t realize how much pain it was going to cause you. Sacrifices like this are a norm in our family, as little else matters beyond securing the safety and wellbeing of the next generation. I didn’t even know who your grandfather was till the week before our wedding.” She brushed my hair away from my face. “I want to ask you a question. Do you have someone else in your heart? Or is it that you just don’t like Fabio?”
I wanted to respond truthfully and tell her about Angelo, but then I remembered she might under the guise of doing what was best for the family, attempt to harm him.
“Don't worry,” she said, as if she had read my thoughts. “I won’t do anything to hurt him. If I wanted to, I would have already, so don’t lie to me.”
I knew then she already knew about Angelo. Of course, she did. She had seen enough at the hospital to know. I sniffed. “Nonna, can I tell you a secret?”
“Of course.”
I sat up and looked her in the eye. “You must promise never to tell anyone. If you do, I will never speak to you again.”
“My, my, how dramatic you are,” she said with a chuckle. “I promise I will never reveal your secret.”
“Not even to mama or papa?”
“Not even to them,” she confirmed solemnly.
“Fabio is gay,” I blurted out.
Her eyes widened with shock. “A homosexual?”
I nodded. “He wants to have a pretend marriage, with both of us having lovers. He’ll even get me my own apartment where I can go to have sex with whoever I want. He wants children of course, but he has given me the choice of having sex with him during the days I am most fertile, or he doesn’t mind jerking off into a cup and having me artificially inseminated in a clinic.”
She released a heavy sigh and shook her head. “The world today has changed so much.”
“What would you do if you were me, Nonna?”
She sighed again. “I understand your parents and their desire to keep you safe, but I sure didn’t give up the things I wanted and make all the sacrifices I have so far just so the generations after me would also be forced to do the same all over again. I was lucky, your grandfather was a good man, thankfully, but if he had not been …” She let the sentence trail away.
For a while neither of us spoke.
Then she placed her hand on the side of my face and cupped my cheek. “Don't be sad, my little pumpkin pie. I actually have a plan.”