“Oh come on now, there has to be something in there.” She strode into the kitchen, powered by some kind of righteous fury she didn’t have control over. “Let’s have a look.”
She stopped at the counter next to him and pulled the first item out of the box. “A chipped porcelain horse. I gave this to Paul when we were kids because he wanted a horse so bad, but that was not in the cards for a Luca kid. He’d cried every night for weeks. It’s hard to want things with your whole heart even though you know you’ll never get them.” A tear slipped past her iron control. She swiped the sleeve of her shirt against her cheek roughly, then sat the horse down on the counter. Next out came a dog-eared book. “Bridge to Terabithia. You’ll have to be sure to put in your report that this has been Rocco’s favorite book since our grandpa disappeared. Well, he died, but we didn’t know that for sure then. But he was old enough to have had at least an idea. Still, he kept up the pretense for me and Paul for years. He was a horrible big brother that way.” She laid the book down and reached in the box and pulled out a heavy scrapbook. “Now this is probably the most devastating piece of evidence of all. A family photo album.” She plopped it down on the counter and flipped it open. It was filled with all the silly casual pictures that every family had. Christmas mornings. Birthday parties. Vacations. Lazy Sundays. Graduations. “As you can plainly see. I am a Luca. That’s me there. You can tell it’s me because even as a baby I had a schnoz for the ages.” She slammed the album shut. “So my brothers left me a box with a family album, a chipped porcelain horse, and a beloved kids book. What’s that going to get them? Ten years behind bars? Fifteen? Because I look at that and I figure they’ve got to pay for…”
She looked at the items on the counter, and her legs stopped working. Stumbling back, she reached behind her for one of the kitchen chairs. Ford got to it first, yanking it out for her. She collapsed onto it.
“Are you okay,” he asked, cupping her face and forcing her to look up into his eyes. “What do you need?”
“The box. Is there a letter?” She could barely get the words out through the emotion blocking her throat. When he didn’t move fast enough, the panic took over. “The box! A letter! Get it!”
He grabbed the box off the counter and reached inside, pulling out a piece of lined paper folded in half. She wanted to cry out. She wanted to scream. She wanted to pretend that damn piece of paper wasn’t in Ford’s hand—but it was and she knew what that meant. Her brothers were gone.
Her hands shaking, she took the letter from Ford and opened it.
Gina,
We told you we were just waiting for the right time to start over. Seeing you with Ford made us realize that you were finally ready for us to make the break. Tell your boy that if he breaks your heart, we’ll find out somehow and come back to break his knees. Sorry we couldn’t stay and say goodbye, but you know this was the life we’d chosen and there are some folks who might want to have a few words if they’d known we were leaving. No need to worry about us though. We’ve been saving up to get out for some time. We were just waiting to make sure you’d be okay, and now we know you will with Ford by your side.
Love ya sis,
Paul and Rocco
P.S.
Your boy did as much as he could. Go easy on him.
They’d finally done it. They’d been talking about leaving Waterbury for years, but it always seemed like just talk. But it wasn’t. They’d done it. And the whole time they’d been waiting for her to heal, and she hadn’t realized it because for so long she wouldn’t even admit to herself that she was wounded.
All that talk of accepting reality, of being alone, it had been her shield, her defensive wall, because no matter what she said, she still saw herself as the world did. She was guilty of the biggest lie of them all—lying to herself. Well, that stopped now. From this day to forever, she was going to mean it when she said she loved herself just the way she was, with or without anyone by her side. She owed her brothers that much. Hell, she owed it to herself.