Chapter 15: Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia King: Chapter 15

For the first time in what feels like years, I get the chance to spend a whole Saturday with Harper. Just the two of us. We never used to do that. I was always working, either a main gig or a side job, or running errands. Now it’s just us, sitting cross-legged on the living room floor and stringing together bracelets made of thick, plastic beads.

I caved in and bought her a few things. Harper has always loved the idea of arts and crafts. She took immense pride in every little project she brought home from school, from tracing her own hand into a turkey or gluing together cotton balls to make a snake. Those projects are all lost now. Probably thrown into a landfill by the landlord, tossing my old life into the dumpster with them.

We never had much of a budget for arts and crafts at home, and every walk down the toy aisle was like wandering through a museum. Look, but don’t touch. Now, she gets to make her very own AWESOME JEWELRY SETS as advertised in thick, blocky letters on the case, modeled by Photoshopped images of overenthusiastic eight-year-olds.

It’s almost therapeutic, focusing on mindlessly stringing together tiny beads and charms, while my daughter chases the one rolling across the hardwood floor.

I make a bracelet for her, and she makes one for me. Applesauce now also has a necklace that says ‘giraf’ with big plasticky blue hearts. Because she couldn’t spell Applesauce.

I am presented with my bracelet, which Harper personally stretches over my hand to make sure I wear it. Mommy is spelled correctly. I’m only a tiny bit disappointed.

“We should make one for Ren, too,” Harper gushes, digging back into the endless pit of letters and beads.

“You really seem to like him,” I say, carefully. I don’t get it. I don’t know why she’s so obsessed with him. Maybe it’s inherited.

“He’s nice.”

…Is he?

“And he’s sad,” she adds. “So maybe this can cheer him up.”

“I don’t think he’s sad, baby,” I tell her. “You don’t have to worry about him.”

She prattles on, sure of herself. “He is sad, because—because when we’re mad it’s because we really need to cry instead of shout,” she says, parroting my own words back at me like they’re gospel, “and sometimes he gets mad and yells. So, he is sad.”

Sure, maybe that would hold up if Ren were a six-year-old.

I decide not to ruin her impression of him. Let her think what she wants about him. The more they like each other, the better it is for her. My thoughts wander as I string together a charm bracelet. It’s never going to look good, but it keeps my fingers busy as she tells me the colors she wants.

When she finishes, she holds it up for my inspection.

“Harper!” I whisper.

I snatch it out of her hands so fast, I nearly break it, my heart hammering in my throat. She’s lined the letters up side by side:

D-A-D-D-Y

***

Harper chases Ren through the halls when he comes home, right on his heels every step of the way, holding up his bracelet for him. I redesigned it to say REN instead, though when she asked why it couldn’t say DADDY, I didn’t have a good answer. I tried to flip it around on her and ask why it should say daddy, but logic only works on adults.

“Mommy and I made this for you,” she cries, following him around. He takes the bracelet and inspects it.

“See?” Harper says, holding up her own wrist. “We match! I made one for Applesauce, too!”

Ren dutifully puts it on.

As he slides it over his hand, I notice the knuckles of his uncovered hand are bruised and bloody. A fresh wound. I glance at the rest of him, a quick check. Not a hair out of place. No bruises or black eyes.

Wherever Ren has been, it wasn’t a fair fight.

“What do you think?” he asks her, showing it off. She doesn’t even notice the injury.

I stand back with my arms crossed, hoping he forgets about that bracelet and wears it around to all of his mob meetings and drug deals and executions and whatever the fuck else he does day to day.

“Mommy wouldn’t let me give you the first one we made,” Harper announces.

Oh God, I’ve raised a snitch.

“Why not?” Ren asks.

“Because it wouldn’t have fit,” I interrupt, stepping up behind Harper and brushing her off. “Harper, go pick up the mess in the living room, please. You were supposed to have it done before lunch.”

I know full well she’s going to go in there and make a worse mess, but that’s alright. I can trade in a big disaster for a small one. Instead of doing as I asked, Harper comes running back at Mach speed, her giraffe clutched in her arms to show off his new necklace.

“Exquisite,” Ren says, and I swear the dimple of his cheek quirks when he sees the spelling. Like he almost actually smiled for once. He inspects the ratty old thing, turning it over in his hands as if really looking at it for the first time. “How old is this?”

“He’s…six!” she decides on the spot. “He came from the zoo with other real giraffes!”

“Is that right? They were just giving them away that day, were they?”

“It’s true!” she insists. “He came from a big zoo where all the other giraffes were too big, so he couldn’t stay with them.”

“Her kindergarten class went to the zoo. She couldn’t go, but a boy in her class brought that back for her. She’s been in love with it ever since,” I explain. “And we called him Applesauce because the first thing she tried to do was stick his face in her lunch to feed him,” I remind her, with a playful glare. She beams up at me. Honestly, the plushie is a bit disgusting these days, but there’s only so much I can do to keep the thing clean when it’s being dragged around by a six-year-old all day.

“Why didn’t you go to the zoo?” he asks, as if I’m not the one who spoke.

Harper just blinks at him, like trying to invent an answer that makes sense because she doesn’t really know. “Because I had to stay in Miss Nancy’s class and watch a movie.”

“Because we couldn’t afford it, Ren,” I say, through gritted teeth.

He glances at his watch.

“Get her coat.”

“For what—”

“To go to the zoo,” he says slowly, like he’s explaining something to a toddler.

“What are you—”

“We’re going to the zoo?!” Harper screams. She almost takes me out at the knees, arms thrown around my thighs. “Please, please, please, please—” She hops up and down and nearly takes my skirt down with her.

“Okay, okay—” I surrender, trying not to be undressed in the middle of the foyer. The slightest hint of agreement launches Harper off into the house to get her shoes. I turn an exasperated look to Ren.

“I took her to the one in Central Park when I could, Ren. It’s not like she’s never been to one.”

“Like that counts. What do they have, a drug-addicted raccoon in a cage?”

I fluster, almost, almost laughing.

If he had been smiling, I wouldn’t have been able to help it, but he isn’t.

“It’s a nice place. It’s not huge, but it’s still something. She liked the penguins. Look, she’s getting so much all at once, Ren. I’m happy for that, and I’m grateful, but I’m still going out of my way not to spoil her,” I start trying to explain, but Ren is already walking away up the stairs.

“If you didn’t want your daughter to be spoiled, Nadia, you brought her to the wrong house.”

My complaint falls on deaf ears.

I put my hands on my hips and yell up the stairs,

“Well, she doesn’t have a million dollars and a Ferrari either!”

No response.

I sigh and walk off myself, trying to focus on how blindsided I am by the sudden plans, and not the way my heart feels like a twisted-up balloon animal, ready to pop.

It’s like there are two of him. Night and day. Sometimes, Ren is a wild, dangerous creature that skulks around the house just like the animals we’re going to see. He seems calm, always, but deep down, he is always one wrong move away from blindly lashing out. And then there’s the way he is with Harper, the way he used to be with me—domesticated.

Ren accompanies Harper and me to the Bronx Zoo. Harper, naturally, brings her stuffed animal along to remind him where he came from.

“Stay close and hold someone’s hand, Harp.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re not ending up on the six-o-clock news because you decide to run off and start a new life with some zebras.”

“There are zebras?! ”

She takes both my and Ren’s hands. I laugh and almost lose an arm as she goes rushing along the wide, shaded paths, dragging us behind her like an excited dog on a leash, wanting to see everything.

“Harper, take it easy, there’s going to be a lot of walking. You need to take it slow—”

I might as well be negotiating with the wind.

I glance at Ren, who matches her pace without matching her enthusiasm, our eyes meeting briefly. We’re too caught up in Harper’s rampant pace to fight, dragged along through the winding walkways. She crams up against a viewing fence, standing on her tiptoes.

“What’s that?” she blurts.

In the enclosure, some kind of vaguely exotic deer meander between the trees in the distance. Ren and I glance at each other. Neither of us knows. Not enough National Geographic in our childhoods, maybe. There are too many people in front of the sign.

Ren hefts her up to his eye level, plants her feet on the middle rung of the fence as they stand and watch. I am relegated to holding Applesauce for her.

I watch her face, the sheer giddiness from just seeing an animal going about its ordinary animal business. They really aren’t even that impressive. I’ve seen something similar enough mangled up on the side of I-87. But Harper is in love.

I hug Applesauce closer and watch as Harper coos over a deer nipping at the grass on the opposite side of the fence just a couple feet away from us. Cameras shutter and click. I realize I should do the same. Except, I don’t really want a picture of the deer. I snap a candid shot of Harper, her eyes lit with wonder. An emotion nobody has after they turn ten.

The moment frozen in time there on the screen makes my stomach lurch. I had been so focused on Harper’s face; I hadn’t noticed Ren’s. His arm hugs her back as he holds her up, his eyes on her face, his mouth twisted in that rugged, pretty smirk I remember. Almost showing teeth. Maybe it wasn’t a smile. Maybe he’d been about to speak. But a picture of the two of them, wrapped up in the moment, makes my heart do a nosedive. He has that same light in his eyes.

He looks like her father in that picture.

I drag my eyes up from the screen and do a double-take of his face. A compare and contrast. From that gorgeous happy man on the screen to the dour, serious eyebrows and gaunt cheeks. He notices my stare, and I look away, feeling crazy.

It’s like I took a picture of a ghost.

Harper’s attention wanes and the promise of more interesting animals keeps her moving through the zoo. A constant stream of questions falls from her mouth for any and everything that we pass.

“What’s that?”

“A bison.”

“What’s that?”

“An okapi.”

“What’s that?”

“Harper, that’s a bathroom.”

While Harper falls in love with a tiger sunning itself on a distant rock, Ren and I stand back and watch her, letting her get up close with all the other kids crammed up around the enclosure’s glass.

Unprompted, Ren says, “This is what you should be focusing on,” he nods toward Harper. “Not the past.”

“That’s rich,” I comment, “coming from the man who is obsessed with the past.”

“Not the past,” he says quietly.

I am made to infer the rest, but it’s not difficult.

I stare at the tiger, the words making my stomach flutter in a way that feels shameful. Over and over, Ren has said that we are each other’s future. I should resist that, should see it for the fucked-up, objectifying claim it is. But in some ugly way, it feels good to be wanted—even if it’s just the way a predator wants its next meal. Like it’s life or death if Ren Caruso doesn’t have me.

“She’s a good kid,” he adds. “Easy.”

“No kid is easy,” I correct. “Not that you’d know anything about that, when you all you have to do is step in and pay for her to be happy and well-behaved. Pay-to-win parenting.”

He scoffs under his breath like I’ve said something absurd.

“I’m serious. Do you think I’ve just had it easy this whole time, that everything was roses?”

“I never said that.”

“But you think you could do just as good a job as me, with no experience—”

“I never said that either. Why are you trying to fight, Nadia?”

I’m staggered because I’m not trying to fight. At least, I don’t think I am.

“I’m just saying. You wouldn’t last an hour with Harper by yourself. Not on a normal day, when you’re not dazzling her and bribing her with whatever her heart desires.”

“Harper getting whatever she wants is a normal day now,” he reiterates.

I hesitate.

No counter for that. You’d think most mob bosses in old TV shows would threaten your children’s safety to tie your hands. Not us. Ren ties my hands with promises that I know he can make good on.

Ren acts as though that settles it, but it really doesn’t.

“…Why?” I finally dare to ask, watching her as she stares utterly enamored at the tiger, her little feet tapping in place. “Why are you giving her all this? You don’t owe me anything, Ren.”

“If I’m going to make you my wife; that makes her my child.”

My heart forgets how to do its job for a few seconds, until my brain starts pushing panic buttons to get the blood pumping again. Emergency override.

That makes her my child.

He says it so practically . Like it’s a matter of fact.

I could almost tell him the truth right here in this moment. Two words, that’s all it would take. God, I really, really want to tell him. But I remember the way he looked the other night. His eyes empty, rage trembling in his breath. The way he marched to the door, barely responsive. That wasn’t the man I photographed minutes ago. That wasn’t the man standing next to me now, squinting against the sunlight.

I’m not sure I know who he is still. Not yet.

Maybe after the wedding—or after a few months—or maybe a year, when I’m more sure of it all—

If I asked Ren to move Harper to another home, if I thought she wasn’t safe with him, I think he would grant me that request. He would do what I wanted so long as it was really best for her. But if he knew that she was his? I don’t know. Maybe he would become just as obsessed and possessive of her as he is with me. Maybe it would draw that darkness in him out toward her, too. I don’t want my daughter to go through that.

Harper finally skips up to us. She asks us if we saw the tiger yawn and all his big teeth. Neither of us did.

“Come on, Harper,” Ren says, holding out a hand. “You and I are going to get something to eat.”

She looks at me, confused; I look at Ren, confused.

“I told you I’d take the bet. An hour.” His mouth quirks.

“I wasn’t serious, Ren—”

“It’s lunch. Shouldn’t be too difficult to bring her back alive from that.”

I scoff at his stubbornness, the sheer audacity of him thinking he can one-up me by taking care of her for a single hour . Like it means anything. And if I focus on that, on the absolute absurdity of this man’s arrogance, I can pretend that it doesn’t also hurt being pushed out on a day when Harper is having so much fun. I don’t want to fight with him here in front of her and ruin this for her, but the tension is palpable.

“Where are you going, Mommy?” Harper asks.

“Nowhere. Ren’s just being silly.”

“You don’t think I could manage it?” he asks.

“Do you just want me out of your hair?” I ask, my tone light but my glare giving him everything my voice can’t.

“I want you to trust me.” He gently puts a hand on the top of Harper’s head. “At least where she is concerned. Come on, Harper. Your mother’s going to get her own food,” Ren answers on my behalf. He offers me cash, but I don’t take it.

“I’m not hungry.”

“In case you change your mind.”

The last thing I want right now is his money. It just pisses me off more.

“You should take Applesauce, so you’re not by yourself,” Harper insists sweetly.

She’s six and she has more emotional awareness than a grown man. Incredible.

“I’ll take him with me, and I’ll see you in a little bit,” I tell her, “Be good for Ren. Or don’t ,” I add, quieter, as I step by him. I hope she acts up, misbehaves, and runs wild for him. Really, she’s never been a bad kid, but she’s still a kid. They all come pre-loaded with outbursts and tantrums and the most awful, suicidal decision-making process you’ve ever seen. So, if Ren wants to prove himself for a measly hour, I hope she makes the bastard work for it.

Of all the times I might have begged for a babysitter, for a break, for someone to come in and give me a whole hour all to myself—now, I don’t know what to do with it. At least not here, surrounded by other families having a good time and pushing strollers.

I glance back over my shoulder and see Harper and Ren walk out of sight together, her feet skipping.

I look down at Applesauce’s crooked eyes and sigh.