Cinnamon Sugar
Zorah stared, “what?”
“My brother dated your mother. He was completely enamored with her, and she dumped him because she wanted to date the popular jock of the school. It bit her in the ass because he dumped her not a few weeks after they started dating and he was messing around with multiple girls. Then Ippocrate’s sister picked up a little girl from a stroller and my heart stopped.”
“Why?” Zorah felt her own heart thundering.
“My brother has a very distinctive eye color. It’s a very pretty light brown, like cinnamon sprinkled with sugar.”
Her breath caught, “no. My mother’s boyfriend denied they engaged in a sexual relationship and drove my mother to try to kill herself, but she knew who my father was.”
“He did. He was the biggest kind of asshole on the planet. The kind of young man who slept with his so-called-best-friend’s girlfriend and made sure his friend walked in to see it happen. He did the same thing to your mother, sleeping with another girl and making sure she saw it happen for no reason other than to break her heart. He was a vile human being. My father, the one who adopted me, beat the shit out of his father for raising such a jerk. He tortured my brother for six or seven months after my brother and Zipporah broke up. Dad called the police more than once due to the harassment. Eventually, the little prick allegedly pissed off the wrong person and was killed in a car jacking. They said he was bragging about his car being the hottest thing and telling a gang member he was going to sleep with his girlfriend in his new car. He wound up dead a few days later.” She looked at Zorah, “we know now Icaro Lucchesi, and his father carried out the hit and made it look like a car jacking by a gang.”
Zorah said nothing and looked away. She wasn’t going to confirm anything to this person she didn’t know.
“Zorah, at the funeral, I took one look at you and knew your mother tried to pass you off as the daughter of someone else, but I knew to whom you belonged. However, my brother was only eighteen. He was newly enlisted. I did something I’m not proud of and I left the funeral, and I kept the secret of what I’d discovered.”
Zorah felt a fat tear roll down her cheek, “why?”
“I hated her. I saw how she broke my little brother’s heart, and I loathed her. I didn’t go back to mass for almost two years. One year at Christmas, Ippocrate initiated contact. He told me he really wished to see me at mass. I went. You were there. You were so cute in your little Christmas dress, singing along to the hymns. You would have been four. Then after mass, I went to see Ippocrate at the rectory and I heard him tearing a strip off your mother. He called her a whore and told her how inappropriate it was to dress you in a frilly dress when the focus should be on the birth of Christ. I snuck out. I made the decision that day to talk to my parents. The next time he came home on leave, we sat my brother down and told him my suspicions about how you were his.”
“He’s known since I was four?”
“Five,” she corrected. “He was away almost a full year. It wasn’t news we thought we could share over a video call. We waited until he came back. He was only on leave for five days before he was deployed again. The next time he was gone eighteen months. He was part of a special forces’ unit as a SEAL and for twelve of those eighteen months, we had no contact with him.”
“I see.” She didn’t really. Her father wasn’t really murdered by Icaro. He was alive and well. Somewhere in this very house.
“The rest of this story, Zorah, the part of him and what happened is his to tell. What I can tell you is for the next sixteen years, I maintained a relationship with the biggest sack of shit to walk the planet so I could keep an eye on you. He is a condescending arrogant bastard, and I wish I could say I did not share blood with Ippocrate Giannone but sadly we share a mother. Interestingly, despite never meeting either of his biological parents, aside from the eyes which we get from our mother, he is the spitting image of his biological father right down to the evil disposition. They both think they are gods in charge of the world. Where one in a member of parliament, the other runs a church parish and both of them are blowhards. Their egos are monumental.”
“Ippocrate’s father is still alive?”
“Yes. Ippocrate has never felt a desire to meet him, but I have kept track of him in case he ever tried to make trouble for my mother. My mother was incredibly young and impressionable when she met him. She was a maid in his household and was pregnant far too young by a man who seduced her and then put the blame on her. His wife beat her in their courtyard while he stood and watched. It is why my grandparents left the country because he was enormously powerful, and my mother was ruined. She is a very soft-hearted woman. She cried so hard to learn of a granddaughter she could not claim. She is very anxious to meet you, Zorah.”
“I don’t know what to make of all of this.”
“There is more to this story but it’s going to come from my brother. My suggestion to you, is to take a few minutes to regroup, take a shower and get cleaned up. Once you’re feeling a bit more human after the long night and the flight, he’s going to meet with you. Meeting your father for the first time is going to be emotionally draining for you Zorah. You’re going to have so many questions and so many thoughts and he wants to be as transparent and open with you as possible.”
“Okay.”
“Let me help you up and we’ll see how your legs are feeling, and we’ll go from there as to whether you need help in the shower or not.”
She gave a nod and let Shay take her by the elbow and help her to a standing position. Shay wasn’t wrong. Her legs did feel weak. She wasn’t sure though, whether it was the drugs or her nerves. Zorah was never so nervous in her life.
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