No Memory
Zorah felt Orlando holding her hair back off her face as she emptied the contents of her stomach over the patio blocks at her feet.
“How?” she croaked the word out, unable to look at the table now where the photo sat. Chester took the phone and uttered a series of expletives which made Zorah think of a pissed off Icaro.
“Zorah, I know the photo is difficult to look at, but I need you to look at it again.”
“Why?”
“Where was it taken? When was it taken? How old were you in the photo?” Orlando knelt in front of her. “He framed this photo and placed it next to a bed. Why?”
“I don’t know.” She whimpered as she covered her eyes unwilling to look at the photograph again.
“Do you remember him ever doing anything like this?”
“No. This is horrible.”
“Do you know where it was taken?”
“I don’t want to look at it again.” The image of her naked, in a bed, curled up on Ippocrate Giannone’s bare chest was nothing she ever wanted to look at again. A selfie. Somehow the man took a selfie of her, undressed, in his arms, in a bed. She had no memory of this ever happening. She felt the bile rising in her throat again and tried to force it down.
“What is it, love?” Chester wheeled his chair around the table to stop right beside her, uncaring of the vomit he rolled through.
“What if I’m not a virgin?”
“Oh honey,” Chester reached a hand and cupped her cheek, “what he has done does not affect your innocence or your purity.”
“What if Icaro doesn’t want me?”
“If Icaro is any kind of a man,” Orlando rubbed her shoulder, “he doesn’t care if you’ve been with a hundred men before him.”
“He’s going to kill him,” Zorah said quietly.
Orlando gave a one-shoulder shrug, “unless I get there first. Dirty bastard touching my niece.”
Chester’s whispered “I told you so” was almost comical but then Zorah was reaching shaking fingers to look at the photo more closely.
“He was constantly going on and on about his own chastity and how it was such a sacrifice for him,” Zorah said accusingly, “and all along he was doing such disgusting things.” Taking a deep breath, she looked at the photograph, aware Chester’s fingers were warm as they held her hand under the phone to keep it steady. Using two fingers to stretch the photo she felt the urge to scream at the lazy smile of the man in the photo. Zooming it out she caught sight of the edge of her nightstand.
“That is my bedroom in the apartment I shared with mom in the nun’s quarters.” She took another trembling breath and looked at her features, “my hair length here tells me this is after high school graduation. It tenth grade I chopped it to my shoulders. I got beaten badly for not asking Mom’s permission before cutting it. It was down to my bottom before, and it took forever to get back to the length it was here.” Her eyes caught a strip of fabric, and her eyes watered gratefully, “my bra is on. My bra is on in the photo. It’s under his hand but I can see the strap near his thumb.” Relief flooded along her skin, “I wasn’t completely naked.”
“Zorah, when do you think this could have been taken?”
“It was exceedingly rare for us to be completely alone, especially once I was a teen. If we were alone, it was when my mom and the nuns were sent to their spiritual retreats. I was forced to take care of Father Giannone in the absence of the nuns. They believed him to be equivalent to God and never thought anything untoward would happen. He also acted like he hated me when the nuns and Mom were present because I was Mom’s bastard child. My job was to prepare his meals, do his laundry and dishes and housekeeping for the two days they would be gone. He would often make me so nervous I’d mess something up and he would spank me. The stress from the times I was left alone with him would leave me sick with stomach aches and bad headaches.”
“Or maybe you were suffering hangovers from being drugged,” Orlando said quietly. “Zorah, if you don’t recall him undressing you, it’s possible he drugged you. If you shared a meal with him, he may have drugged you. By the time you were in bed, he could slip in, do what he wanted to, by removing your clothing and then dressing you again after he,” a pause punctuated the disgust in Orlando’s thoughts, “did what he wanted to do and then left you for the night.”
“Zorah,” Chester took the phone from her and rubbed her hands between his. “Take a breath. I know you’re upset, and you have every right to be. You can cry, scream, yell, and none of us will be judgmental. Hell, I’m struggling not to do all of those things.” He looked to Orlando, “the bastard has an apartment, a bunker you called it, with this photo on a nightstand?”
“He does.” Orlando said. “Dane managed to get into it, snap a couple of photos and then heard him coming back. He barely got out of there undiscovered. When he returned to the church, he noted Giannone was watching him. Not twenty minutes later, Dane said his car was followed by one of the contacts from the family Giannone is working with to kidnap you.”
“I can’t believe this bunker thing is in the church. He was intending to take me and make me his captive under the church? The sacrilege of it!” She gasped as a thought occurred to her, “he made this thing when he requested the building be built and he did it with my money.”
“Your money?”
“The Lucchesi family sent my uncle support payments every month to ensure I was given everything I could possibly need in life. Millions of dollars over twenty-one years. He used a large chunk of it to build the community building which links the apartments to the church.”
“They sent him money for your care?”
“Yes. I was supposed to be given private school education along with my college education. I was supposed to be given new clothes, food, necessities, and I guess Ippocrate argued if they overspent on me, it would look bad to the parishioners who expected their priest and nun to live a life of poverty.”
“Why? Why would Lucchesi pay them money?”
“He loved me.” Zorah laughed at their confused expressions. “I’m telling you but you’re not listening. A Lucchesi bride is a spoiled rotten bride. There isn’t anything I could want for which Icaro wouldn’t go to lengths to provide. He found me when he was thirteen. He’s been providing for me, or at least he believed he was, ever since. You need to rethink your ideas of him being a cult leader. His family is no more a cult than you and your buddies are.”
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