Files on Mom
“Yes, I have a file on your mother.”
“Why?”
“The same reason I have one on your uncle. She was supposed to be taking care of you.”
“What is in the file?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“No.” Zorah shook her head and then squeaked out, “yes. I want to know.”
He clicked the icon and pulled up the files.
Zorah perused the document outlining her mother’s basic information and scowled.
“It’s kind of boring. I was hoping to see something exciting like she was flirting with the guy who delivers the church’s flowers.” Encouraging him to scroll, “you even have her medical history and medications?”
“Yes. We’re thorough.”
“Why does she take birth control?” Zorah asked quietly.
“What?”
“It says here,” she reached for the mouse and dragged the cursor across the screen, “she’s been taking birth control for the last ten years. Why?”
“Don’t girls take birth control for bad periods?” Icaro asked curiously. “I know this because of Keturah. Her mother went on and on about how awful the poor girl suffered. Said it was like a horror movie every month and that she went on birth control.”
“Except my mother is the kind of person who would lean into her suffering and tell me it was God’s will for her to endure it. When I started my period when I was twelve, she went on and on about how it was a gift from the Lord to be a woman. She isn’t taking birth control because of her periods.” Zorah snorted. “Which makes me wonder why? Maybe she was flirting with the flower delivery guy.”
“Can she still have babies?”
“Icaro! She wasn’t much older than you were when I was born. Like you were thirteen, but she was only sixteen.”
“She seems so,” he dragged the word out, “old. At the church the day of our wedding, she reminded me of some of mom’s old lady church friends.”
“She’s only thirty-seven.”
“Definitely could have babies then.”
“It’s so weird,” Zorah said quietly. “Who would she be messing around with for real?”
She watched as Icaro lifted his phone and made a call.
“Saul, me again. Get Doris to do a deep dive into Zipporah Esposito. Yeah, Zorah’s mother. Zorah picked up she is on the pill, but she lives in a small apartment building full of nuns. She doesn’t date, at least for anyone to know about. Find out who she’s fooling around with.” He hung up the phone. “We’ll know by morning. Doris will be hacking security cameras all over Providence and comparing all of your mother’s shopping receipts.”
“Why do we need to know?” Zorah said suddenly. “I mean what if she’s got a secret lover and it’s the only real happiness she has. Do we want to ruin it?”
“Yes.” Icaro smirked.
“Why?”
“Because she abused you day in and day out for twenty-one years. She doesn’t deserve happiness but,” he took a breath, “there is something which isn’t sitting right with me.”
“What is it?”
“Your uncle,” he sighed. “He likes to put you over his knee, right?”
“Yes.”
“But he couldn’t touch you. He knew if you came to me touched, your virginity taken, he was a dead man because he was supposed to be keeping you protected.”
“Okay.”
“You were his niece.”
“I’m not sure where you’re going with this.”
“I’m curious to know if he did more than spanking to his sister.”
Zorah’s eyes were wide. “No! I don’t think so. I cannot imagine.”
“Could anyone imagine him touching you?”
“I bet if we looked into it, probably. Honestly Icaro, he acts like he hates her. She is an embarrassment to him.”
“So are you.”
“No. In private I’m an embarrassment. He will scold and lecture me at length but never in public. While he didn’t shy away from conversations about beating obedience into your children and putting the fear of God into them, his talk in public about me was almost always about my voice and how I was a blessing to his church for my ability to sing.”
“Really?”
“He paraded me around to the bishop and other priests like a prized cow at a county fair.”
“Ass.”
“However, and I can’t say it enough, if my mom was even in the room when the bishop or other priests arrived, she regretted it. He had no problem referring to her as his sinful sister. He did not mind threatening her in front of the nuns or anyone else. Frequently he reminded her how his parents left her share of their insurance payout in his control because she was too stupid and too immoral to be trusted.”
“What kind of priest hates his own sister?”
“The kind who really believed she made him a laughingstock of his parishioners.” She stared into Icaro’s blue eyes and sighed, “for a man who is supposed to be in tune with God, he has more of an ego than a Hollywood actor. I might be an abomination but even he knows I didn’t ask to be born but her, my mother, she was the sinner who brought premarital sex, an illegitimate child, and the mockery of his peers right to his doorstep. One of his favorite spiels at me is basically how he’s a virgin for God and she’s a whore. He may have spanked me, Icaro and he may have jerked off,” she shivered at the words, “but if Ippocrate Giannone ever put his penis inside a woman I would be completely shocked and trust me, I know he’s a dirtbag.”
“I still don’t trust him. You can’t tell me he doesn’t know she’s taking birth control. He micromanages her life. It is one of the reasons this file,” he tapped the screen, “is only a few sheets. I want to know what kind of man your mother, who would tase you so your uncle could beat you with a flogger, is attracted to.”
“I guess.” She sighed. “This all seems so weird to me.”
“It is weird. Your hyper religious family are turning out to be dirtier than me and I’m known as The Beast in the criminal world and there are photos of me naked online. Who would have thought?” he wiggled his eyebrows at her.
“Not me. I figured you were the worst of them all.”
“And how do you feel now?”
“Jury is still out but I do know one thing,” she looked him deep into those stunning baby blues, “life isn’t dull with you in it.”
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