Sins

“Abortion is a sin, Delfina,” her mother whispered quietly while clutching her rosary around her neck.

Her words made Delfina want to punch the table until it cracked open.

Caprice, the woman who once treated Delfina like the dirt beneath her shoes but now considered her a sister after saving her only sibling’s life, shot her aunt Tiziana a sideways glare.

“I cannot have this child, mother.”

“Aunt Tizi you cannot expect her to give birth to a baby borne out of rape.” Caprice was vehement as her aunt made the sign of the cross on her chest and prayed loudly for guidance from above.

“She willingly went to his bed,” her father said with a sad expression tugging his lips downward.

Delfina stared at her parents knowing they were deeply religious and while they loved her and wanted desperately to give her the best in life, they were devout in their faith. In the eyes of the church an abortion was murder.

Delfina felt pretty strongly otherwise, and she pushed from the table as her cousin and father debated whether it was rape if a woman was coerced to have sex or watch her family be murdered. She collected the home pregnancy kit from the table where she’d set it to announce her problem and tossed it in the garbage willing her tears to stay at bay. She no longer shared the faith of her parents. Living with a demon for three years did that to a person.

The night before his fatal heart attack Ercole was particularly amorous and she remembered having an inkling he’d taken twice his Viagra dose. What his will and lust couldn’t do his little blue pills could. The man as disgusting as he was, could fuck. She felt her body immediately responding to the memory of his oversized cock and the way his mouth could eat a pussy dry and again hated herself with a burning passion. Maybe she needed counselling.

“Delfina, surely you don’t think you could go through with an abortion.” Her mother said again, “when we reach heaven, I want us all there.”

“Mom, I prayed for a man to die every night for three years. When he dropped like a sack of potatoes in front of me, I stood back trying not to laugh and offered no assistance while his housekeeping staff tended to him because I wanted him to die. I don’t think taking misoprostol is going to weigh heavier than watching my husband die in front of me and being happy about it.”

“If she has this baby, it’s going to be ugly. I mean it’s going to be, hit every branch of the ugly tree on the way down, ugly,” Caprice folded her arms. “I don’t even know how you endured sex with him without puking every time. God, if there is anyone you would beg to be capable of only a two-minute hump and dump, it would have been his ugly face.”

She looked over her shoulder at Caprice, “it took me three months to stop vomiting when he touched me.” By then he’d known her body so well he’d have sex with her until she passed out. Eventually she struggled to sleep if his arms were not wrapped around her. She wasn’t sure who she hated more for it, him, or her. Even now, sleeping was still a problem, but she’d bought long body-length pillows and tucked them into her bed while putting a hot water bottle in the pillowcase and while it wasn’t perfect, it was helping. The internet was good for nothing if not for troubleshooting weirdness.

“What’s going on?” Nek came into the kitchen dragging his bad leg behind him. Along with a busted kneecap, a concussion and multiple broken ribs, the way they’d stabbed his leg over and over again made it, so he’d never walk straight again. At least he was alive.

“Delfina is pregnant.”

He turned startled brown eyes to her, “not from the old goat.”

“When I left the house the morning he died, I left everything behind. I wasn’t even thinking of my birth control pills. In fact, I haven’t thought of them since.”

“Birth control is a –”

“Mom, stop,” Delfina held up her hand. “He was my husband, and he insisted I took the pill. I obeyed my husband per my contract. I knew the price of disobeying. I messed up by not taking them after I left mostly because for the last eight weeks, I’ve been slowly getting my own life back. Now its all going to be taken from me again. If I have a child, I’m going to forever be reminded of Ercole’s cruelty.”

“Don’t have it,” Nek said bluntly.

“Aunt Tezi and Uncle Arsenio are reading the bible to her,” Caprice snorted angrily, flipping her long dark hair over her shoulder. “I cannot believe you would want her to keep this abomination.”

“I’ll drive you,” Nek looked around the kitchen, “let me find my car keys and I’ll take you now to the nearest clinic.”

“Did you have any love for him at all? After three years of living with him, of being with him day in and day out, many arranged marriages start out rocky and turn into loving –”

All of them signed the same non-disclosure agreements and while they could talk amongst the five of them, nobody outside the walls could ever know what happened back then or they would lose everything from the restaurant to Nek’s head. At the kitchen table was the only place they ever spoke about what happened and never to an outsider. They knew the rules and knew better than to mess with Muraro’s mobsters who were likely still watching.

Despite this, she let her frustration with her mother overflow and laid out some plain truths.

“Mom!” Delfina’s tone was sharp now. “The weekend before he died, he brought me to his office, the one where he did all of his dirty work and made me sit there while he tortured a man who owed him fifty thousand dollars. He took two fingers off each of the man’s hands. He made me hold the fingers in a plastic bag and after he cut fingers off both hands, he grinned at me and said, this could have been your cousin except with his neck and head instead of hand and fingers. Then, while they dragged the screaming man out of the room, he wanted to have sex on his desk despite the fact there were fingers on the desk and blood all over the floor. So no, Mom, I can assure you, I did not have any love for him at all.”  It didn’t matter she missed his dick.

She watched as Nek moved as quickly as his leg would allow to the sink and vomited while her mother fell back in her chair as if on the verge of fainting.

Caprice lifted one of her fingers and whispered, “did you? Have sex with him in the room?”

“Yes. If I refused sex, it was a violation of our contract which meant a hit would be carried out on Dad and Nek and the restaurant would be destroyed. I knew my place and it was silently at my maniacal husband’s side or moaning in his ear on command.”

“Did he hit you?” Nek reached for paper towel to wipe his mouth, pale, and trembling.

“No. He never hit me. He never raised his voice to me. He never once was rough with me. The only bruises left on my body were when he got too carried way with his,” she shuddered, “activities. He was also never kind to me. The only pleasant conversations we ever shared were right before he fell asleep at night. Even dinner conversations, if they took place, were cold. He used me to torture his family, made me wear his dead wife’s jewels to family dinner to torment his daughter. He would lift up the wedding ring he put on my hand which once adorned hers and would make a show of kissing it in front of her.”

“He was such a prick,” Nek leaned against the fridge.

“You brought him into our lives,” Caprice accused angrily. “Your greed almost got you and Uncle Arsenio killed, and Aunt Tiziana had her hands broken for trying to stop them from taking her.”

“I know.” He shot a sorrowful gaze at Delfina, “I am sorry. I learned my lesson and I’ll never gamble again but I owe you my life, Delfina. I don’t care what Aunt Tizi says. If you want a drive to the clinic, I’ll take you.”

“You need to weigh this decision carefully,” her father said gently. “Once it is done, it is not one you can undo. Pray on it, Delfina. We are headed to church. Join us this morning and pray.”

“I’m not ready,” she shook her head at her father’s suggestion. “I’m going to go to the restaurant to see how this morning’s shift is going and maybe bake a couple of pies.”

“You haven’t come to church in three years.”

She shot a sideways glance at her mother, “and I don’t think a few more weeks of me getting my bearings and readjusting to life outside of the prison I was in for the last few years is going to make an ounce of difference to the big guy upstairs. He knows my heart and kneeling and taking communion isn’t going to cause the anger I’m dealing with to dissipate.”

“You’re angry?”

“Wouldn’t you be?” Caprice said quietly. “Three years ago, Nek threw our lives into turmoil and risked all of our lives to a mob boss who decided he wanted to sleep with Delfina and for the last three years, everyday night she’s been forced to endure the agony of being with someone she hates while we,” she waved around the table, “continued to live our lives as if nothing changed. All she gets to show for her sacrifice is judgemental parents who use the bible against her, her old bedroom which hasn’t been touched in years and a job in an Italian American diner dealing with bitchy customers who hit on her all day. She gave away her soul for three years for us to be able to continue to live our lives. If not for the fact the bastard croaked, she would still be there while we’re still plugging along. She has the right to be angry Aunt Tizi. Leave her alone.”

Delfina gave her cousin a smile and a nod but opted to say nothing more. Collecting her purse and her coat, she left her mother’s kitchen table and headed out into the world and knowing one thing was for certain. She was not having this thing stay in her body longer than necessary.

Ercole Muraro had already stolen everything else from her, he wasn’t getting the rest of her life too.