I stopped arguing. That Family photograph stayed right where it was, hanging on the wall of the seat I had bought and held under my own name.
The pain had numbed into something hollow. Eventually, there was an urge that came out of nowhere, I laughed.
Thirty years. I had lived thirty years in this absurd, pitiful life, keeping the books, moving the tribute, laundering every dollar that kept the Valente name from rotting into the ground.
For the first time, a small, stubborn voice inside me whispered: What if I lived for myself, just once? I gathered my documents, the title, the papers no one knew I held, zipped up the folder and lay down, eyes closed.
I didn't remember when the tears started, or when they stopped. Just that at some point, I must've cried myself to sleep.
I woke to the sound of the bedroom door creaking open. Salvatore, reeking of the good wine he never paid for, stumbled in and yanked me up by the arm.
"You and Adriana are sisters, same blood. So how did she appear classy and graceful, while you… you're just greasy, sloppy, close-minded? Dio, what did I ever see in you?"
Good question. What did he see in me back then?
I looked down at myself. The fabric of my dress was worn thin, faded, stretched at the seams. I hadn't thrown it out because, well, it still worked.
Salvatore's clothes, on the other hand, were always crisp, spotless. He was a neat freak, the kind of Don who wore the tailoring of real power and had none of it. I pressed his shirts every day, not a single wrinkle allowed.
He looked polished. Presentable. Just like Adriana.
He shrugged off his jacket in annoyance and tossed it at me.
Normally, I would've caught it, smoothed it out, hung it in the closet. Then laid out his things, like I always did. But tonight, for some reason, I just didn't feel like taking care of him anymore.
I lay back down on the bed, closed my eyes and didn't respond, no matter how loud or angry his voice got. "What are you still sulking about? You think you're some teenage girl?"
His words came hard and sharp, thick with contempt. "Acting like this at your age isn't cute, it's pathetic. Don't make me lose what little respect I have left for you."
I didn't move. Just listened, quietly, to every insult. My fingers found the thin gold band on my hand and began to turn it, slow, the old reflex of a woman swallowing what she used to endure.
"Look at you. Skin sagging, nothing left to hold it up. And you still think someone's going to coddle you?"
"You think you're Adriana? That if you pout and whine like she does, I'll suddenly feel sorry for you?"
"Watching you try to be like her is disgusting."
Still, I didn't move. But my heart was pounding in my ears.
He let out a frustrated grunt when he realized I wasn't going to bite back, then stormed off into the bathroom.
I kept my eyes closed. In the silence, thick as the hush that falls over a room when the wrong name is spoken, my mind came alive, clearer than it had been in years.
I remembered something I hadn't thought about in a long time. Thirty years ago, when Adriana had confessed her feelings to Salvatore, and he turned her down. He'd come to me instead.
He'd taken my hands and said, "Rosaria, I can't be without you. I'm a drifter, a man with no roots, no name of my own worth carrying. But with you… I finally feel like I've found home."
Back then, Salvatore and Adriana were the golden pair of the young blood, everyone across the allied houses just assumed they'd end up together.
In the end, he'd chosen me.
He chose me.
I had my doubts, of course.
Salvatore lived for the show of it, the glory, the applause, just as Adriana did. They shared a passion, a language I never really spoke. It always felt like they were the ones who should've stood side by side.
When I asked him about it, he looked at me with those bright, sincere eyes and said, "Glory is fleeting, Rosaria. What's real is the life we build now. You build a future with someone solid, someone who grounds you."
I believed him. That belief lasted thirty years. Thirty years tied to the word solid. Reliable. Stable.
Only now, did I finally see the truth. From the very beginning, I had been the one sacrificed.
Because I was capable. Because I was willing. Because I got things done without complaining, I was the one who had to carry it all. The debts, the books, the money that made his empty title look full.
Meanwhile, what did Adriana do? Flighty, whimsical, carefree Adriana. She got to float through the life, taking the charm and the glory and the respect, guilt-free, while I took the weight.
Salvatore married me, yes. With me handling the seat, the tribute, the mess beneath the name, he was free to chase the shine of it all with her.
Maybe that had been his plan all along.
The thought twisted inside me like a storm, tears pooling somewhere deeper than my eyes, somewhere in my chest, in a place I couldn't reach.
How much could a person gain in thirty years?
I clenched my jaw, forcing the storm down, holding myself together.
Then, just as I found a moment of stillness, Salvatore's phone rang without end.
