***
Valentina was pissed. Before she even opened her mouth, I knew she was about to start crying. Antonin had been pulled out by Zia, my aunt. Who knew the whole time. And my mother. And my wife.
I was holding a chest full of anger, but held it back. Too many things were moving. Theresa. Paulie. Daniel, that fuck. Losing control would do nothing.
She felt out of place. Awkward. Angry. Sitting primly on the bench at First Street Precinct, she was a tightly wound coil of unhappy confusion.
“You don’t look happy to see me,” I said once she and I had sat down. Being able to speak about things in my language was a relief, but of course, I couldn’t talk to her about anything real.
A Los Angeles police woman came in with bottles of water. I opened Valentina’s and put it in front of her, then I gave myself a moment to think as I drank from mine. Valentina didn’t even look at hers, and I needed much more than a moment.
“And you?” she asked.
“I’m happy to see you. You have no idea. I mourned you for a long time.”
“I mourned you for a day.”
I twisted on the bench so she and I faced each other. I needed to see her to read her.
“Somewhat smaller investment.”
“Oh, shut up.” She rubbed her eyes. “This lawyer met me at the airport and told us he was taking me to see you, and I didn’t believe him. I said I didn’t trust lawyers.”
“I’m a lawyer.”
“I waited too long. I got comfortable where I was, doing what I was doing. I work in a fabric factory. I do the books and operations. And it’s good. I manage a little team. I never would have left the house if things hadn’t happened the way they did.”
“Happened?” As if she had no hand in it. As if she hadn’t disappeared of her own free will. As if her love hadn’t been a rose with thorns.
“Years just went and went,” she said.
“And then I was dead.”
“I was going to stay home. But Antonin wanted to see your face, even if it was at a funeral. I couldn’t tell him there was no body, so what was I supposed to do? Refuse him? And your mother, she’s broken a hundred times. She couldn’t leave. So between the two of us, we decided Antonin and I would come.”
“My mother knew?”
“For Antonin, she thought it—”
I slammed my hand on the table. “Damn you!”
“This!” She pointed at me. “This is what I’m talking about. This craziness. Yes. She hid me. She hates what you became.”
“You could have just left me.”
Her eyes, huge and almond-shaped, pouted at me. “You would have found me and dragged me back. Me and the baby. I didn’t want that for him.”
She was right. I would have hunted her, and when I found out she was carrying a child, that would have been it. I would have had her watched, and another opportunity to leave never would have presented itself. She would have been stuck with a man she loved and hated, but mostly hated.
“You’re right,” I said.
She raised an eyebrow. “I’m right?”
“You hate me. But I wouldn’t have let you leave.”
“I don’t hate you, Antonio. I never hated you.” She touched my hand gingerly, then laid hers flat over mine. “Seeing you—” She shook her head.
And there I was, thinking I’d had fake death sorted out. Theresa and I had caved to the temptation to come back to life in less than twenty-four hours. Yet for ten years, Valentina had resisted the temptation to find me.
She was good.
Where did I find these iron-spined women?
As if summoned by my thoughts of Theresa, the door opened, and Brower came in. “Valentina.”
Calling her by her first name like that, he irked me, twisting the edges of my discomfort. It was too familiar.
“You’re required down the hall,” Brower said.