“I know, Daddy. And I’m doing what you want.”
“I’m aware.” Alberto sighed, pushing up from his desk. He reached over into a glass bowl and pulled a pair of familiar keys from it. “I have something for you.”
Violet tried not to smile at the sight of her car keys. “Okay.”
“I don’t like not trusting you, dolcezza. But you’ve done well for the last little while, and it leads me to think that maybe the club incident was just bad judgement on your part. So these,” he said, shaking the keys, “... are conditional.”
She dropped her textbook in her lap in just enough time to catch the keys when her father tossed them at her.
“How so?” Violet asked.
“Manhattan is a free zone for you. You can drive yourself wherever you please. Brooklyn is not. I expect to you have Gee drive you, or follow you, depending on where you’re planning to go. Lower Brooklyn is still—”
“Off-limits, I know,” she interrupted quickly. “Anything else?”
She was just happy to have a little bit of freedom and her keys back.
“Yes, there is,” Alberto said, chuckling. He quickly sobered. “As much as I want to trust you, I can’t entirely do that without feeling like you might pull the wool over my eyes in some way, Violet. Once you’ve treated me like a fool, I won’t give you the chance to do me wrong again.”
Violet swallowed back her denial, knowing it wouldn’t help.
“To be sure you’re following my rules, I will have Gee pick you up from wherever you are whenever I deem it suitable for him to do so. I will call you, and you will answer, no matter what. Depending on where you are to where he is, you will have that amount of time to be ready for him to pick you up, and drive you to … whatever. Dinner, one of your mother’s showings, or something else.”
Jesus.
That essentially meant Violet was still chained down depending on her father’s demands and schedules. And she wouldn’t exactly be able to lie, either. If she said she was somewhere else, somewhere she was allowed to be, and Gee showed up to get her but she wasn’t there … it wouldn’t end well.
Still, she had her keys.
And her father had actually spoken to her after ignoring her for weeks.
It was something.
Violet chose not to question it.
Violet found her brother perched on the kitchen counter, chatting away to their mother as Andrea checked on the progress of a soup she was cooking.
“Not yet,” her mother said. “Give it another year, Carmine. My God. You’re still young.”
Violet held off from entering the kitchen completely. She was just out of their view, but she could see them. If there was one thing Violet never understood, it was the closeness her brother and mother seemed to share. Growing up, her mother had always felt a little distant to her in most ways. Andrea never had time to feed into her daughter’s whims, never mind indulging Violet’s many games and quirks.
That had always landed on her father.
Alberto hadn’t seemed to mind.
But it did leave a lasting effect on the relationship between Violet and her mother. She always saw the woman as cold and unapproachable. She felt like her mother wouldn’t care about her problems or thoughts. It wasn’t like Andrea gave her the impression that she wanted to know those things about Violet.
And then there was Carmine.
Andrea, quite literally, doted on her son constantly. Despite the fact that Carmine was twenty-seven and more than capable of handling his own business, their mother made sure to visit his apartment several times a week to pick up after her son and make sure his fridge was full of food. As children, Andrea would be quick to take Carmine with her on her many trips in her rising career as a clothing designer, while she left her daughter at home with her father.
It was just … an entirely different dynamic.
Violet wasn’t jealous. She had a close relationship with her father, after all. Maybe even closer than the one Carmine shared with Alberto. But the same thought always lingered in the back of her mind whenever she saw her mother and brother together: What had been so different about her as a child that her mother couldn’t even be bothered to try?
“There’s just no point in waiting, Ma,” Carmine said.
Andrea reached over the counter and cupped her son’s cheek in her palm. “You’re young. Do you really want to settle yourself with a woman and babies right now?”
Carmine chuckled. “I can still have my fun when I’m married.”
“Carmine.”
“What?” Carmine flashed a smile. “I’ve waited too long as it is. I’m not going to wait anymore for the perfect woman who suits what you want me to have, Ma. I just need an appropriate enough wife.”
Andrea scowled. “For your father, you mean.”
“And for me. I have waited too long.”
Dropping her hand from her son’s face, Andrea grabbed a dishtowel and wiped at the counter. “What does your father think of this?”
“He thinks she’s appropriate.”
There was that word again.