Page 6

Back here it is as if I never left. They treat me as the 16-year-old girl they packed up because they couldn’t stomach dealing with what happened to her. But I am not that girl anymore. Well, I thought I wasn’t, but I can feel myself being pulled back into the controlling machinery of theFamiglia. It’s like battling an undercurrent.

There is a brisk knock at the door and without waiting for an answer, my parents crowd into my bedroom.

“By all means come in,” I mutter sarcastically. They pretend not to hear me.

“How’s the jetlag, sweetie?” my mum queries tentatively.

She looks at me like I am an unexploded bomb that might go off at any time.

While I haven’t seen Dad in eight years, my mother came out to visit me four times. I was living with her parents after all. The conclusion of each visit seemed to be a source of great relief for her. I can see her now. The way she clutched her suitcase and hurtled down the path towards the black cab that would take her to the airport. Her duty complete until the next guilt-triggered visit.

“Fine, it’s been a week. When are you going to tell me why I had to be dragged home?” I refuse to look at my parents and instead focus my attention on my fingernails, picking at my cuticles.

Dad clears his throat and hesitates and I immediately realise that thereisa specific reason they’ve brought me here. I can’t for the life of me think what it is. I am worthless to them. I am my father’s extra child who wasn’t meant to be. A means for my teenage mother to bind herself to him. So surplus to requirements that they could dump me on the other side of the world for a third of my life without batting an eyelid.

“Well, actually there is a reason we brought you home. Why Uncle Sandy wanted you back here.” This has got to be bad. If my selfish, arsehole of a father can’t bring himself to spit it out, I know things are dire. “You’re going to get married, Francesca.”

“MARRIED?” I gasp. “What is this? The bloody middle ages? How many goats is my husband giving you for my hand in marriage, Dad?!” I’m on my feet and spitting tacks. I knew it was going to be bad, but this is something else.

“Take a breath, Francesca,” he dares to scold me.

“Take a breath? You are selling me like cattle! This isn’t normal, Dad! Actually, I am pretty sure this is illegal in Australia.” As if something illegal ever stopped Dad and Sandy before. “Go on, tell me. Who am I supposed to be marrying?”

“Elio,” Mum says softly. Her abundance of bangles and rings clink as she carefully runs her fingers through her messy-chic-to-perfection white-blonde hair.

She is irritatingly attractive and because she also had me when she was just 19, the boys at school talked about her incessantly referring to her as a ‘MILF’ from the moment their internet browsing taught them what it means.

“Elio?” I wasn’t expecting that. “Massimo’s brother?” I am in shock. I thought I was going to be married off to some third cousin twice removed and dragged to Italy to live life barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. Being handed to the heir of the Sydney mafia is the last thing I would’ve guessed.

“You should be honoured -” Before she has even finished the sentence I’m clamouring down her throat.

“-Honoured!? You’re shitting me, right? Isn’t he like twenty years older than me anyway?” I’ve never denied I’m prone to exaggeration.

“Twelve years,” Mum interjects. If she doesn’t stop fiddling with her hair I’m going to lose my mind. She holds her fingers stiff as if the acrylic talons she gets painted weekly are so delicate they might fall off at the lightest touch.

I throw myself back onto my fuschia paisley bedspread and cover my face with my hands.Fuck this. Fuck this so much. I’m so shocked that I can’t even cry.

Mum strokes my forehead pretending that we have a normal and affectionate mother/daughter relationship. “You always wanted to be a mum, sweetie. Elio can give you everything you ever wanted. You won’t ever have to work.”

She isn’t wrong. Whenever we were asked at school what we wanted to be when we grew up, I always said I wanted to be a mum. But, I kinda always assumed I would get to choose who to marry and reproduce with. And what if I want to work? I’ll not pretend I’m a career woman, but I like the social aspect of working.

Dad is getting antsy now. A twitching muscle in his hollow cheek tells me he is annoyed that I haven’t simply accepted his announcement and toddled off to choose a wedding dress.

Mafia men are all the same. They issue instructions and their wives, daughters, sisters, and mothers do as we are told.

I bet Elio is just as bad. I shudder at the thought of what he will expect from me. A maid, a cook, and a whore, I suppose.

Dad starts to walk out the door. “You have four hours to get used to the idea, Francesca. Because we leave at 6 pm for your engagement party at the Marino’s house.”

I have no words so I just scream through gritted teeth. It takes all my self-control not to flail around on my bed like a toddler mid-tantrum.

Mum goes to leave as well, but I grab her by the wrist. “Mum…will he be there?” I ask quietly.

“Elio? Of course, he will!”

“No, not Elio…”

Discomfort descends over her and I am pretty sure I can see her blood curdle in all of that guilt. She knows. “Ah, I don’t know. He moved to Melbourne a couple of years after you left, but he has been around again recently.”