IN THE KITCHEN THE next morning, Francis found Bella at the stove, cracking eggs into a large skillet. Coffee blurped on the stove as he took a seat. When she brought the food to the table, she kissed him and sat down across from him.
“I have something to tell you,” she said.
Francis listened as Bella told him what she couldn’t tell him back at the Half Moon Hotel after they were crowned King and Queen. She closed her eyes and tried to keep her mamma’s blade at bay while she recounted what her papa had the doctor do to her after she brought their son into the world.
“The scar under your belly?”
“Yes.”
“Son of a bitch!” Francis wailed and bawled like a baby.
“I have something else to tell you,” Bella said.
As Francis sobbed into her breast, she told him about Joe showing up the morning of their wedding day. She told him about Joe taking her to see their baby. She told him about how she held their son in her arms. About how she almost didn’t recognize him. About his pretty life. The perfect house. The sweet woman and her sweet-smelling cupcakes. “I heard my papa call me a whore. I felt dirty and disgusting. I thought, What kind of mamma can I possibly be?” She told him about leaving their son and running away. “I couldn’t come back to Coney Island and face you. I had to leave you. I had to leave everybody.” She told him about her marriage to Dino (she left out Dino’s cross-dressing and fucking Melvin Marzorati). “I thought if I ran far enough away, all my crazy thoughts and feelings would disappear. But they didn’t. They followed me. They chased me down and wrestled me to the ground. They almost killed me. Francis. Oh, Francis. Can you ever forgive me?”
Francis took a deep, Heroic breath. Then he cradled Bella in his arms. “Of course I forgive you, my Queen. I love you, Bella. I always have. I always will.” He hugged her and kissed her. “It’s all over now. We’re alive. And we’re together,” he said. Then he leveled a strong gaze at her. “I have something to tell you too.”
“What is it, my King?”
“We’re gonna go and get our son. And the three of us are gonna be a happy fucking family. Together. Forever.”
Amen.