I spent the next week huddled in my old bed. Every once in a while, I took a sip of water or a small bite of cracker. Other than that, I kept a constant stream of sleeping pills in my body. I wished I could add a lethal dose of booze to the mix but someone had cleared out my apartment of all my hidden stashes of drugs and alcohol. I didn’t have energy to do anything but lay in bed.
Most of the time I was awake I replayed Turricci’s death over and over in my mind. Did he charge me because he wanted the police to shoot me? Or did he charge me because he knew I couldn’t kill him myself? Or was it something else?
Sal stopped by and said that Vito had spent every last dime from my father’s seafood company trying to repay gambling debts. I didn’t care. But then he said I was far from destitute, Turricci had left his vast fortune to me.”
I wasn’t sure if I was having a mental break or was in a deep depression, but I didn’t do a whole lot except get up to use the bathroom maybe once a day. Some lady Sal had hired let herself in once a day to set a bunch of finger foods by my bed and occasionally I’d take a bite or two, even though it all tasted like cardboard.
On the fourth day, Dante let himself in with my spare key.
I cried and told him everything as he held me in his arms.
Finally, when he had wiped all my tears and snot away he held my chin up with one finger and looked me in the eyes.
“Your mother loved you, Gia. I know that for sure.”
“Dante, she died thinking I was the product of her rape.”
“That didn’t matter to her, did it?”
“I don’t know.”
I stared at the ceiling until he left.
The next day he came back.
This time he made me shower and eat some fried eggs, but I threw them up.
Later that day, I woke to find my bedroom filled with faces. Taking in my friends, Thanh-Thanh, Trang, Kato, Susie, their kids, Darling, even Django.
Dante and his mother stood in the corner with their arms around each other, beaming.
I took in all the faces before me and burst into tears.
I did have a family. I had people who loved me and that’s what family really was. It wasn’t the people I was tied to by blood. Despite being brainwashed my entire life by mother culture and family — my family was much more than those who shared my bloodline. My family was of my own making.
That realization gave me the strength to live.