Isabel shut the door behind Frank. He was off to gather a few necessities and make some last-minute arrangements for their hastened flight from the city. As she walked back through the hall, she knew she had one more thing to take care of. She veered from the hall and retrieved her phone from her purse. Tapping Matty’s number, she put the phone to her ear.
Matty answered quickly.
Sternly, Isabel spoke immediately after Matty excitedly said, “Hi, Isabel!”
“Matty, listen to me.” His silence confirmed she had his attention. “The police have been here. They’re asking a lot of questions. They’re way too close for comfort.” Matty still sat silent on the other end of the line. “Now, I need you to get out of town.”
“But, Isabel,” Matty tried to interrupt.
“No, Matty, listen to me.” She maintained control of the conversation. “I know someone down in Florida who can keep you under the radar for a while. Things are way too hot for us to be seen together. Do you understand?”
“But, Isabel,” Matty’s tone, more whining than understanding, told Isabel that he wasn’t ready to obey.
“Do... You... Understand?” Isabel slowly asked him again.
Begrudgingly, Matty finally answered, “Yes.”
“Good. Get your things together and I will text you the information for my friend in Florida.” Her voice turned incredibly soothing, “When things settle down, I’ll call you and tell you when the coast is clear to return.”
Carmen bypassed the valet outside her mother’s apartment building. Parking on the street, she locked her doors and walked across the thoroughfare. As she stepped up on the curb, she looked down toward the opposite corner and nearly tripped. Frank?!? A man climbed into a cab who bore a remarkable resemblance to her long-time friend and sometimes surrogate father. Carmen, pull yourself together. Frank is dead. She followed the cab with her eyes as it took off down the street, stopping outside the revolving doors in front of the building. Then, with a sigh of resolve, she straightened her shoulders and walked into her mother’s building.
The door swung open and immediately, Carmen was surprised by her mother’s appearance. Typically, Isabel’s attire was a strategic combination of harsh business-woman and sultry seductress. Today, however, she looked like a soccer mom going to the family beach house. What the-? Carmen had never seen her mom in capris. She didn’t even know her mom owned a pair! A simple cotton blouse, untucked, covered the waist of the pants and... white ankle socks??? The simple pony-tail topped the entire look. Carmen barely recognized her mother.
And yet, it was Isabel’s smile that unsettled Carmen the most. It wasn’t that she was not used to her mother smiling. In fact, her mother had always smiled and been very loving to both of her children. She had never, until recently, been overly harsh or stand-offish. No, it wasn’t the fact that Isabel was smiling; it was the way she was smiling. Shuddering inside herself, Carmen thought it was the smile of a body at a viewing.
“Carmen! Right on time.” The disturbing smile beamed through the doorway.
Isabel let her daughter pass through the entrance and closed the door behind her. They walked in silence to the living room where Isabel had two glasses of wine waiting on the coffee table. Carmen took a seat on the couch across the table with her back to the windows. Isabel sat on the couch opposite her. She leaned back into the cushions and spread her arms out over the back of the couch, completely at ease.
Isabel quickly led the conversation, “I think I know what’s brought you here, so I’m not going to bullshit you or beat around the bush. I planned the attack on the meeting.”
Carmen, sitting rather properly, straight back, legs crossed and her hands clasped over her knee, didn’t physically respond to her mother’s statement, but inside she felt herself shudder. She had known that her mother was behind the attack, but she had not expected her to be so forthcoming.
Isabel continued, “Carmen, a few weeks ago, I told you a secret I had kept for years about a life that I lived that no one else could even fathom. It wasn’t until recently that I saw in you the same strength and ability that enabled me to lead my life.” Her calm, matter-of-fact delivery disturbed Carmen.
“And since I have always loved you and your brother, and I have always wanted the best for you, I made the decision to offer that life to you.” She paused for a second... “At the time, it seemed a good idea given your new found skills and ability. Therefore, I did so with the best of intentions. I had never questioned my decisions or actions, and to be perfectly honest, until a few days ago, I never would have.”
Isabel paused once again and then leaned forward, putting her elbows on her thighs. “Carmen, I have arranged beatings, kidnappings and the deaths of many people.” Her mother’s candid and brutally honest confession caused Carmen to shudder internally once again. “People that I knew, people I respected, people I even cared for on some level were not immune from my plots. Short of losing you or Anthony, I never thought any price was too high to achieve what I wanted.”
Finally, Isabel showed a bit of emotion beyond her odd smile. Her eyes focused and softened, “But then, the bombing took place, and I learned that Frank was killed because of something I had done.” She paused to let that statement sink in.
“It was in that moment that I realized there was a hidden part of me that no longer wanted to control my destiny or that of those around me. In the past few days, I have fought with true guilt for the first time in my life. I finally suffered through the pain of real regret. And throughout all of this, there was still the other part of me that kept telling myself that Frank was a necessary, if even a terribly unfortunate, loss. The turmoil in me was so great that I could barely function. I had never been conflicted like that.”
Isabel then sat back up and let her arms fall into her lap. “But then, someone came to me and took away the conflict, took away the turmoil, and made me decide who I wanted to be from now on.” Looking almost dreamily to one side, Isabel’s voice trailed off.
Carmen maintained her stoic expression, giving no reaction to her mother’s revelations. Yet, her mind raced as it attempted to absorb all her mother was saying.
Her mother suddenly snapped to and reached for her glass of wine.
“Who, mother?” Carmen asked.
Isabel smiled as she replaced her glass to the table. “Frank.”
Carmen’s eyes betrayed her shock and confusion, “Frank’s dead, Mother.”
Isabel nearly laughed while shaking her head. Her eyes closed and her face took on an odd look of comfort. “No, my dear, he’s not. He was just here.”
Carmen discerned that her mind had not been playing tricks on her earlier on the street. Frank was alive!
“Frank gave me a chance to look at my life anew. And I’ve decided that I want to spend it with him. I don’t want to use or manipulate people anymore. I don’t want to constantly plan my next move or disguise my emotions. I just want to be loved by the man I love and live in some style of normality.” With that, Isabel relaxed back into the cushions once again, the same smile still gracing her face.
Suddenly, Carmen realized what had made her uncomfortable about her smile. It wasn’t the smile of a corpse; it was the smile of someone who was at peace with herself. Carmen had no idea what to make of that. On one hand, she felt happy for her mother. On the other, she was strangely confused and concerned for her.
“So you’re done? You’re telling me that you regret your whole life and that I shouldn’t follow in your footsteps?”
Isabel re-focused on her daughter and leaned over her knees again. She looked neither angry nor happy, but extremely sincere. “That’s not what I’m saying. I don’t regret everything. In fact, I regret very little. Honestly, through my actions I have saved my life a handful of times, possibly yours and Anthony’s as well.”
Carmen immediately interrupted, “What do you mean?”
“Well, I was able to avoid taking the same ride your father took the day he died.”
“How?”
“I was able to find out that Phil had put a hit out on Carmine and then I found out when it was going to happen.”
Carmen looked incredulously at her mother, “And you did nothing to stop it?!?”
Isabel looked longingly at her daughter, “Carmen, there was nothing I could do to stop it.”
Carmen lost focus and went limp.
After a short silence, Isabel continued, “I’m not telling you to ignore your own abilities. All I’m saying is that I am done. I’ve lived the life and done more than I ever imagined I could. But, at the same time, I now know that I’ve done enough. I want something different.”
Carmen squinted her eyes slightly as she listened to her mother speak.
“And I can tell you that your brother wants something different as well. I visited him in the hospital and arranged for him to be taken care of far from the city. He’s going to get his life straight and leave this life behind.
“If you decide to ignore our previous conversation; pretend that I never told you what I’ve done and how I’ve done it, I understand. Go live your life as you have with your good job, your boyfriend, and stay on the straight and narrow. I’ll be there for you. But, if you decide to follow my example and continue down that path, I want you to know that I will be there for you as well. I just want you to know- no, I NEED you to know, that you can’t have both simultaneously. I never knew what I wanted until I realized I could no longer have it. But, it seems I’ve been given a second chance.”
Isabel’s eyes pierced into her daughters’. “You may not be so lucky. One day you may look out upon your empire and wish you had someone to share it with. Or, one day, you may look upon your more humble life and wish for the empire you could have had.” She threw her hands up and then let them slap upon her thighs, “Or, maybe neither. All I’m saying is: the choice is yours. Either way, you will still be my daughter.”
As her mother lovingly looked at her, Carmen wrestled with the thoughts coursing through her mind...