I nod, blankly, unsure what else to do. Outside, I can hear people shouting and the noise of police sirens and barking dogs. How long have we been up here in this musty second-floor room? Flies are starting to circle around the dead bodies. It is growing dark as the evening comes on. My mother lights another cigarette, and the glow from her lighter momentarily blinds me. I look away, starting to get a headache from the smoke and tension in this close room.
“I could blow my brains out,” she says, holding the revolver up to her temple. My gut tenses up. I have imagined seeing my mother kill herself so often over the years. I am shocked to discover that I don’t want her to die, even though just moments ago I thought I was ready to kill her myself. Something primal in me would be devastated. I already mourned her once. I couldn’t do it again.
She lowers the gun, seeming to sense my panic.
“I don’t want to die,” she says. “And the cloud would fall on you. The company would fail. You would be blamed for killing the lot of us, I’m sure. So many bodies and no one around to corroborate your story.”
She smiles.
I know she is telling the truth. Goddammit, she has all the power here.
“Or I could stay alive and blame you for everything,” she says. “I could tell the world that you and I set everything up together so that you would be able to rule your father’s empire uncontested. I’m not sure that anyone would believe me. But I could plant the seeds of doubt. I am very persuasive. You might not go to prison, but I think I could very easily make it so that the shareholders could not in good conscience leave you in control of the company. Nylo is a family business after all.”
What she is saying is absolutely true. Nylo would become as lurid as the Manson Family. It probably will anyway. I can’t imagine any way that the company will come out of this unscathed. Everyone is dead.
My mother smiles at me and her blue eyes glitter. She sees that I am working it all out in real time.
“Or I could confess,” she says. “I could tell the truth. I have videos and recordings of what I have done. I could make the world believe that I did it alone. And you could try and understand and forgive me.”
“I will never forgive you,” I say instantly. And we both know that this is true. But I have overplayed my hand. She has asked for the moon and already she has the compromise she wants. Already I am trying to understand her. Already I am trying to see the world how she sees it.
And then I suddenly realize that this is why my murderous bitch of a mother has chosen me and not Gabriella. Because I will be able to understand her someday. Maybe not now. But eventually. And she knows that I will want to understand her. That I will need to know why she has done what she has done. That I will be more fascinated than revolted.
“There is something strong about you,” she says. “Stronger than me. You are just as much of a monster as me, of course—just as much as Angelo, your sister, and your father. But you keep it in check. You keep it down, like vomit that will not rise. It poisons you but you hold it anyway. Wouldn’t you like to know more about what you are swallowing? How to use it?”
My heart is beating wildly. She knows that she has me. That my wild love and hate for her will see us both through to the very end of her plan.
“You will come visit me,” she says. “In prison. You will visit me often. And in return, I will take all the blame. I will tell all the world what I have done and why I have done it. In public, you may deny me. You will get all the sympathy that you are due as the victim of an impossible tragedy. An inexplicable, decades-spanning horror. I will see to it that the world is on your side. You will be the hero. You will rise from this, stronger, with all the control over your own designs that I never had. Did you know that for the past few months I have been watching you play board games on the internet at your little club? I have bet on you and I have bet against you. You are a canny player, but there is still so much you can learn about business and strategy from a superior player. Nylo was built on my stolen ideas. My body was used against my will, and that’s where you have come from. But I will do this deal with you, because I think that you of all people might be able to understand me somewhat before I lay down my weary head.”
She takes my hands in hers. My mother’s touch, after all these years, after all the madness of the past hour, the past week, brings tears to my eyes.
“I don’t want to have an unrequited life,” she says. “I want to tell you everything. I want to be your rabbi, your consigliere, your secret source of wisdom and strength. Will you let me be your mother? After what I have done? Because of what I have done?”
What choice do I have? Letting her confess is both the right thing to do and the most self-serving thing to do. I know that if she dies, no one will ever see any of her videos or recordings. I sit across from her silently, my head and heart pounding.
I stand up abruptly and
