“Mrs. Mazur,” I whisper, as I approach the bed. “It’s me, Mia. Serafin said I could come in and talk to you a little bit.”
Her eyelids flutter, and she turns her lips upward into a thin smile. “Mia…” she says slowly and softly. “Are you here to give me a piece of your mind?”
“Absolutely not,” I say with a smile. I stroke her hair out of her face and take her frail wrinkled hand in mine, and she squeezes back every so gently. I sit down in the chair next to her bed, trying not to let myself get overcome with sadness. I’m overwhelmed, wishing more than anything we had more time. “I’m here to tell you I promise everything is going to be ok. I might not love Serafin the same way you do, but I promise you, I love him just as much. I won’t let anything bad happen to him.”
Her fingers wrap around the engagement ring, and she brings it up to her face.
“I’m glad this ended up on you,” she says. “Agnieszka was an incredible woman. She would’ve moved the earth for Serafin. He was the sunshine of her life. When he was in the hospital, it literally killed her. She died before he even got out.”
“That’s so sad,” I say. Sad for her, and sad for Serafin, too. So much suffering in his life came from that night. There were moments in the years following that I felt so sad, I thought I wanted to die, too. “I’m sure it was hard on all of you. I couldn’t imagine seeing my child like that. I feel so horrible you had to go through that, Mrs. Mazur.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be like that,” she whispers. “They weren’t supposed to maim him permanently. They were only supposed to bruise him up a little bit, make it look worse than it actually was. That’s what his father promised me.”
“Are you okay?” I ask. She’s talking so fast, her eyes wild, and the monitor next to her starts beeping wildly. Her fingers dig into my hand like little claws. “Do you need me to call a nurse?”
“You need to hear this, Mia. You need to tell him this. I was too afraid to tell him myself. I was too weak.”
“You’re not weak!” I look around the room for a button or something I can push to get a nurse in here. She won’t let go of my hand, and I’m afraid to stand up. I’m really not sure what she wants me to say, but if what she’s saying is true, Serafin is going to be devastated.
It can’t be true.
She’s probably just pumped so full of pain pills she’s hallucinating. Maybe this is what happens to your brain right before
I don’t want to be alone with her anymore.
“We let this happen to our son. Antoni organized it. It was the only way he could find an excuse to go to war with the Cammaranos. He needed blood. The Kings wouldn’t understand. He had to do something drastic. We had to send you away. You were the only witness. If you would’ve stuck around, the police would’ve questioned you, and everyone would’ve found out. It had to be done.”
“Mrs. Mazur, I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.”
“Just because you don’t want to believe something doesn’t mean it’s not true,” she hisses. “Just promise me one thing, Mia. Promise me you won’t pretend like everything’s alright when it’s not. I didn’t advocate for my baby when I should’ve, I just brushed things under the rug to save myself, promise me you won’t be like that, Mia.”
Her breath is choppy and she looks so distressed. I’m trying not to freak out, because the more she talks, the more I believe her, and now she’s tasking me with this secret she’s carried her whole life. She’s trusting me to do the right thing with it. It’s her dying wish.
“I promise,” I say. A single tear runs down her face. Her grip on my hand loosens, and she closes her eyes, her breathing going back to normal.
I breathe a sigh of relief when Serafin appears in the doorway with a nurse. I run over to him, not even looking over my shoulder, and wrap my arms around his waist, burying my face in his chest.
22
Serafin:
They pronounced my mother dead at 7:45 that evening. Mia and I were in the cafeteria neither one of us actually eating our sandwiches. When we returned to her room, the nurse said she slipped away peacefully.
Mia hasn’t said a word to me since she spoke with my mother, but she hasn’t left my side, either. I hate that their first real conversation was their last, but there’s something that makes me think maybe knowing what kind of person Mia actually is was enough to give her the courage to slip away. Maybe she knew she didn’t have to fight so hard anymore.
Mia makes everything easier.
She’s waiting there with a towel for me when I get out of the shower. Her hair is tucked up in a ponytail and she has green goop all over her face, but I can see the sadness in her eyes.
“How do I help you?” she asks, blanketing me in the towel. “Tell me what you need.”
“This,” I say, as she wraps her arms around me. “Just you. There’s nothing we can do or say right now.”
She nods and I kiss her softly on the lips. She takes me by the hand into the bedroom, peeling back the sheets for me. She curls up next to me, and I hug her tight, wrapping my arms and legs around her, tangling up in her,
