Chapter 10
My mother was alive.
That was Gavin’s secret.
He had known for nine years.
I stared at him.
“You knew?”
His eyes filled.
“I found her.”
Arthur left the room.
For once, I let him.
I needed the answer before the punishment.
“Where?”
“Colorado.”
My mother had remarried.
Quiet life.
No Mafia connections.
No contact with us because Arthur threatened to make sure she never saw either son again if she approached.
I felt nineteen years of memory rearrange.
“She didn’t leave us?”
Gavin shook his head.
“She left him.”
Silence.
“And he kept us.”
“Yes.”
My mother tried writing.
Arthur destroyed letters.
Tried calling.
Numbers changed.
Then, when I became boss, she assumed I had chosen the family too.
Why didn’t Gavin tell me?
He gave the ugliest honest answer.
“Because she loved you more.”
I stared.
He cried.
Not loudly.
“I found her first. I thought… for once I’d be the one she wanted.”
There it was.
The favored son had spent his whole life feeling second.
Arthur’s praise never fixed it because praise built on comparison cannot create security.
Gavin met our mother secretly three times.
Each time she asked about me.
Ella.
Sofia before she died.
That hurt him.
So he stopped going.
Then told himself Arthur had been right.
Outside love creates division.
I looked at my brother.
“You punished Mom because she asked about me.”
“Yes.”
“And tonight you punished Ella because Dad asked you to.”
His face collapsed.
Same pattern.
Different generation.
I did not need to hit him.
Truth had already found the right place.
“Give me her number.”
He hesitated.
Then did.
I stared at the contact.
MARGARET.
My mother’s name.
Not dead.
Not gone.
Just held outside a story Arthur controlled.
I looked toward the doorway where my father had disappeared.
He had built his entire philosophy on abandonment.
Then made sure abandonment happened whenever anyone threatened his authority.
That was the architecture.
My mother.
Sofia’s memory.
Ella.
Even Gavin.
May you like
Keep everyone emotionally dependent on Arthur.
Then call dependence family.
