Chapter 4
The letter was written twenty-six years ago.
To my mother.
Lucia,
If Helena tells you I require any of this, she is lying.
I stopped breathing.
Delia went white.
My father continued.
I told Helena to stop interfering in our marriage. She believes family women must train wives because that is what happened to her.
I do not.
If she humiliates you again, come to me.
I looked up.
“Where did Sofia find this?”
Sofia answered:
“In the old sewing room.”
Delia had sent her there two months ago to mend table linens after midnight.
Inside one cabinet were my mother’s letters.
Sofia found this one.
She never showed me.
“Why?”
Because below it was another note.
From my mother.
Raffaele must never know.
My chest hurt.
Not because she hid it.
Because I understood.
My mother had decided exposing Helena would fracture the family.
So she protected everyone by absorbing the cruelty.
Exactly what Sofia was now doing.
Generational repetition.
Not because anyone ordered it.
Because silence became tradition.
Delia looked shaken.
“You’re lying.”
Sofia handed her the letter.
My sister read.
Her hands began trembling.
Delia had built her authority on the belief that our mother accepted the system.
She had not.
She had endured it while secretly being told by her husband it should stop.
“Why didn’t Mom tell me?”
Delia whispered.
I knew.
Because Delia idolized Helena.
As a child, she followed her everywhere.
Helena made Delia feel powerful.
Important.
Included.
Our mother probably feared losing her daughter completely if she attacked the woman Delia loved.
Explanation.
Not excuse.
I looked at my sister.
“You didn’t inherit tradition.”
She said nothing.
“You inherited somebody else’s wound.”
Silence.
“And turned it into law.”
That landed.
Then Marcus spoke.
“There’s another notebook.”
Delia turned.
“Shut up.”
Too late.
“What notebook?”
Marcus looked at me.
“Current wives.”
Not just Sofia.
May you like
Delia had been doing this across other Montoro households.
My wife was not the only woman being punished under rules that never existed.
