Chapter 8
The women’s customs changed slowly.
Not everyone welcomed it.
Some older women felt robbed.
Strange.
But understandable.
If suffering had been the price of belonging, removing the price can make past pain feel meaningless.
I refused that logic.
Pain does not become valuable merely because it was common.
Aunt Teresa confronted me.
“So the younger wives get everything easy?”
“No.”
“They won’t respect what we endured.”
“That’s not their job.”
She stared.
I continued.
“Your pain deserves acknowledgment.”
Then:
“It does not deserve replication.”
That sentence traveled through the family faster than any order.
Good.
We created something simple.
No private punishment systems.
No food control.
No forced service.
No family exclusion used as discipline.
No child’s status tied to a mother’s obedience.
Obvious things.
Apparently revolutionary.
Then Sofia told me one more truth.
Delia had been telling Lily things.
Not often.
Enough.
“Mommy needs to learn.”
“Mommy makes Daddy tired.”
“Good girls help Daddy by not asking why Mommy is in the kitchen.”
My hands tightened.
Lily had been recruited into the silence.
Not as threat.
As witness trained not to question.
That explained why she finally exploded at the gala.
“She’s the Mafia Boss’s wife.”
Not because title mattered to a three-year-old.
Because Lily believed title was the only argument adults would respect.
That hurt.
I did not want my daughter growing up believing her mother deserved dignity because of who she married.
Sofia deserved it because she was a person.
I told Lily that.
She frowned.
“Mommy still boss wife.”
May you like
Fair.
We had time.
