Chapter 10 - Anouk asks what Mafia means
Children hear adults.
School children hear parents.
Anouk came home from first grade and asked:
“Are you Mafia?”
I nearly dropped a plate.
“Who asked?”
“Jackson.”
Of course Jackson.
“What did he say?”
“His dad said your dad was Mafia.”
“My father?”
“No, you.”
I sat.
This conversation had been waiting.
People around me preferred two bad options.
Deny history.
Or glamorize it.
I chose neither.
“Our family has people in its history who committed organized crimes.”
“What’s organized crime?”
“Adults working together to do illegal things for money or power.”
“Did Grandpa?”
“Yes.”
She stared.
“Did you?”
Harder.
“When I was younger, I worked in businesses where I did not ask enough questions about things I should have.”
“That’s crime?”
“Sometimes it can be. I have never ordered anyone to hurt somebody or done the movie things people imagine when they call me a Mafia boss.”
Anouk considered.
“Seraphina said prison.”
“Yes.”
“Are you going?”
“I don’t know of any reason I would be going to prison now.”
Accurate.
No absolute promise.
Then:
“Did she lock me because Mafia?”
My chest tightened.
“No.”
“Why?”
“We’re still learning all of it.”
Children deserve facts at their level, not adult theories dressed as certainty.
She looked at me.
“You bad?”
Everyone wants a binary when afraid.
“I’ve made bad choices.”
“Are you Daddy?”
“Yes.”
“That’s enough.”
For her.
Not for regulators.
Not for boards.
May you like
Not for me.
But for breakfast, enough.
