Читать книгу Bellagrand - Paullina Simons - Страница 16

IF HARRY EXPRESSED BOTH inwardly and outwardly a certain quarrelsome ambivalence about the regeneration of his future, no one had any doubt how Mimoo felt about it. It was as if all her ailments had left her bones. After Gina told her mother the blessed news, she jumped out of bed, threw on nice clothes and ran through the streets of Lawrence, carrying candles to the church and chocolates to her friends. “Finally she’s having a baby! She’s having a baby!” Mimoo bought flowers, went to the market, made a feast, had a celebration to which she invited what seemed like half of Lawrence. “You didn’t give me a chance to celebrate your pretend wedding. At the very least I can rejoice in the fruit of it.”

Harry leaned into Gina’s neck. “Why does your dear mother insist on calling it pretend? Does she want to see the judge’s papers?”

Gina kissed his nose. “I think she’d prefer to see the priest’s papers.”

He grabbed her around her still slender waist and pulled her out onto the porch. “So she thinks we’re improperly married.” He laughed. “Does that mean you’re a kept woman?” He kissed her. “Why do I find that so enticing?”

True to her roots as a good wife and true woman, Gina returned his open-mouthed kiss and tamped down the other Sicilian part of herself and didn’t say what she was ashamed to be thinking when he was being all flirty with her and kind, which was: of all the things I am, and I am many things, one of the things I’m absolutely not is a kept woman.

“Go to Boston, you two,” Mimoo ordered them, not a day later. “You tell your family, Harry, and you, Gia, go tell your brother.”

Gina agreed. Harry amiably shook his head.

“Salvo will come around, Harry.”

“He won’t, Mimoo.”

“He will.”

“He won’t.”

“God, why are you such a stubborn mule?”

“He won’t come back and I’m the mule?”

Mimoo pressed her son-in-law: “Salvo is waiting for you to beg his forgiveness. He just needs to hear repentance from you.”

Harry shook his head. “I’ve tried already. It’s no use.”

“How many years ago did you try?”

“Your son has too much pride,” Harry said.

“And you?”

“I’m not your son.”

“Charming, Harry,” whispered Gina, sitting nearby, listening.

Mimoo bristled. “You’re my daughter’s so-called husband.”

“I’m actually her husband.”

“In our country, husbands, even such as you are, are considered family. Not in your country?”

Harry said nothing.

“Like I was saying. Besides, you’re still somebody’s son, aren’t you?”

“Not anymore.”