Believe Like a Child (36 page)
“I
need to call my parents today and tell them we’re getting married,” Remo announced the next morning at breakfast.
Alessa was shocked. “You mean, you didn’t tell them before you asked me? What if they’re mad at us?”
“No, I didn’t tell them and they won’t be mad. They know how I feel about you and I’m pretty sure they won’t be all that surprised.”
Lucy looked up from peeling a banana, “Don’t forget to tell them how you asked me to be a part of your life. Tell them about the ring you gave me,” she added.
Alessa realized how simple it all was for Lucy. She was so open and honest with them. It was hard to believe she would be eleven soon. Three years had passed by so quickly. Alessa felt as though they had been together all their lives, not just three short years from the time they had met. She reiterated the child’s request. “Yeah, don’t forget to tell them about Lucy.”
“I won’t,” Remo moaned. “You two give me no credit at all.”
While he was confident of his father’s approval, Remo anticipated that his mother would be none too pleased by his decision to marry Alessa. And it was not simply because it was Alessa he was marrying. His mother would be pissed off that he had already proposed without keeping his parents updated on the developments in his personal life. She would treat it like a nasty surprise. Hannah hadn’t changed her opinion of Alessa over the last year. In fact, she had become more deep-rooted in her view that she was the wrong woman for him. Intuitively, Remo knew that his mother was having a harder time letting him go than in accepting Alessa. He realized that she kept looking for reasons to justify her dislike of Alessa.
He called his father first.
Patrick was excited by the news and understood how much Alessa meant to his son. Then he asked, “Are you going to call your mother?”
“Do I have a choice?”
Patrick laughed. “No, not really.”
Remo hesitated. “Any words of wisdom you could bestow upon me, old man?”
“Make it quick and painless,” he sighed in response. “If you drag it out too long, you’ll merely succeed in building up her anxiety and make her reaction to the news that much worse.”
Remo hung up the phone and took a deep breath before dialing his mother.
Hannah brightened when she heard her son’s voice. “Remo!” she exclaimed. “Hi son. How are you?”
“I’m good, Mom. I wanted to tell you that Alessa and I are getting married. I asked her last night and she said yes.” There, he had put it all out on the table.
After an uncomfortably long silence, his mother said, “Well, if you think that’s best. It’s your life. I always thought you’d find someone who was more your type.”
Annoyed, Remo asked, “Really? What’s my type, Mom?”
“You know, someone with a better background and upbringing,” she answered in a tight voice. “I mean, Alessa is a nice girl, but she’s never going to set the world on fire.”
With the disappointment palpable in his voice, Remo said, “Mom, Alessa is exactly my type. When you say, ‘Set the world on fire,’I know you’re talking about earning a lot of money. While Alessa may never earn a million dollars a year, she does things for people that you can’t put a price on. She sets the world on fire with the goodness in her heart. I want you to be happy for me. This is a great time in my life and I need your support.”
Hannah softened. “Okay. I can do that. Shall I call her to discuss wedding arrangements? Did you pick a date?”
Now desperate to get off the phone, Remo answered, “No we haven’t picked a date yet. Why don’t I have Alessa call you once we do pick one? In the meantime, do you think you could call her and congratulate her? She’s not stupid, Mom. It’s obvious how you feel about her.”
Hannah surrendered. “Okay, fine. I will call her later today. I just hope you’re making the right decision.”
As promised, Hannah called Alessa later that afternoon. “Hello Alessa, this is Hannah,” she said.
Alessa’s palms instantly broke out in a sweat. “Hi Hannah. Remo isn’t here right now. Do you want him to call you when he gets home?”
Hannah’s voice was devoid of emotion. “No. Actually, I was calling to congratulate you on your engagement to my son. I wanted to let you know that once you two pick a date, you and I can start planning the wedding. Have you told your mother yet?”
Alessa told her she hadn’t and offered no explanations.
Unable to keep calm, Hannah allowed her animosity to spill out. “Why haven’t you told your mother? The first thing most girls do in a situation like this is call their mother to let them know.”
Alessa tried to defend herself without being rude. “Hannah, it’s complicated,” she explained politely. “I would discuss this with you right now, but I have to run or I’ll be late for class. Thanks for calling.”
After Alessa hung up the phone, she felt annoyed at Hannah for judging her so harshly. She was also self-conscious and embarrassed about not sharing the kind of relationship with Caterina that most daughters took for granted. Alessa wasn’t one who needed everyone to like her, but she just couldn’t understand why Hannah went out of her way to dislike her.
Fuck it,
she thought,
I’ll talk to Remo about it later.
But try as she might, she couldn’t dismiss Hannah from her mind and was bothered all day long over their phone conversation. It gnawed at her like a deep, persistent pain. That night, she told Remo about her conversation with his mother. She could see he was hurt, but wasn’t sure if it was because his mother was a bitch or because she herself couldn’t just go with the flow.
Finally, he said, “Look, we’re all going to be family now and you two will need to learn how to get along. I know my mother isn’t easy to deal with when it comes to me. You need to understand that she’s just being protective, like you are with Lucy.”
Alessa lost her temper. “Yeah, I get that,” she said angrily, “but I’ve done nothing to make her feel defensive about you. She treats me like a piece of shit, because she thinks you’re too good for me. You know it and so do I. Let’s stop the bullshit and just get it out there. Truthfully, Remo, I don’t give a fuck what your mom thinks about me. I just don’t want you to expect me to pretend that everything is rosy.”
Remo stood up and began pacing the living room. “Okay, fine. If you want to hate my mother, then hate my mother! What can I say?”
Alessa stomped out of the room, but not before saying, “For your information, it’s the other way round. I don’t hate your mother; she hates me.”
An hour later, Remo went back into the bedroom. He sat down next to Alessa and said, “Here’s the deal. I love my mom. She was a good mother and has done a lot for me. She will never change her mind about you. Honestly, I don’t think it’s you. It would have been the same with any woman I decided to marry. She feels like she’s losing me. I’m not going to try to change her mind. If she can’t see how great you are, then that’s her loss. Either way, I need us all to get along. I’m asking you to be the bigger person here. I’m asking you to just kill her with kindness.”
“Okay,” Alessa said. “I’ll try my best. I’ll swallow all the shit she dishes out to me, but remember: I’m doing it entirely for you, because you asked and not for any other reason.”
Remo reached out, lifted her dress and laid her back on the bed. Alessa let herself melt into him. She enjoyed making love to him, craved it, even. Because of the love they shared, their sex life was intense. Alessa’s past sexual experience also helped to keep things exciting. When Remo teased her that no one gave head better than she did, she would retort, “I was a young learner, remember? At least one thing good came from it.”
Alessa wasn’t afraid to experiment with sex. She was often the aggressor. Not that Remo ever complained. What man in his right mind and with a set of balls would complain? Alessa loved the way he touched her. She felt suspended in midair and her skin was covered in goose bumps, as she felt the warmth of his tongue against her flesh and his strong fingers that could be so gentle find their way inside her. Remo was an extremely evolved sexual being and she reciprocated his passion.
T
he following Saturday night, Remo and Alessa drove out to see Remo’s parents, with Lucy in tow, supposedly to celebrate their engagement. Patrick and Hannah were excited for their son. In fact, Remo’s father was excited for them all. Hannah, though, while excited about the wedding, was not necessarily enthused by her son’s choice of bride. When she shared her cynical opinion of Alessa with her husband, he had warned her that if she continued down this path, she would lose her son forever. Hannah didn’t care what Patrick thought. She was convinced that Alessa was not the right girl for Remo. She suspected that by latching onto her son, the girl had found herself a knight in shining armor. Alessa, she feared, came with too much baggage and their relationship would be harmful for Remo in the long run. The thought of the young woman giving her a grandchild made her cringe with distaste.
Hannah carelessly chose to overlook the fact that Remo had never really been happy until he met Alessa. If she had been honest with herself, Hannah would have acknowledged that Alessa had brought something different, something better into Remo’s life.
She and Patrick were in the kitchen when the three of them arrived. Hannah rushed over to give Remo a hug. She turned to Lucy next, as the child held up her hand to show off the ring Remo had given her. Finally, she turned to Alessa. Alessa put on her brightest smile and humbly greeted Hannah who said, “Let me see the ring,” Hannah said rather assertively.
She was surprised at the size and clarity of the diamond and knew that Remo had paid a lot of money for the ring, a fact that annoyed her deeply. She was against her son spending his hard-earned money on a girl who didn’t deserve him in the first place.
She asked Alessa, “How big is the diamond?”
Alessa was quite ignorant of and oblivious to these details. She turned to look at Remo in bewilderment.
“It’s a carat,” he said nonchalantly.
Hannah turned to him. “Well, it’s just beautiful. The clarity of the diamond is terrific. You must have paid a lot of money for it. Do you think that was really necessary?”
Remo stiffened from the blow. “It doesn’t matter how much money it cost, Mom,” he said, trying to sound unruffled. “The jeweler said it was a pretty clear diamond and the price was reasonable.”
As Patrick watched the exchange, tension tightened his gut. He could see Alessa visibly recoiling from the verbal attack, her arms crossed over her chest, her shoulders slumped and her eyes fixed on the floor. He could tell she wanted to shrivel up and die. But Patrick knew Alessa was the real thing. When his wife had asked her about the size of the diamond, Alessa had looked as if she were going to shit in her pants. She obviously had no idea how to answer such questions. Patrick knew Alessa couldn’t have cared less if Remo had bought her a diamond chip instead. It was all the same to her. She wasn’t worried about the size of the ring; she was marrying their son because she loved him.
Unlike Hannah, Patrick had noticed a change in Remo over the past year since he met Alessa. His son had grown and matured in a way that made him proud. He had bought a house to help get homeless people off the streets and accepted Lucy as his own flesh and blood. Patrick wondered why Hannah had become so bitter. After all, Remo was an adopted son. When Patrick and Hannah knew for certain that they couldn’t have children of their own, it was Hannah who had convinced him that they should adopt. She had taught Remo to treat everyone equally, regardless of the person’s background. She would say, “We’re all just people and we should always help each other. Some people are just less fortunate than others, but we all have feelings, just the same.”
Patrick missed the old Hannah. He felt sorry for Alessa now, as she stood awkwardly, waiting for the topic of conversation to change.
“As Remo said,” Patrick intervened, “who cares how much he paid for the ring? When you’re in love, it’s worth every cent.”
As Alessa’s embarrassment slowly turned to anger, her face flushed. She wished the conversation would come to an end. Hannah had just told Remo she wasn’t worth giving an expensive ring to, hadn’t she? Alessa made a mental note:
first log of shit eaten; let’s see how many I can swallow tonight before I hurl.
Throughout dinner, father and son did most of the talking.
Finally, Hannah butted in. “Enough about the Flyers! Can we talk about the wedding now?”
Remo looked over at Alessa and noted that her eyes were locked down on her plate, as if she hadn’t heard a word his mother had uttered. “Mom,” he said, “we’re thinking about something really small. We decided we’d have just you and Dad, Alessa’s sister, Rosabella, Ebby and a couple of our friends. And we don’t plan to wait a long time either. We thought we would get married in September.”
“I picked September, because that’s my birthday month and they thought it was a great idea,” Lucy said proudly.
“I always thought September was a good month for weddings, but now that I know Lucy was born in September, I think it’s a perfect month!” Patrick said with enthusiasm.
Unable to hide her disgust, Hannah pushed her plate away. Waving the fork she still held in her hand, she asked, “What’s the rush? September is only two months away. Remo, I plan to have a few more guests at the wedding, other than the ones you just mentioned. Dad and I would like to invite some of our friends. I thought we could have it here in the backyard.”
Remo looked at Alessa for some sign of approval. She, on her part, didn’t want him to feel torn between his mother and her. She only wanted him to be happy. She could see how desperately he was trying to achieve a balance between his feelings for her and his devotion to his mother. He so obviously wanted to please them both. The truth was, Alessa couldn’t have cared less if there was a wedding at all. She would have been just as happy to go to a justice of the peace and have a private celebration afterward. This ongoing battle just wasn’t important to her.
“Hannah,” she said, “we didn’t give it that much thought, to be honest. If you’d like to have something here, I think that would be very nice.”
Hannah wore her victory smile as she turned to Remo and said, “I’ll do everything, son. You won’t have to worry about a thing.”
“That’s great, Mom. Thanks,” he replied, retreating from the earlier debate with relief. “Can you make sure Alessa has a say in some of this planning, since it is her wedding too?”
Hannah’s lips drew together in a tight line, as if she were a child refusing to eat her food. “Of course I will,” she told him. “She will need to pick the colors and we can work together on a menu.”
Patrick watched his wife. He could tell she was happy because she was getting her way. But it hadn’t escaped him either that Alessa had just surrendered to her future mother-in-law for the sake of maintaining peace, a fact that didn’t appear to bother his wife at all. He knew Alessa had Remo’s best interests at heart. It didn’t surprise him that the girl had no passion for the things that were so important to Hannah. Patrick knew Alessa was a good egg, despite her sordid past, someone his son was lucky to have found.
As Hannah and Remo discussed the guest list, Patrick leaned over and nudged Alessa with his elbow. Surprised, but glad to have her future father-in-law’s support, she knew she had made the right decision. Her spirits instantly lifted. Catching the silent and barely noticeable exchange between his father and Alessa, Remo was reassured that things would be fine.
Lucy broke into Alessa’s thoughts by leaning over and asking her, “Alessa, can our color for the wedding be purple?”
Alessa laughed. “Of course, Luce,” she replied, beaming. “Purple
is
our favorite color.”
Lucy smiled back. “Yeah. Okay, we’re good now.”