When I began crying, Joe hurried them out of the office. Then, when I was alone, I threw the mother of fits, trying to pick out all the Play-Doh. I cursed, I cried, I kicked, I screamed, and I banished the Play-Doh and them from my office.
Luckily, Aunt Joe had sequestered them into an area where they weren’t witnesses to my outburst. Still, they were told to never bring toys into my office again. It was my space, the only space where they were not allowed.
I didn’t think that it would hurt them. Being raised in an environment where children should be seen and not heard, it seemed to me that I was more than generous with them in only making one area of our expansive home off limits. When I worked, I could hear them laughing and having fun. I could still see them through the frosted glass doors; see them smile and peek in at me, causing my heart to sing the praises of what beautiful children I had. I was sure I had done the right thing; better than my parents and grandmother had.
“She’ll get mad,” I heard Cesca warn her sister one day.
“No, she’ll get sad,” Toinette corrected her. “But I wanna show her. It’ll make her happy, too.”
“Gotta wait,” Cesca told her.
“But—”
“Work makes her happy, sissy, not your silly statue,” Cesca said.
“I make her happy.”
“Not as much as work.”
Cesca’s words were like a knife to the chest. It was a double shot of reality, telling me that I wasn’t much different than my parents or grandmother. Still, not wanting to replace another carpet, I didn’t give in completely.
I got up and opened the doors. “I’d love to see your work, my sweet.”
That day, I sat and played with my girls. It was possibly the first time I ever truly played. I got swept up in their imaginations and eagerness to create. And after that, I began opening the boxes and boxes of toys that had been shipped with them. Once a week, we girls sat at my desk, and regardless of how messy the product was, we did live reviews together.
Shag be damned.
Oddly, this also keeps them busy and more aware that this is in fact a space for work.
Today, I pull off my socks and step on that shag rug, not only matting it, but curling my toes around its softness and taking comfort in it the way my sweet girls do.
There is one more week of the regular school semester, and I have told the girls that, instead of the summer intensive program they normally take part in, we will be taking the summer to enjoy some travel, some beach days, and some family time.
At first, they were upset. They love school. Let me clarify; they love going to the same school my cousins’ children attend.
Jase’s oldest daughter Bell is going into her junior year of college at NYU. She has graduated and is the only one who doesn’t attend Saint Mary’s with my girls.
One Year Ago…
“They are as thick as thieves,” one of the nuns tells us as we sit around the large conference table in the school’s office.
There was a fight and not one of them will give up the other. They won’t talk. Apparently, they won’t talk at all. Not one word, not even a hello or goodbye. It’s infuriating the nuns, and we are told, if we don’t get them to talk, they will all be forced to accept punishment.
When the children are all called down to the office, they walk in a straight line, noses up, and avert eye contact with the nuns. Then they see us, and all eyes go to Justice, Cyrus’s oldest son.
He narrows his eyes and gives a quick nod of sorts, looking straight ahead. They all follow suit.
I glance at Cyrus, who is looking between Justice and his daughter Truth, the only other twins in the family. He leans in and gives them a look that would intimidate any grown man or woman. They don’t budge. Then he turns back and looks at his wife, Tara, and whispers, “We’re fucked.”
She nods then looks at me. “We’re definitely screwed.”
We all but plead with them to explain what would make Justice beat up two boys who he once considered friends. None of them will answer, not one word to any of us.
When Jase suggests we all take the rest of the day to figure it out, the children stand and walk out behind their parents in single file, like ducklings following their momma.
Behind Jase and Carly is Kiki and Max. Behind Cyrus and Tara is Truth and Justice. Behind Xavier and Taelyn is Patrick. Behind Zandor and Bekah is Tris, Amias, and Brisa. Behind Abe and Nikolette is Fawn and Dromida. Behind Sabato and Melyssa is Torrance and Marcelo. Behind me is no one. I make Toinette and Cesca stand in front of me, as always, the way their father always walked behind me.
Once in the parking lot, Jase looks behind him. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Jase.” Carly looks around, making sure no one heard him outside the family.
“Carly, it’s not the damn time to worry about my language. Look at these little assholes.”
“Jase!”
“No, nope, they look like they’ve been brainwashed to do this shit. We’ll have CPS at our doors, hauling their little asses away,” he snaps at her.
“Easy, Jase.” Cyrus puts his arm around his wife, who was raised in the foster care system.
“I think they look like a bad-ass, little Steel army,” Xavier says with a smirk.
Jase throws his hands up. “Well, that’s not goddamned better!” He then squats down, eyeball to eyeball with Kiki. “Okay, you wanna tell me what’s going on so Daddy can make it all better?”
She smiles. “Forever Steel, Daddy.”
Zandor busts up laughing, and Bekah shakes her head.
“Y’all did this to them.”
“Then we did good,” Zandor tells her. “We did damn good.”
If I had not been raised the way I was, I may have looked at our line of all black SUVs following each other out of the parking lot and down the street to Jase’s house and thought it was a motorcade for a diplomatic or religious figurehead, or a funeral procession, which I find amusement in. Being raised the way I was, though, I see thing like this and it screams Mafioso at me.
I can imagine my girls—my sweet, loved, and innocent girls—think of it as family, and that thought warms my heart.
Unlike my cousins, who cringe at money and what people think of it, I am not in the least embarrassed to have been born of privilege. What I find embarrassing is the fact that, with all the money and protection that surrounded us, we are still susceptible to the cruelties life brings. More embarrassing is that it creeps in like a fog under even the most secured doors, causing lifelong injuries, changes, and scars. And when found out, it gets swept under the rug, leaving its victim ever changed.
Having worked through my issues a little and being surrounded by family who share the same blood—my family in Italy was much different—I see wealth in a different light now.
I try to believe in my grandmother’s good and see the way she treated money over family as misallocation of funds. However, my comfort comes in allocating the necessary funds to ensure those I love are well-protected. I would rather be comfortable than courtier. Like Franco would have.