Chapter 39

“I’ve told Jake all of this,” Sylvana said. “He even knows that the women in his father’s employment are blonde and blue-eyed because I made him promise never to have another woman who resembled me close to him again. Marianne Hunter was almost like a sister in looks. Daniel takes after his father with his fair hair and blue eyes, while his mother and I are almost like twins. Giovanni has a very specific type of woman he finds attractive.” Sylvana patted my knee almost to emphasize the point with a hint of a smile.

This piece of information stunned me. I once took note of the sea of small blondes that Giovanni kept as his own personal staff and assumed he had a type. It never occurred to me that respect for his wife had prompted him to never employ any small brunettes with green eyes and Italian beauty like his wife. In his own way, Giovanni was showing his love for her, and Jake completely misunderstood it or chose to ignore it.

~Stubborn ass of mine!~

Jake is so publicly attentive and demonstrative that his father’s seemingly apathetic attitude must be completely abhorrent to him. Chalk and cheese with apparently absolutely no understanding of one another in the slightest.

“But you found a way through it? You learned to love him again? Surely in time, Jake can also forgive him?” I was now so completely in awe at the inner working of Giovanni and how his head must work. The man is a total enigma.

“Yes, we’re so very much in love.” Sylvana smiled dreamily, looking very much like me at that moment. A woman devoted and completely in love with a hard-headed Carrero. “He comes home every night regardless of the time it takes to get here. We made a promise never to drift apart again. I know he’s not an easy man on the surface, but our private moments are filled with affection and love and a lot of sex.” She grinned naughtily again and winked my way. Part of me laughed, and another wanted to cringe at the thought.

“I can only hope that one day Jake finds a way to have some sort of relationship with him; where they are now is heartbreaking.” Sylvana positively glowed as she talked of her newfound relationship with her husband, but the obvious pain about her child’s connection with him was evident in her tear-filled eyes. It rendered me speechless. A mother’s love torn with that of a wife’s heart.

Jake has no clue about the depth of care between his parents. I guess he probably avoided any communication on the matter purely because his stubborn mind decided his father was a villain no matter what. He would be damned to believe otherwise. If only Jake knew of the love that still runs between them and that his father still cherishes and respects Sylvana above all others. Giovanni obviously has the same capabilities of love Jake has, that same deep heart, but they display it very differently.

I sighed hopelessly and gazed at Sylvana affectionately.

“Maybe becoming a father will make Jake re-evaluate things with Giovanni.” I smiled with a small offering of hope.

“Maybe.” Sylvana smiled back with a twinkle in her eye and a tiny little glint of possibility, knowing deep down it was highly unlikely.

***

“Like this, ~Tesoro~.” Sylvana’s soothing voice was close to my ear as she molded my hands in the dough bowl. “Gentle and delicate, so the Gnocchi stays fluffy.” She smiled and pulled away as I continued the motion she’d shown me. I had a strange surge of emotion at her tender touch and how she brushed my hair from my face with a smile. My affection for Sylvana was unlike my affection for Margo or even Wilma. There was something more, something deeper. I felt like I could come to her with anything, even cry over Jake, and she would embrace me with those loving, deep green eyes with maternal security and love me no matter what. I knew she would never pick sides between us in our silly arguments, and when he hurt me, she had been so angry with him on my behalf.

Sophie was making a mess on the large table with a lot of flour and a lot of hand flapping and energetic slapping sounds but smiling widely as Sylvana moved to calm the frantic pounding of her small delicate hands in her heavy bowl. Sylvana’s guiding touch was not rejected by the young girl either, and I smiled to myself.

It was incredible knowing that her touch, so effortlessly, seemed to break through the force fields that Sophie and I had; two kindred souls who used to recoil at human contact in any form, yet here we both were.

Leila was leaning over, watching Sylvana, working through a bowl of shelled nuts with a magazine in one hand, lazing in the kitchen after showing up for lunch. It was obvious she was bored, mulling over something, and she hadn’t been her chatting sparkling self, but neither did she seem upset. Leila was one of those people who let you know when she wanted to talk and was very good at saying nothing at all if she didn’t. She seemed happy to watch us learn to cook Italian food and revel in the atmosphere.

It was all so very relaxed, and I cast my mind to where I would be right now if Jake and I had never embraced what we were to each other … probably decked out in tight tailored clothing and a set of stilettos on the sixty-fifth no doubt; stressed over contract briefs or mundane issues with financing and listening to Jake going off like a boar on the phone to some incompetent person. The thought didn’t bring me any sense of regret or loss. I didn’t even feel a spark of missing the offices, just the people, which was odd. For the first five years I worked there, I made no long-term bonds with anyone in that building until Jake. He somehow infected me from the word go and changed my entire outlook on the people I worked beside.

“I think you’re maybe killing it, Sophie, dear,” Sylvana chided gently, bringing my thoughts back to the present, and I couldn’t help but watch with adoration as the two of them stood side by side, bringing the bowl of mess to order. There was something so complete about the whole scene at this very moment, watching someone who was truly maternal working with a child she treated as her own, giving healing to a girl who needed it with such a simple domestic task. Simply giving her time and patient attention in safety, trusting that no one would hurt her here or let anyone else for that matter, and as I watched the same love in Leila’s eyes. I saw now that maybe Sylvana did that for Leila too.

I knew Leila came through the same channels as Sophie did as a child. Sylvana’s charity was completely embroiled in taking children from abusive pasts. I realized I was among kindred spirits in this kitchen and had never thought about it before. I wasn’t the only one with scars and memories that haunted my dreams sometimes. I was in the fold of two other beautiful young women who had their own demons and came out the other side happier and hopeful because they let people in again and learned to trust. They both sat here now, mere reflections of who they once were, smiles and genuine laughter in the knowledge they found a better, safer loving place. I wasn’t the outcast I used to be. I was one of them.

The warmth of the kitchen and the peaceful, serene atmosphere. This was what I needed. This was what I’d missed out on my entire life; a mother, a real loving maternal mother who cared enough to show her children how to heal, cook, how to improve themselves, and it didn’t matter that she wasn’t related by blood. She somehow changed the lives of at least two of us, and her son had done the same for me.

I was happy here with her and with him because I needed this somehow in my life. I needed that nurturing love and guidance to show me how to be nurturing and kind to myself so I could become whole again. Learning how to let others have a little piece of my heart. Jake found that little scared Emma locked down tight in the corner of that terrifying dark room, and he slid his arms around her softly, told her it was okay to trust him, to let him save her from the dark recesses of her life and lead her out to the light. To let him protect her, and he did, still does, and always will; in a way that I knew he learned from her … Sylvana, the woman who, without realizing it, nurtured the man of my dreams into a replica of herself.

With a tear in my eye, I watched the smiling happy faces in front of me, absorbed in such a simple task, aglow with life and genuine contentment. Emotion coursed through me for this family. Even if we weren’t all related by blood, that’s what we were. Jake wasn’t just giving me a family by loving me and having a child. He was sharing his entire family with me, showing me I was so effortlessly accepted. They were all my family too.

My heart expanded achingly at the thought. This kind of unconditional love that so many take for granted, and here it was, a gift being given to me so selflessly. They had no idea what it meant. I yearn for this kind of purpose, this kind of impact on the world. I want to find others like me, those who hide from life and lock themselves away. I want to take them by the hand, draw them into the light, and show them that their world doesn’t have to be so cold and lonely.

I want to make Jake proud and do for others what he’s done for me. He gave me courage and hope. He taught me to look at the person I’ve become, not the person I was, cowering in the darkness. He taught me to let people in.

I aspire to be like Sylvana Carrero, a woman with a genuine heart that reaches in and pulls out the parts of children they’ve hidden away for fear of being hurt again. She smothers them with a mother’s love and gentle touch.

I want to be like Jake, who refuses to see only the walls we put up. He looks beyond, at someone worth coaxing out. He’s strong enough to bypass all the barriers, shields, and anger to find the soul inside.

I saved Sophie from a life of pain. That moment in Chicago was the first time I felt worthwhile in my existence. In some small way, being her protector and leading her to a better life was my defining moment. I want to experience that again.

I want to see more Sophies and more Leilas shining in the world, pushing through from the darkness, finding their way into kitchens like Sylvana’s and the lives of parents like the Huntsbergers.

For too long, I’ve denied my past and let it consume me. I’ve been ashamed and blamed myself for what was done to me. But I’ve realized that true release from the memories came when I shared them with Jake, when I shared them with someone capable of loving me without seeing any blame or disgust in what I had to tell him. Now, I want to do that for others too.

I want to be a better person than the empty shell that existed for so long. I want to be the person who saves myself and continues to do so, now that they have shown me the way.

I gaze down at my stomach and run a protective hand across it softly. I want to be someone nurturing and warm, someone whose children will be proud of them. I want to be someone children will run to and embrace, knowing that I’ll always keep them safe and always put them first, no matter what.

I’ll never let anyone, not even Jake, come between my children and me or inflict any pain on them in any way.