it. For one thing, she’d figured her father wouldn’t want Mamma to know about it at all. For another thing, it had been handled in the Pagano Brothers way, and Papa didn’t bring that business into the house. And finally, it had been handled. It was old news.
She wanted it to be old news.
While she and her mother cleaned the kitchen after the meal, and her father went to his office, Lia asked, “What’s going on, Mamma?”
“We’ll talk as soon as we get the dishwasher running, okay? Your papa and I have been thinking about stuff, and we want to run it by you. You’re not in trouble, though, Lia. Of course you’re not.”
“But it’s about what happened last weekend, right?”
Mamma paused with a rinsed plate in her hand. She met Lia’s eyes directly. “That was such a close call, honey. It makes me ill to think what could have happened. And you didn’t tell us at all.”
“There was nothing to tell. It didn’t happen—and I knew Papa would know about it, anyway, since Alex caught the guy.”
“And thank God he did.” She sighed and put the plate in the rack. “I wish the world was safer for you. I used to think it would be someday. But now I wonder if it’ll ever get better.” She closed the dishwasher and turned it on. “Come on, let’s sit down and talk together. We’ll figure it out.”
“Figure what out, Mamma?”
Her mother didn’t answer.
~oOo~
Her father, on the other hand, wasn’t one to beat around the bush. Once they were all sitting in his office—Papa in his favorite leather armchair, and Mamma and Lia on a leather sofa at a right angle to it—he jumped right in. “We want you to come home, Lia.”
That possibility had begun to sprout in her mind over the past hour or so, but she’d tried hard to ignore it. Now, she rejected it. “But I love my apartment, Papa. And the drive to Providence is so long. I don’t want to make it every day. I want to stay close to campus.”
Mamma stiffened slightly, and Papa leaned forward. “I mean, I want you to disenroll and come home.”
His change from ‘we’ to ‘I’ did not escape her notice. As she’d expected, Papa had decided and Mamma had conceded. Lia’s basically empty stomach flipped over. “You … you want me to quit school?”
“No, Lia,” Mamma interjected. “Just sit out a semester or two—or, maybe take online classes. Just until it’s safe.”
Just as Lia opened her mouth to point out that she couldn’t be in a campus play online, Papa cut in.
“No. Not sit out. I don’t want you going to that school ever again. I don’t want you going back on Monday. You were almost raped, Lia. I can protect you from my world, but not that one. I need you close.”
“You did protect me, Papa. It didn’t happen because you did protect me.”
“It’s too much. Too many variables. I need you home.”
Papa had given over any pretense that Mamma was part of this decision, and so had she. She sat silently beside Lia, watching their exchange—and that was the most upsetting part of this extremely upsetting conversation. If Mamma disagreed so strongly that they couldn’t even pretend to be a united front, then Papa had forced the point harder than Lia thought he ever had before. He was determined to make her stay home.
And Nick Pagano got what he wanted.
“For how long?” Lia asked, trying to make her voice strong but hearing her own weakness. “Forever? Do you want me trapped in the Cove forever?”
His voice softened, but his gaze didn’t. “Why would you be trapped? This is your home.”
“And I love this home. I love you. But I want more than this.”
“You want to be an actress, Lia. You hardly mean to change the world.”
That was the cruelest thing her father had ever said to her. The only cruel thing her father had ever said to her. Lia sagged back with the pain of it.
“Nick.” Mamma said, sharply, and Papa blinked.
“Mi dispiace, gattina,” he said at once, but the endearment didn’t bring its usual warm feeling, and the apology wasn’t enough to ease the hurt. “I didn’t mean to be unkind. I want you to be happy. You know I do. But first, more than anything, I need you safe. I can only be sure of that here.”
“They came for you here, and they almost killed you here. They shot up Mamma’s store and the market