Surprise! You're Not the Don's Wife

When I went to get a replacement copy of our marriage certificate, the clerk at the registrar's office told me, "This certificate is a forgery. There's no record of your marriage in the system." "But Michele and I got married four years ago, at St. Mary's Church. We had witnesses..." I steadied my breathing. "Please check again." The clerk sighed and clicked her mouse a few times. "We found a registration for Michele Corleone, but the spouse listed isn't you." My voice shook. "Who's his legal wife?" The clerk answered without looking up. "Rita Greco." Before I heard that name, I'd still been telling myself the system might have made a mistake. But of course it was Rita, Michele's childhood sweetheart. Suddenly everything made sense. In the four years I'd spent as Michele's wife, he'd never once held my hand in public. No famiglia galas, no formal introductions. Some of the Corleones didn't even know my name. I'd asked him why, and he'd told me, "It's to protect you. In the underworld, the less visible you are, the safer you are." I'd believed him. Now I finally understood. The marriage I'd poured everything into, the one I'd believed in for four years, had been fake from the very beginning. I'd never once been let into his real life. And as the woman who'd made that mistake, only one path was left to me. With trembling fingers, I pulled out my phone and dialed a number I hadn't touched in four years. [Papa, I want to come home.]