All Chapters of THE DON'S MAID: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

It happened on a Thursday. The kind of Thursday that starts normal and ends with your whole life rearranged. I was in the kitchen helping Mrs Delaney cook because Dr Hale said I needed to "use my hands again" and I was chopping onions and crying but not from sadness when Sal walked in. He didn’t say anything. Just stood there in the doorway with his phone in his hand and his jaw tight and I knew immediately. "They found him," I said. "Yeah." "V" "Yeah." He came in and shut the door and pulled me away from the knife and into him. "You’re not going to the hospital today. You’re not going anywhere today." "Sal you’re scaring me." "Good. Stay scared. It keeps you careful." He told me in pieces while I sat at the kitchen table and Mrs Delaney pretended not to listen. V was Victor Calloway. Rival family. Younger brother of the man Sal had put in jail 2 years ago. He’d been watching me since the gala. He’d sent the letters. He’d sent the man with the gun.

The first year married was weird because we didn’t know how to do normal and we’d never been normal before. We knew how to do crisis. How to do hospitals and guns and letters with knives in them. But we didn’t know how to do Tuesdays.So we learned.Tuesdays were grocery store. Sal hated the grocery store because people stared and he said "they can tell I’m a Romano" and I said "babe they’re staring because you’re 6’2 and buying 8 cartons of strawberries" and he said "you like strawberries" and I said "I know." We fought over cereal. He wanted healthy. I wanted sugar. We got both.Wednesdays were my gallery days. I started showing my drawings downtown, small ones at first, then a whole wall. Sal came to every opening and stood in the back with his arms crossed like a bodyguard and when people asked "is that your husband" I said "yeah, he’s the scary one" and he pretended to be offended.Thursdays were Dr. Hale. Every Thursday at 9am for the first 6 months, then every other T

The year after Luca was the first year in my whole life where nothing terrible happened and I didn’t know what to do with that at first because I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.I’d wake up at 3am and check the locks. I’d check Sal’s breathing. I’d check my phone for messages that weren’t there.Sal noticed.One morning he came into the studio while I was trying to paint and couldn’t because my hands were shaking for no reason and he said "You’re waiting for something bad again aren’t you" and I said "Yeah" and he sat down on the floor next to my chair."Let me tell you what’s going to happen today," he said. "You’re going to finish that painting. I’m going to make bad coffee. Leo is going to steal your sock. Marco is going to come over and eat all our food. And tonight we’re going to watch that stupid show you like and you’re going to fall asleep on me.""That’s it""That’s it. That’s the whole day. No guns. No letters. Just boring."And he was right.That’s what the qui

We didn’t plan the vow renewal, it just happened because Sofia asked why she wasn’t at our wedding and Sal looked at me like fix it and I said "We’ll have another one then" and he said "Tomorrow" and I said "You’re insane" and he said "For you, always."So we did it 2 weeks later.Not big. Not like the first one which was small but still had his mom and guards and tension because we were still healing and still scared.This one was ours.Backyard. Yellow kitchen doors open. Fairy lights that Marco hung wrong and then fixed wrong again. Leo with a bow tie that he immediately chewed off. Sofia in a little cream dress that matched mine because Sal picked it and said "My girls match" and almost cried in the store.I wore the same cream dress from the first wedding but altered again because my body was different now after Sofia and Sal said "You’re more beautiful now" when he saw me in it and I believed him.Sal wore a black shirt, sleeves rolled up, no suit jacket because it was

Sal didn’t burn the photo.I thought he did because I saw ashes in the fire pit the next morning but it wasn’t the photo, it was just old papers from his office and when I went to take out the trash that afternoon I saw the corner of the photo sticking out of his desk drawer, the one he locks, the one he told me I could open anytime but I never did until now.It was there.Elena and Sal at 18.Her head on his shoulder.His arm around her like she was the whole world.And on the back in her handwriting it said Always yours - EHe kept it.He told her to leave, he slammed the door, he said all the right things to me, but he kept the photo.That night I didn’t say anything at first because I wanted to see if he would tell me himself, if he would be honest, but he didn’t, he just made dinner and played with Sofia and acted like yesterday never happened."Are you okay" he asked when Sofia went to bed."Yeah.""You’re quiet.""I’m tired."He came and sat behind me on the couch and wrapped h