Burn by Rose Wulf

Author:Rose Wulf [Wulf, Rose]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Evernight Publishing
Published: 2019-03-05T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Arianna wasn’t sure how to feel, even several hours later. She hadn’t tried going back to sleep after her mother’s unexpected phone call and Dean hadn’t pushed. The only thing Dean had been was amazingly supportive. She was so glad she’d been with him when she got the call, instead of in the hotel room she was supposed to be sharing with Georgia.

Hearing her mother’s voice again, for the first time in nearly five years, had been hard enough to take on its own. Gianna Carosella’s voice had been the very last thing she’d expected to hear when she’d answered the phone, and as soon as she’d placed it—because it wasn’t exactly a case of instant recognition—she’d had to fight the urge to hang up. Anger had rushed, hot and immediate, through her system. She’d wanted to interrupt the woman’s words to demand to know who she was to think she could just call out of the blue after abandoning her all those years ago.

And then her mother’s words had registered.

“A stroke.” She’d said in her heavily-accented English. Her father had been claimed by a stroke. It had been quick. Arianna didn’t know if it was his first, or if there had been any signs of warning. For a moment, as her mother continued, she’d gone numb. She was listening to her mother’s voice. Her father was gone. It was almost like she had a family, just for an instant.

It had been that thought that slammed Gianna’s words home. She hadn’t had a family since her brother had been killed. What remnants of a family she’d allowed herself to cling to—her father’s attempt at an apology, an attempt she’d scorned—was gone now, too. Her mother hadn’t been calling to beg her to come to Italy and be with them. She’d been calling “Because he would want you to know.” Arianna knew that was true, just like she knew that was the only reason she’d gotten the call. But that didn’t hurt nearly as badly as the guilt.

All those years she’d been so angry with him. She’d been arguably angrier with him than with her mother. At least her mother had chosen a side and stuck with it. That was how she’d always seen it. Her father was trying to have it both ways. She’d resented him—resented his letters and his guilt money—because she’d seen the gesture as empty. And now … now, she wished she’d forgiven him. It wasn’t realistic to think their actions could have gone differently. There was no sense in going back to the girl who still hoped he’d write her back, and she had even less incentive now to move to Italy than she’d had five years earlier. But she could have forgiven him.

At least he made an effort. He did something to keep in touch. He’d extended some sort of olive branch, in the best way he’d known how. If he hadn’t, or if she’d stopped giving him her contact information in her response letters, she would have gone her entire life without knowing his fate.

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