I Don't Want Them Back

Cancer was killing me, and my husband worked through every night building a human cryonics program to save my life. Before they put me under, he held the baby I had nearly died giving birth to, and said through tears: "Lina Virga, our son and I will wait together for the day you can wake up. Seven years from now, a drug that can treat my illness exist, and the hospital brings me back. When the nurse asked me to settle the bill, I stared at her blankly and asked her to call my husband for me. "Contact Vito Ranieri of the Lucchese family. Tell him his wife is awake." But the nurse laughed under her breath. "Please, don't joke. Mr. Ranieri and Miss Bellini have a son who's seven years old. Everyone in Sicily knows they’re a devoted couple. "I'll have the neurologist come by and evaluate you shortly." I assumed she was teasing me. I didn't give it another thought. Then Nora Bellini arrived, hired as a photographer to document me, the medical miracle. Vito's interview was playing on the television, and I said it with pride. "That's my husband. The best researcher there is." Nora's brows lifted in surprise, and the corners of her mouth dipped. "As far as I'm aware, Vito has exactly one wife. Me. "So how is it I've never heard about anyone else?" Chapter 1 "So who exactly did you just call your husband?" Nora lowered her camera. Her expression was appraising, and there was an edge of hostility under it. For a moment I could only stare at her. Something in my chest cracked apart, like ice giving way underfoot. Nora laughed softly, and the laugh never reached her eyes. "I've seen women like you before. Before treatment they chase the doctors for a phone number. Once they're well, they cling to Vito and say they only want to thank him for saving their lives. "But you should go look in a mirror. Seven years asleep. Your muscles have wasted down to nothing, and you're paler than a body in the morgue. Looking like that, who exactly do you think you're going to seduce?" My mouth opened. Something heavy sat in my throat, and nothing came out. A nurse pushed the door open, took one look at the scene, and hurried to smooth it over. "Miss Bellini, the patient only just woke up. Her neurological function hasn't fully recovered yet, and she'll say confused things sometimes. Please don't hold it against her." Nora glanced at her and lifted her chin. "Fine. She's a patient. I won't hold it against her." I lowered my head and let my hair hide the tears rising in my eyes. My voice came out dry. "I'm sorry. My head hurts. I wasn't making any sense. "I followed Mr. Ranieri's work before I entered the cryonics trial. I've admired his research for years, so seeing him on television got me worked up." Only then did Nora's expression ease. She raised the camera again. "You look like you're doing well. Your file says you were frozen for seven years. Have you managed to reach your family yet?" The second the question landed, I felt like someone had pulled the bones out of my spine. I sagged back against the headboard. Seven years had passed and my body hadn't changed at all. Even my skin still belonged to a woman in her twenties. But traffic streamed across the overpass outside my window. New towers had gone up in the financial district. Even the little pothos on my windowsill had gone from a cutting to long trailing vines. Everyone else had kept living, right on schedule. Only I hadn't changed. A ghost the years had ground to pieces. To the public, the institute was a charitable medical organization, founded with money raised by the Lucchese family's financial group. Nearly all of that funding came out of the family's underground businesses, which meant every major decision still went up to the family's leadership for approval. So alongside the research it announced to the world, the institute also developed drugs for the family and provided private treatment to its members. The year Vito and I married, he was already the youngest researcher there. At twenty-six, the Don had personally authorized him to run his own biological laboratory. I was a racer with a bit of a name on the West Coast. I'd won plenty of underground meets. The first time we met, his car broke down on the way to a family council session and his driver was sweating through his shirt. I put Vito on the back of my motorcycle and carried him across three bridges to get him there. Watching him hold the room and talk about his work, I fell without meaning to. When we first got together, everyone said we didn't match. His mother, Giulia, even asked to speak with me alone, and made it clear between the lines that a woman like me shouldn't imagine she could hitch herself to a man with Vito's future. I came home crushed. Vito took both my hands and held them tight, and his eyes didn't waver. "Lina, don't listen to any of them. "In this life, you're the only one I'll ever choose." After we married, he said a serious researcher had to stay focused, and that going public with a marriage too soon would only create noise. So we kept it a secret for three full years. Back then I thought it was romantic. A private contract that belonged to the two of us and nobody else. Chapter 2 Later, at a prenatal appointment, they found the cancer. The biotechnology of the time couldn't save my life. When the results came back, his eyes were red and his knuckles white around the report. "Lina, I've been screened. My sperm motility is below normal. You conceiving at all is a piece of luck we may never get again. I'm begging you, don't terminate. Just delay treatment for a while. "Don't worry. I've led the human cryonics program for six years. The day a cure exists, I'll wake you myself." So I was moved into the Lucchese family's private medical center. I bore down through the worst pain of my life and delivered a baby boy, and I had time for one look at him, just long enough to fix the small red mole at the corner of his right eye in my memory, before they wheeled me into the chamber. And now Vito had a new wife. A new home. Everything I gave up had turned into a joke. The tears finally came, without a sound, striking the sheet and spreading into dark circles. Nora sighed and pulled a tissue out of her bag for me. "Everyone in your trial group was connected to the family somehow. There were only three of you, and for the other two, the relatives showed up at the center the same day they were revived. Don't take it too hard. Get your strength back and go home with your family." My heart cramped. I shook my head. "I don't think I have a family anymore." Nora's hands paused. Something like pity crossed her eyes and vanished. She put an embossed business card into my hand. "Then that's rough. If you ever need help with anything, call me." She started packing up her equipment. I watched her back and heard myself speak. "Could I come see your house?" Nora turned around, openly surprised. I closed my fist until my nails bit into my palm. "I'd like to thank Mr. Ranieri in person. He's the reason I'm alive." Nora thought about it, and a tolerant smile touched her mouth. "Sure. He should be finishing up soon. Come with me." The car went through three electric gates before it reached the main house of the Lucchese estate. The villa was old-fashioned, gray brick under a coat of deep-winter ivy. I followed Nora inside. In the warm light of the entryway, dead center in my line of sight, hung an enormous family portrait. Vito was wearing a cream knit sweater with one arm around Nora, and both of them were beaming. In front of his knees stood a small boy in a school uniform. There was a red mole at the corner of the boy's right eye, and the instant I saw it my heart lurched. By the window, a corgi lay sprawled on a wool rug in the sun. "Sit wherever." Nora tossed her bag onto the console table and went over to rub the dog's ears. "Buddy. We've got company." I looked at that dog and felt myself drop through ice. The year we married, I said I wanted a dog. Vito drew those heavy brows together and said his work was too demanding, that a dog was a lot of trouble, that he was afraid I couldn't carry it alone and he wouldn't have time to take any of it off me. He promised that once things eased up, we'd get one together. So I let it go. In the three years that followed, we never did. Only now did I understand. It had never been that he couldn't. He just found it inconvenient, and he didn't want to do it for me. Nora opened a can of dog food for Buddy. My eyes drifted to the photo album on the coffee table, and my hands shook as I opened it. It was all their life together. Vito walking the beach with Nora. Vito knotting a scarf at her throat on the deck of a yacht. Vito in the estate kitchen making her a birthday cake. He was smiling so gently in every single one. He looked so happy. When he was with me, he was always busy. Too busy to sit through one whole dinner with me. Too busy to remember a single anniversary. Busy enough that I went to every prenatal appointment alone. I told myself that was simply the kind of man he was. Focused. Cold on the surface. Bad at saying things. So I carried all of it myself, so that he could concentrate on his work. And all my self-sufficiency had done was teach him to accept everything I gave without a second thought. Nora made a call, and a sweet smile spread over her face. "Vito, the patient you saved came to thank you. Come home early today." His voice came through the receiver, and even down a copper line I could hear the affection in it. "All right, sweetheart, I'll be back soon. "I'll pick up that cake you like on the way." Nora hung up and gave me a bright smile. "He's well into his thirties and he's still clingy. Two years ago the Don wanted to send him to Chicago for a stretch, and he turned it down. Said his wife and son needed him around, and that no matter how busy work gets, a man comes home." Something twisted in my chest, and bitterness flooded my mouth. For me, business trips were routine. He'd be gone half a month at a stretch, and he wouldn't so much as call. Chapter 3 When I used to ask whether he missed me, he'd say, "Lina, love is something you carry in your heart. It doesn't need to be said out loud all the time." There was noise at the front door, and a small, piping voice rang through the house. "Mamma! I'm home!" The little boy came running in with his backpack still on and buried himself in Nora's arms. She bent and caught him and kissed his cheek. "You're home, baby. Were you good at school today?" He hung off her neck. "Of course I was! They gave out chocolate pudding at school and I brought mine home for you! "I know it's your favorite." I stared at the red mole beside his right eye, and I couldn't stop shaking. The same place, the same color, exactly as I had memorized it after the delivery, right before they closed the chamber. This boy was plainly the child I had nearly killed myself to bring into the world. And he called Nora "Mamma" so easily, so fondly, as though she were the woman who bore him. The nanny took him upstairs to change out of his uniform. I wrestled with it for a long time before I could force the words out. "He doesn't look much like you." Nora sighed, and her face didn't change at all. "The poor thing's had a hard start. His birth mother died right after she delivered him. Vito and I didn't want him growing up hurt by that, so we've always told people he's mine. He's been with me since before he can remember, and as far as he's concerned I'm the only mother he's ever had." My fingers closed around the arm of the sofa until the knuckles went white. My son didn't merely fail to recognize me. He had never been told a birth mother existed at all. In seven years of memory, there was no such person as me. Nora got up and headed for the kitchen. "Stay put. I'll squeeze you some orange juice." I noticed how clumsy she was with the knife. It took her ages of fiddling before the juicer finally started to hum. She laughed at herself, a little embarrassed. "I don't really do housework. We used to keep a chef, but I'm a picky eater, so Vito taught himself to cook. He does every meal now. "He's honestly good at it. I'll make him show off later so you can try some." Every word ground against something raw in my chest. My stomach used to be bad. I'd wake before dawn with cramps. There were nights the pain sweated straight through my pillowcase, and I bore it in silence because I was afraid of waking Vito and ruining his next day at work. For the years we were together I cooked him something different every day. I always thought his research wore him out, so I never let him near the kitchen, never let him take on a chore, and handled every last thing myself. Three whole years, and I never even learned that he could cook. I never tasted a single thing he made. Nora brought the juice over and teased me as she handed it across. "I always assumed a research type like Vito had to be rigid and dull. Then we got together and it turns out that when he decides to be romantic, he's lethal." She took out her phone and scrolled her photos to show me. In one of them Vito stood in a loud Hawaiian shirt under the neon of Coachella, glow stick up, laughing without a shred of restraint. "Last year work was crushing me, so he dragged me out to California. He went wilder than I did." She kept swiping, and a photo of their marriage certificate came up. The date was March 15, seven years ago. The third month after I was frozen. That was when he married someone else. Nora colored a little. "It's a funny story, actually. We met through work. Vito came in for a magazine interview and I was shooting his cover. "I'd just come out of a relationship, I was in a bad place, and I had no interest in dating anyone. "He didn't care. He came by my studio every single day and told me it was love at first sight. We got married two months after we met." Something enormous closed around my heart and squeezed until I could barely draw breath. He had been chasing her while I was barely settled in the chamber. The sweet talk, the reckless heat of the pursuit, all of it happened after I went under. That beautiful picture he'd painted, the one where he and our child waited for me to open my eyes and we were a family again, had been a lie he laid down in advance. Chapter 4 Once I was frozen, he got to start a new life with everyone's blessing. And the child I delivered was right there for the new wife to raise as her own, so she never had to suffer through a pregnancy at all. The sweetness in her face gave way to a trace of loneliness. "Honestly, if I hadn't met Vito, I don't know what I would have done. "My father was a made man in the family. He was killed by an accident in the middle of a job. The Don paid for me to finish college, then brought me back to work as a photographer and shoot for everyone. "Even after I came back, nothing seemed to go right for me. It wasn’t until I met Vito that my life finally began to improve. "He really is a great researcher. He pulled off a miracle nobody had managed before." She seemed to still be somewhere in the memory, and the room went quiet. A miracle. My chest was so tight I could barely pull air through it. That miracle had never been his alone. And only two people alive knew the truth behind it. A run of laughter broke the silence as the boy came back into the living room in his play clothes and glued himself to Nora's leg. Nora shook off the memory and patted him, smiling. "Sullivan, be good. Go play with the dog for a bit and let Mamma talk to our guest." He leaned up and pecked her cheek. "Okay! Mamma's the best!" Her whole face creased with the smile. I turned away and didn't dare look any longer, terrified I wouldn't be able to hold back what was already rising. Dusk poured in through the windows, and a violet-gold light lay across the floor like a wound that had split open. Seven whole years. I had missed the first time he rolled over, the first time he walked, the first time he said "Mamma." The kisses and the small clinging affection he gave Nora were supposed to be mine. And here I sat, an uninvited stranger. The boy caught me watching him, and his eyes went wary all at once, like a wolf cub standing over its food. "Are you another one of the bad ladies who wants to steal my papa?" I froze. I couldn't believe what I'd heard. "I heard Mamma say it to Mrs. DeSantis next door. Women are always trying to get their hands on my papa." He said it like he was reciting a case. "Well, I'm telling you it's not happening. My papa only loves my mamma. "Even that old wife my papa used to have knew to die early so my mamma could have her spot." Nora gave his ear a light pinch. "Sullivan. That's not polite." She didn't actually discipline him. She just laughed and steered him toward the garden. "Go on. Buddy's waiting for you." He made a face at me and ran off. I watched him go, and my chest filled with crushed ice, with a cold wind pouring in through every gap. Nora laughed. "Kids say things without knowing what they mean. Don't take it to heart." I shook my head and managed something like a smile. "It's fine." That was when the front door opened and Vito's voice carried in, warm with good humor. "Nora, I'm home. "The underboss heard one of the patients came by to thank me and came along. He wants to see what she looks like now." His voice broke off. I stood up slowly and turned around. The moment our eyes met, every trace of color drained out of Vito's face. There was a storm behind his pupils and his lips shook, but not one syllable made it out. Behind him came a man's easy, good-natured voice. "Vito, this is your patient? It's unbelievable. She's in this kind of shape after revival? The trial was a real success." Nora went to greet him. "Welcome, sir. Please, come sit down. "Vito, why are you just standing there? Say something." I looked at Vito, and a bitter smile pulled slowly at my mouth. "Surprised to see me, my dear husband? "Your dead wife came all this way to see how well you've been doing."