Fading Snow, Long Island

The heir to the Vitale family gave me thirty thousand dollars a month to be his mistress—all to get back at my mother. I needed the money. And secretly, I’d always loved him. So I let him humiliate me. Later, during a heavy snowfall, he made me kneel at the funeral of my love rival’s mother. That was when I finally let go. Enzo asked, “You think leaving New York will solve all your problems?” I answered, “It won’t solve them, but at least I won’t have to see you.” For that, he trashed the immigration agency that was helping me leave the country. Chapter 1 Enzo Vitale hated my mother with a passion. It started when he was sixteen. He and the school’s golden girl, Valentina Ross, were accused of bullying and drug use. The scandal ripped through every private high school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. My mother was the academic dean. She ran the school with an iron fist, especially when it came to student conduct. So she gave them a public reprimand. She even posted the written notice on the main bulletin board at the school entrance, where every parent, tourist, and Upper East Side socialite could see it. She wrote: “Enzo Vitale and Valentina Ross have displayed extremely improper behavior—not only bullying classmates but also skipping school to do drugs in a hotel room.” Except they hadn’t. They never bullied anyone. They never did drugs. Classmates could have testified: they’d just cut class to go watch Roman Holiday at the AMC theater. But my mother stood by her decision. She’d always treated problem students like dangerous pests—better to kill a hundred innocent than let one guilty go, better to overcorrect than give them any breathing room. Poor Valentina was whispered about endlessly. Some called her a slut. Someone even wrote worse things on her locker with a marker. She was a good student with a clean record. Her reputation was destroyed. Valentina’s mother was furious. One day she stormed into the school and yanked Valentina by the hair, demanding she withdraw. I remember that day clearly. The sun was blinding. My mother stood at the front of the classroom, her face stern, teaching. Enzo burst out of the classroom and ran downstairs to save Valentina. As he passed the classroom door, he shot my mother a vicious glare. And then he glared at me, too. The boy’s once-beautiful blue eyes were dark as a stormy sea, like a blade slicing into my heart. Years later, he still looked at me that way in bed. “Lucia Moretti,” he’d murmur, like a curse. “If your mother knew her sweet daughter was lying under me, my mistress… do you think she’d drop dead?” I’d curl up in pain, tears blurring my vision. He’d lean close and answer his own question: “No. Because she’s the one who put you here—to save her precious son.” After I became Enzo’s mistress, he paid me thirty thousand dollars a month. That was enough to keep my brother Marco’s dialysis going—ten times a month. Marco had been diagnosed with uremia right after his college entrance exams. The treatment cost a fortune. For my family, it was a thunderbolt. My mother had already been fired from her dean job for bullying students. My father worked a blue‑collar job. There was no way we could afford it. I’d just graduated from Hunter College with a degree in English literature. No high‑paying job in sight. One day, my father texted me: “Lucia, you’re pretty and young. You should be able to attract a rich man. Your brother only has one life. Please save him.” When I read that, my heart broke. Because I was the older sister, I had to sacrifice myself? I couldn’t believe a father could be like that. No way. But when I got home, all I heard was crying. My mother sobbing, my father wailing. Their silence screamed: We raised you for over twenty years. What’s a little sacrifice? Marco was my own blood. Could I really let him die? So when Enzo texted me, “Thirty thousand a month. Plaza Hotel, suite 6908,” I replied with one word: “Okay.” Chapter 2 The truth is, I didn’t become Enzo’s mistress just because of Marco. There was also a kind of atonement. For my mother’s sins. And for my own. My sin: one spring in high school, I made the mistake of falling for him. It was April. The plane trees in Manhattan were just budding. We all wore the same dark blue blazers and khakis. But Enzo Vitale in a crowd? Always the best‑looking. Dark curly hair. Blue eyes like the Mediterranean. When he smiled, the corners of his eyes tilted up like they were holding starlight. He was the heir to the Vitale crime family. I was just a dean’s daughter. I should have kept my distance. But every time I saw him, those green shoots I’d tried to suppress grew wilder. One PE class, free period. Enzo was playing basketball in the gym. I sat in the bleachers pretending to read a book, but I was watching him from the corner of my eye. My palms were sweaty. I felt like I was sitting on a cloud. Suddenly a cheer erupted from the court. His team had just hit a three‑pointer. I sat up straighter and glanced down—and my eyes met his. For those few seconds, time stopped for me. Then—thwack—a basketball hit the back of his head. He winced, clutching his head. His handsome face scrunched up like an angry cat. And he had no idea. He looked around nervously, hoping no one had seen. Then he looked up at me in the bleachers and fake‑threatened: “Hey. You didn’t see anything, right?” “Huh?” I hugged my book, dazed. He grinned. His blue eyes curved into crescents, as if they’d gathered all the spring light in the world. He lowered his voice and mimicked Men in Black: “Forget what you just saw. One, two, three—bingo!” He pointed his fingers like a memory‑eraser and pretended to shoot me. Right in the heart. I started a diary. I wrote down everything about Enzo Vitale. His eyes. His laugh. His long fingers when he shot a basket. The way his collar sat open when he wore dark blue. But my mother found my diary. She screamed at me. Slapped me. Made me kneel for half the night. After that, she began watching Enzo like a hawk. In her eyes, he was a dangerous boy who would ruin my future. So when the rumor spread that Enzo and Valentina were bullies, my mother struck without hesitation. She came down on them hard. She wanted to make an example. For me. I knew she was warning me: study hard, or you’ll end up like them. Valentina was bullied by my mother herself and eventually transferred schools. Enzo became dark and silent. His grades were brilliant. He could have gone to an Ivy. Instead, he gave up studying in the U.S. and went straight to LSE in London. I vaguely knew his family was rich. But I never imagined how rich. The Morettis were just ordinary people from Brooklyn. The Vitales? One of the most powerful Mafia families in New York. Enzo’s father, Domenico Vitale, controlled port businesses up and down the East Coast. My first job after graduation was at a publishing group—one that the Vitale family had invested in. Then one day, he came to check on a new acquisition. He was wearing a dark gray Zegna suit. Platinum and diamond cufflinks. The boss and all the senior execs trailed behind him like planets around a sun. He passed my desk and stopped. “Lucia Moretti?” I was so happy to see him again. I looked up and smiled. His next sentence dropped me into an abyss. “Is your mother dead yet?” Chapter 3 After I became his mistress, he brought up my mother constantly. “Lucia,” he’d say, “you think I’d be with you if I didn’t have to get back at her?” I’d stay silent and take the humiliation quietly. At noon I’d make his favorite pasta. At night I’d be his gentle lover. I’d pre‑order the jazz vinyl he wanted. Maintain every suit, every watch, every cufflink, every tie. I was practically his full‑time housekeeper. My days were filled with him. Every morning I opened my eyes, there he was. He took me on business trips, too. I’d silently and efficiently manage everything for him. Sometimes, while reading documents, he’d suddenly pull me onto his lap. He’d bury his face in my hair and sigh softly: “So nice.” Outside the window, Manhattan rain. I’d almost believe we were in love. I thought he must have feelings for me. Why else would he kiss me in my sleep? So soft and light on the corner of my eye—like a mark on my heart. Why else would he call me obsessively every night I wasn’t there and demand we video‑chat to sleep? Why else would he take me to Paris? He held my hand down the Champs‑Élysées. A passerby asked in French what we were to each other. He glanced at me, blushing faintly, and said: “C’est ma copine.” “She’s my girlfriend.” When he wasn’t thinking about the past, we were happy. We could hold hands, hug, kiss, like any normal couple in the world. But when the past came back—everything shattered. “Lucia! Do you know how dirty this is? If I didn’t give you thirty grand a month, would you even stay?” “Your mother never deserved to be a teacher! She ruined a girl’s reputation! She destroyed someone’s life!” “Your parents don’t love you, don’t you know that? Why don’t you fight back? What I hate most about you is your spinelessness!” When he got worked up, he’d pull me toward the bed. I’d take his rage in silence, tears streaming down my face. Afterward, he’d always apologize. “If only you weren’t her daughter,” he’d whisper. Yeah. Being my mother’s daughter was my original sin. I thought if I atoned slowly, one day we’d reconcile. Then Valentina Ross came back. Valentina was gorgeous, bold, confident. The total opposite of me. I was meek, soft, always tiptoeing. She was bright, generous, fearless. After the school scandal, she transferred and studied art. Now she was a moderately famous painter in New York. Some said her fame was bought by her husband—a gallery owner twenty years older, whom she married after graduation. Then he cheated, and she filed for divorce immediately. The divorce was brutal. He hired the most expensive law firm in Manhattan, trying to leave her with nothing. So she came to Enzo. That night I’d already made dinner. Enzo took her call, dropped his fork, and walked out. I waited until ten. The pasta was cold, the cream sauce a stiff film. At midnight, Enzo came back. Reeking of alcohol. Lipstick stain on his shirt collar. “Were you with her all that time?” I tried to ask, but my voice shook. He slumped drunk on the sofa, his blue eyes hazy. “She was crying in my arms the whole time. I couldn’t push her away.” I looked at that beautiful, innocent face of his and felt a wave of tenderness. I held his face and said, seriously: “From now on, your arms are only for me. Okay?” I really did love him. We’d lived together for five years. I fell in love with Enzo Vitale. I knew I didn’t deserve him, but I couldn’t stop. Taking advantage of his drunkenness, I said those words with all the courage I had. But Enzo sobered up. His eyes sharpened, and he looked at me with a hint of disgust. “Lucia,” he said coldly, “don’t forget that I give you thirty thousand a month. Do normal couples need that kind of money? We were never a normal couple.” He paused, like a knife slowly cutting into my chest. “Don’t try to have both the money and the feelings. You don’t deserve it.” Chapter 4 I started seeing a therapist. In secret, at a small private practice on the Upper East Side. The doctor was famous—a rising star in psychology, they said. His fee was two hundred dollars for half an hour. I went once a week. The first month, my mother asked, “Did all thirty thousand come through?” I said, “Why?” She said, “It’s four hundred short.” I didn’t say I’d spent that four hundred on a therapist. My parents would only blame me for wasting money, ask why I didn’t use it to buy supplements for my brother. I stayed silent. For once, my mother didn’t push. She reached out and touched my red scarf. “This scarf is all shrunk, and you’re still wearing it? Take it off. Let me mend it for you.” It was deep winter. I wore a black down jacket and an old red scarf around my neck for warmth. Enzo laughed at me, said I treated that ugly scarf like treasure. I never told him my mother had knitted it. I always wore it. Trying to convince myself she cared about me. That day I took off the scarf and let her fix it. I was about to crawl into bed to warm up when Enzo called. His voice was low. “Come out. I’m waiting at your building entrance.” It had started snowing. My mother saw that Enzo was calling me and said nothing. She handed me an umbrella and told me to go. At least she had some pride left—she didn’t teach me how to please a man. Though that was ironic enough. Outside was freezing. I zipped my down jacket, wearing only thin wide‑leg pants. My legs were almost too cold to walk. Inside Enzo’s Maybach, the heat slowly brought my body back. He was silent and grim the whole ride. I asked where we were going. He laughed. “To atone.” The car stopped in front of a church on the Upper East Side. White flowers lined the entrance. It was Catherine Ross’s funeral. Valentina’s mother. People were coming and going. Valentina stood at the door in a black dress, tear‑stained. Enzo said quietly, “Back in high school, after your mother’s public reprimand, Catherine got so upset she had a gastric hemorrhage on the spot. Her health never recovered. Last week, she died of stomach cancer.” My heart pounded as I looked at Enzo. His blue eyes reflected the snowlight, cold as ice. “Go inside,” he said. “Kneel for her.” Inside the church, people whispered, fabrics rustled. Most visitors just bowed. But Enzo pulled me in, knelt, and lit incense. Then he stood and told me to kneel. I was wearing thin pants. My knees were already purple from the cold. I said I didn’t want to. “You have to kneel,” he said. “You’re kneeling for your mother. It’s what she owes.” He kept pushing. Valentina stood by, red‑eyed, staring daggers at me. Enzo gave his ultimatum: “If you don’t kneel today, we’re done. No more thirty thousand a month. Ever.” I knelt. My knees hit the marble floor with a dull thud. Everyone stared. I heard the sound of falling snow. And the sound of my heart breaking. Chapter 5 Later, when I told my therapist about it, I was calm. I even smiled a little bitterly. I’d knelt for maybe half a minute. But every second felt like a year. When I got home, I asked my mother, “Mom, did you fix my scarf? I want to wear it.” She was in the kitchen, tidying up. She didn’t answer. I went to my room to look for it. The scarf had been unraveled. It was just a pile of red yarn now. My mother said, “Marco’s scarf was too short, and I ran out of yarn. So I took yours apart to fix his. You can buy yourself a new one—it’s not like it was expensive.” Oh. Okay. But my heart hurt so much. All these years, knives had been scraping across it, wounding it till it bled from every side. That day, I held that pile of yarn, laughing and crying like a madwoman. My mother asked, “Is it really that big a deal? It’s just a scarf. You have money. You can afford to blow four hundred on a shrink!” I shot to my feet and screamed, “Am I your real daughter? Mom, don’t you know how awful you’ve been to me? Only Marco is your child, isn’t he? Isn’t he?!” For the first time in my life, I lost it. I flipped the dinner table. Plates and bowls crashed everywhere. “I’m done,” I said. “You can all pretend I’m dead!” I slammed the door and ran out. The cold wind and snow pellets stung my face, freezing my bones. I walked aimlessly through the snowy night. My phone rang non‑stop—Enzo demanding I come back to the apartment. I didn’t answer a single one. When I reached a small park, I realized I was barefoot. I’d lost my shoes somewhere. My soles were cut and bleeding from bits of ice. I sat on a park bench, clutching that unraveled red yarn, and sobbed. Later, in my therapist’s office, when I said “You can all pretend I’m dead,” I couldn’t help but laugh. “It felt so good,” I said. “When I said that, I realized—I am a person. Not someone’s daughter, not someone’s sister. A living, breathing person.” The therapist listened quietly. His glasses reflected the light. He looked unfamiliar but trustworthy. I went on: “That night I ran out into the snow and limped for a long time. Enzo kept calling; I blocked him. I walked onto the Queensboro Bridge and looked at the Manhattan skyline in the distance. And suddenly I forgot a lot of things.” “I remembered my grandma’s house near the Brooklyn Bridge. The cables looked like white gulls spreading their wings in the sun. I remembered little beautiful things, rising up from the darkness, one by one.” “I cried. Limping along, tears hot against the wind. And I realized: I’m not broken yet. There’s still so much good energy hidden inside me—it came out to save me just when I wanted to give up.” “So I decided not to die. I decided to live on my own. Far away from all of them.” The hourglass had run out. I looked at the time. “Oh, almost an hour. Sorry for taking so much of your time.” He was a famous therapist. Every second cost money. “Thank you for your help. I’ve really benefited. This is my last session. I can’t afford it anymore.” I smiled bitterly. I’d decided to leave Enzo. From now on, I’d live on my own salary. The therapist took off his glasses, revealing a pair of clear blue‑gray eyes. “Okay. Now the session is over. We’re no longer doctor and patient.” He smiled slightly. “Senior, do you remember me?”