Iesli, Italy

2009

She stood in the kitchen, waiting, wondering if she could really do this, if she could really poison a man. Fear and revulsion crawled along her nerves, up and down her spine. She remembered, then forcibly stopped herself from remembering and stirred the thickened tomato sauce again and turned the heat down to simmer. She could not let it burn. The meal had to be perfect, a perfect camouflage of her sinister intent. The kitchen was dark with oncoming night and steamy from her toil. Raphaella switched the light on. She'd tried so hard to be a good girl, always following her parents' direction. Not now. Not anymore. She was about to do something very bad. A sin certainly, but he had cast the first stone when he ...

She heard the front door open and Uncle Orsino grunt as he set down his briefcase and phone, and her doubt turned to certainty.

“I'm back here,” Raphaella called and turned the water pot on high.

The heavy thud of his footsteps came closer and closer. Raphaella allowed herself one full body shudder of revulsion before he reached the kitchen then desperation pasted a bright smile on her face.

“Something smells good in here,” Uncle Orsino smiled to see her still in her Catholic school girl uniform with it's short skirt on her long legs.

“I made meatloaf,” Raphaella said but there was no air in her lungs so barely any sound came out. She took a breath and coughed. “Meatloaf and I'm about to boil the campanelle.” She pointed to the tiny belleflower shaped pasta. It was all she could scrape together. He ate out most nights and didn't cook much at all, but now there was a woman in the house. Or at least a fourteen year old girl. “Wash your hands while I set the table.”

Her uncle grunted then left the room and Raphaella could breathe again. It had already been a long day, getting through school as though nothing had happened, was happening to her, even though her world, already turned upside down and inside out by her parents' death, was then turned inside out again by her uncle. She truly was alone in the this world now.

He was right, the meatloaf, sauce, and pie smelled delicious and the steaming salted water revived her. As soon as bubbles showed she poured in the dried pasta then whirled to set the table in the dining room complete with water glasses and a wine glass for Uncle Orsino. The great bear of a man, or pig as he now was in her eyes, came in and took his seat at the head of the table and nodded in appreciation of the wine. She made his plate first with two thick slices of meatloaf on a bed of campanelle covered in thick red sauce. She presented it with a flourish and a smile, careful to hide her despair and fear, then went back to make her own. He waited for her to take a bite before he took one. She felt distinctly odd forgoing grace. Her parents had raised her in fear of the Lord and in gratitude for life. Uncle Orsino had neither. Now she feared him and wanted only to reclaim her life as her own.

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The Catholic church and school ahd been her home all her life, yet they deserted her now in her hour of need. The large crucifixes hanging everywhere, that used to bring comfort and certainty, reminding her the Lord is everywhere, now seemed to mock her with her new knowledge that the Lord was nowhere. Uncle Orsino's large frame, bushy hair, and sighs and grunts filled the room.

Raphaella concentrated on forcing down her own small slice of meatloaf, noting the texture and spices turned out how she wanted them to, how her mother had taught her. The pasta was perfectly al dente.

“Do you want more? Or there's pie.”

“Pie?” Uncle Orsino asked in surprise.

“Yeah. We have to go shopping if you want salad and vegetables, but there was a can of pie filing and I know how to make dough.”

She cleared the dishes and cut two slices of latticed cherry pie onto dessert plates. Serving it with Lavazza coffee she'd put to brew while serving dinner.

Raphaella picked at the lovely slice of pie, fourteen years old, on the edge of womanhood, or now fully introduced to the horrors of womanhood one could say, she hardly wanted to put on weight. That wasn't the real reason she pushed the sticky bite around on her plate until Uncle Orsino noticed.

“Tastes good to me,” he said.

An actual positive word. Raphaella thought to herself then took a bite of the crust side. She slowly ate the crust then realized she needed to eat hers enthusiastically in order to get him to eat a second piece. So she did, licking the sweet red glaze off the fork slowly between bites.

Success! She got them both a second slice and a second cup. One slice ought to do it, two would definitely do it, she thought triumphantly as she cleared the dessert plates once Uncle Orsino left to go watch TV.

She headed for the upstairs bathroom and locked herself in before jamming two fingers into the back of her tongue and wasting that lovely meatloaf. She had to get the cherry pie out before she digested the heavy duty sedative she'd been given after her parents death for nightmares. But the reality here at her uncle's house was worse than any nightmare.

After rinsing her mouth and topping off Uncle's wine glass, Raphaella washed the dishes and briefly allowed herself to contemplate the butcher knife and what she wanted to do, what she'd dreamed of doing since … that night. What he truly deserved. It would show the world who he has, what he was. But no one would believe her. Her uncle was a fine upstanding man in the community. She was a hysterical orphan. She had no one she could trust, but her self.

Pretending to do homework in street clothes she waited on tenterhooks for her bedroom door to open. An hour went by, then two and she opened the door herself and padded down the hall to listen at Uncle Orsino's door to the rhythm of his slow even breathing.

She took her two smallish suitcases to the front door then returned to his room with only her handbag. She needed money. Cash. She wished to take a butcher knife to him but, she was no killer, even though he deserved to die for what he had done to her, how he betrayed the memory of his own sister! Tonight's work was enough sin on her soul. Eternal damnation for cold blooded murder could wait.

Raphaella opened his bedroom door and saw his wallet on top of his dresser and went for that, cash and credit cards. Then she opened the top drawer where his gold jewelry was and took the two necklaces and five rings.

He slept peacefully and she stumbled out of the house with a new sense of peace and freedom.