Five years Ago
As we waited for the outcome, my mother and I sat together in silence. Then she spoke, her voice laced with curiosity.
"It’s strange," she murmured. "The Don coming to our home? Even if you were the one getting married, it should have been your father who went to his house. This… this is a sign of great respect toward our family."
I glanced at her, surprised. My mother and I had always had a complicated relationship—a love-hate dynamic, a result of the fact that she had always wanted a son. Instead, she got me. That disappointment lingered in her, always somewhere beneath her words, her glances, and the way she treated me.
But ever since talks of my engagement to the Don’s son began, something shifted inside her.
For the first time in my life, she actually paid attentio
