Chapter One: Isabelle
As I peer through the rain drops collected on the window. I think back to the memories of my life, and I come to realize that it doesn’t hold many happy ones. Ones that light up the darkness. Darkness. Not the kind that you can light a match to illuminate it so that you are able to see, to gain your bearings and regain focus. No. This is the kind of darkness that steals your vision even when your eyes are left fully open.
Leaning further to the side and pushing my cheek to the window to feel the cool glass against my it, I close my eyes and exhale. I’ve been in this room for five years now. This is the only space that is anywhere close to mine. Five years. One thousand eight hundred and twenty-six days. How do I know that? Easy because underneath this cushion I’m sitting on is an extensive list of tally marks, marking each and every day of being trapped in this gilded cage. Trapped in a marriage I never asked for or expected to be in. I understand the normal person would be grateful to live in a mansion with house staff and a person chef cooking them three meals a day. I look over to the closet sitting across the room that I know is full of designer clothes and shake my head. The thing about it is I did not ask to be here. Never even in my wildest dreams did I think I would be in a situation like this to begin with. Yes, situation, that’s what this is, or maybe, perhaps arrangement is a better word. Because that is what this marriage was arranged only, I had no prior knowledge. No warning no real kind of introduction to my intended. No nothing of the sort. Whereas most prearranged marriage couples know from an early age they will be married off and to whom I had none of that.
No my introduction to the thought of marriage was on my eighteenth birthday as I sat alone in my old room were the linoleum flooring was peeling up in the corners and the walled stained with the nicotine for the cigarettes my parents smoked, sitting on a threadbare mattress resting on the floor in the corner. I was holding the cupcake I managed to steal from the store on the end of the street. Ready for another year of singing happy birthday to myself and then curling up into myself with only a then blanket wrapped around me.
I never did get to sing to myself or even eat my cupcake. No. Instead the door to my closet of a room was kicked open and guys dressed in suits entered grabbing me under my arms and forcefully bringing me to my feet. When the darkness is at its thickest, I can still feel their hand tight around my arms and the loss of traction under my sock covered feet as I try to push back against them in a feeble attempt to keep them from dragging me out of my room. I can still see the look on my father’s face as he peers at me for the run down ripped up couch beer in hand line of what his favorite white power on the milk crate with a piece of wood across the top in front of him.
“Dad what is happening?” I try to keep my voice steady, but I am panicking. Why is he just sitting there allowing them to drag me closer and closer to the front door? As we pass him, I manage to look over my shoulder just in time to see him lifting his head from the table and smile at me.
“Well Isabelle my dear, you’re not mine anymore. I sold you. Thanks for taken care of my debt.”
They guys in the suits drag me outside toward the black car parked and running on the street and to this day I don’t know if it was the fact that I was in shorts and a wholly t-shirt in February with clouds looking like snow, or the cold emotionless words of my father that had my trembling and shaking harder than I ever had in my life.
That night I was whisked away and brought to a church where I was quickly showered dressed and presented to the man that I would be married too. Alessandro Bonetti. Don Alessandro Bonetti. The head of New Yorks biggest crime family since the Gambino’s.
A knock on the door pulls me from the thoughts that are going to lead me into the darkest of the dark places in my head. The day that my life was ruined, the day that any light, any hope was ripped away.
“Mrs. Bonetti?” I can never stop wincing when someone calls me that. I sigh.
“Yes. Mia?” Mia is a young girl barely legal I believe; she takes care of my quarters and helps me dress for dinner or events I need to attend. Since most meals are delivered to my room, I can only assume I am getting ready to be let out into the world for a brief time. She opens the door and finds me where she always does, sitting on the bench seat below the big bay window overlooking the back gardens of the house.
“Mr. Bonetti has requested you get dressed to attend a dinner.” I roll my eyes and I know she sees me even though she lowers her head to look at the floor. We both know this is not a request. At least not one I can turn down if I feel like being able to leave this room anytime in the future. Among other punishments I could receive for denying my husband dearest.
“Very well then, let us embellish the marionette.” Because let me be honest, I am a puppet pulled out of the closet every so often so he can pull my strings to dance and move how he requires. I stand and make my way to the bathroom so that I can shower.
“Go ahead. Get whatever he instructed you to put me in, I’ll bathe and be out in a few minutes.” Mia nods her head and does as she is told. I shut the door behind me, head to the shower and try to prepare myself for anything that may come.