For the Empire - Inganno

Chapter 31

STELLA/CHARMAINE

"Miss! Miss!"

Someone taps my shoulder, and I turn to my side and find a little old woman is smiling kindly up at me. "Yes?"

"I think they're calling you, sweetie." She points to the open window with a postal office worker, who's waving me over. I turn back to thank her and make my way over to the open window.

Today is the first day I've been out since everything changed, for the second time in my life.

My Uncle kept insisting on someone coming with me until I told him I changed my mind, that I didn't want to go out after all, but Tony convinced him to let me go out on my own.

But I'm not stupid; I know someone is tailing me; he would never let me go without some sort of security detail.

Everyone has been checking on me daily, almost religiously. Carmela has made sure I eat something every day, even if I can only bring myself to eat once a day. The first week, she would even come in to help me bathe or shower and change my clothes each day.

My Uncle, Tony, Joey, and Tobias, rotated on checking on me throughout the day. And then there was JP; he was sleeping with me at night due to the nightmares that would wake me up, screaming, in the middle of the night, sometimes several times a night.

My dad's funeral was held a week after he was found. Uncle Timo wanted to give me time to be able to come to terms with what happened for me to sit through the service.

From what I can remember, it was a nice service, though it was a bit of a blur for me, if I'm honest. Unfortunately, due to obvious reasons, we couldn't have an open casket.

I remember I had cried out for my dad as they lowered his casket into the ground. The finality of him leaving me behind hit me hard at that moment. The pain of the reality that I would never hear his voice, his laugh, or be held in his arms, comforting me in the way only a dad could, was more than I could handle.

Various people came to pay their respects to my dad and offered their condolences to me, and I sat watching as several in attendance walked by, picking up clumps of dirt and tossed it onto his coffin.

I was told my dad would talk about me and how proud he was of me. Some also told me he trained and taught them life-saving skills and encouraged them to enjoy the little things in life and find joy and love in life and, most importantly, to hold on to it with all that you had.

"Miss, did you hear me?"

I snap out of my thoughts and look at the postal worker, who gives me an annoyed look; she realizes I didn't hear what was said and now has to repeat herself.

"The request to expedite your application for your passport will require an additional rush service fee. How would you like to pay?"

"Cash."

I proceed to give her the payment necessary to complete the transaction. The program I had enrolled in, in Paris started the same week as the funeral, and with everything that happened, my Uncle wanted me to postpone my leaving. He later told me he had made arrangements for me to take the program during the fall season.

But I still wanted to make sure I took care of my passport, just in case I could go sooner. Annalisa had also postponed the trip she had planned for California when she found out about my dad. She told me the ticket she gifted me was an open ticket, and I could use it whenever I was ready to go before the validity date.

As I make my way to the exit, I bump into someone, or they bump into me, I'm not sure, since I wasn't paying attention. I mutter an apology, but I'm grabbed by my arm and positioned next to an open station, where several people are filling their address slips to send out with packages.