Mother’s Day Survey

MOM'S FULL NAME: // Viviana Elaina Gataki. MOM'S MAIDEN NAME (IF APPLICABLE): // Viviana Elaina Vitale. WHAT YOU CALL(ED) HER: // Mom or momma, mama. HER AGE: // 55. HER JOB: // She is now retired. She used to own Every Last Detail, which is where I work now, but after my father’s cancer diagnosis, she took a step back and let me take over. She’s talked about potentially going into charity work, though, just hasn’t stepped into that fully. FOUR ADJECTIVES THAT DESCRIBE HER: // Loving, hard-working, determined, and generous. TALLER OR SHORTER THAN YOU?: // Definitely shorter. *HOW SHE MET YOUR DAD/FATHER FIGURE: // It’s an age-old story of a friend setting the two of them up on a blind date while they were in school. The two of them hated one another at first, but they were the very definition of “love and hate are a thin line”, because one kiss changed absolutely everything for them. She fell for my father quickly after that, even despite disliking the future he was set for. They’ve been married for 22 years now. *WHAT YOUR RELATIONSHIP IS/WAS LIKE: // Before my sister was killed, we were all very close to one another. After that, after I had to put my husband away for her murder and flee, we were still close, but not in the same way. We’ve always felt like there was a missing piece and it has really affected us. I mean, when your husband is the person who ““kills”” your sister, what is your mom supposed to say? Now that we’re back in the same state and we know that Leo did not actually kill Elia, it has eased a lot of the tension between us and we’re working on our relationship every single day. HER FAVORITE FOOD: // I get my love of pizza from her, 10/10. HER FAVORITE DRINK: // She’s wild about coffee, if this can be any drink. If it needs to be specifically alcoholic, the woman loves red wine that isn’t dry. *THE BEST THING SHE COOKS/COOKED: // Her baked ziti is the bomb dot com, though she only makes it once in a blue moon. It used to be my sister’s favorite, actually, so she hasn’t made it in quite a long time. I’m going to try to get some for our birthday this year, though, I think. *SOMETHING SHE LOVES/LOVED: // She loves to read, actually. She was the person who really got me into it, too. She’s into those awful romance novels that always have something a little spicy in them, if you catch my drift. It’s her dirty little secret. *HER FAVORITE PLACE: // Mom’s favorite place is probably her hometown in Italy, which is a small village on the Amalfi Coast called Positano. It’s absolutely beautiful and it’s also where she dragged my father for their honeymoon, too. She loves it there, especially because her parents still live there, even to this day, in a beautiful home. She definitely would go more than the once every two years she gets to, if she could get my dad to agree. HER FAVORITE COLOR: // Light purple, like the kind you see during a really pretty sunset. *HOW SHE DRESSES/DRESSED: // My mama dresses very nicely. She’s spent her years as a wedding planner for people all over New York City, so she’s had to invest in some nicer clothes. Mostly blazers, I believe, or prim and proper dresses that look professional. Whatever it is, though, she always rocks it. *HER HABITS OR HOBBIES: // She’s bad to hum when she’s walking around the house, that’s her only real “habit” that I can think of. Hobbies, though, the woman always has a book nearby or she actually also paints, too. I sketch, she paints, yanno. Totally runs in the family. She mostly likes abstract things, though, like feelings. *A MOVIE, SHOW, OR BOOK SHE LIKES/LIKED: // She is a huge, huge fan of the Crossfire book series. She says that it is 10x the series that Fifty Shades was, though she thinks Jamie Dornan is pretty sexy — her words, not mine. *SOMETHING SHE TAUGHT YOU: // She’s taught me to be myself, absolutely. She’s always preached that everyone else was taken, so I’ve always taken that to heart. She is also so unapologetically herself, too, even when her little Italian temper gets her into trouble. She’s a wonderful woman and I hope to be one, too. *SOMETHING SHE IS/WAS GOOD AT: // She’s always been really good at being the comforter, I guess. She’s got a way of just hugging me and making everything feel 10x better, even when the world feels like it’s falling apart. I definitely have needed that quite a few times in my life. *SOMETHING SHE ALWAYS SAYS/SAID: // She has always said “Sempre e per sempre” which roughly translates to “always and forever”. When we were little, we would say I love you and she would always say that in return, instead of “I love you too”. Always and forever is now my own personal saying, because yeah, I got it from my mama. *SOMETHING YOU DO/DID TOGETHER: // We’ve always shared a lot, simply because she and I are so alike. We share a love of dirty books and romance novels (and cheesy romcoms, as well). She also has a lot of input on what I do, too, because when I get stuck on a wedding, I turn to her and she’ll help me with that, too. *SOMETHING SHE LOVES/LOVED ABOUT YOU: // She says that she loves how fiercely loyal and protective I am of the people that I love, and how completely I love. I’ve always thought of that as a bad thing, but she thinks it’s something to be proud of. She says it makes me a better person (and I think she’s just saying that because she’s my mom). *SOMETHING YOU LOVE ABOUT HER: // I love how much she loves our family. Even after what happened to Elia and being separated, she tried to call my brother and I as often as she thought was safe and just check on us. After my son was born, she took a roundabout way to California under an alias to see him and me and make sure we had everything we needed. She is dedicated to us and to being the best mother and wife that she could possibly be and I love that about her. *A MEMORY OF HER THAT YOU HOLD DEAR: // My favorite memory with my mom is probably from before I got married to my husband. She and I and my sister, Elia, went to Italy together after we graduated from high school. On that trip, she told us that she loved us and that she was so, so proud of us and the women we had become. She also bought us both a dildo as a gag gift, since we were away from my dad, which was hilarious, too. It’s one of the best times that the three of us had together, which is why it’s my absolute favorite and why I cherish it so much.

Moodboard | Chicago Journey

“Even the best laid plans turn to hell when exposed to reality.” — Michael Anthony

Drabble | What If?

Stella stared at the drawing her son had brought her only moments ago. He’d had a school assignment that included drawing his family, so he’d included her and him and then her parents, her brother, and Arianna and her daughter, Adelaide, as well as Arianna’s pregnant belly. It was not the life that the blonde had imagined for herself, since there were at least two or more people missing from the drawing.

Orion’s father, Leo, had recently come barreling back into her world and she’d been considering allowing him to meet his son, but she hadn’t made a concrete decision about it yet. This drawing, though… Orion had a father, one who could love him and fill in at least one of these blanks.

Stella breathed out a harsh sigh, shaking her head. She wondered just how different her life could be if things had been different. If Leo had known about the first child, the one she’d lost… if he’d never held her sister at gunpoint to begin with. He insisted that there was a reason, though he hadn’t yet told her what it was yet, unfortunately. But still…. what would her life be like now, if Frankie had survived?

A small smile lifted her lips as she thought about it. They’d have had their first child together when she was twenty years old — most probably a little girl, she thought. Olive, she thought, would’ve been her name. Leo had always loved the name Olive and she would have very easily given into the man she’d loved back then. She would have been absolutely terrified, though, so she’d have made Frankie come with them into the delivery room. She’d have grasped both her and Leo as she’d given birth to their first girl.

She and Frankie would have celebrated every single birthday together after that, of course, because that’s what twins did. She’d have worked at her mother’s company for years after she’d graduated college and, instead of her, Frankie would have opened a club with their brother, Dante. She would have continued to run it, even after he had to give it up to help when their father had gotten sick.

The biggest difference, though, would be that she was absolutely sure that she and Leo would still have been very happily married. Her continued love for him was more than proof of that — he was the love of her life, buried so deep inside of her heart that nobody could extricate him. Sure, she was sure they’d fight, because they were both so damned passionate, but they’d also love each other harder than any fight could break. They’d also have had Orion together. She wouldn’t have spent the first two years of his life in hiding and she surely wouldn’t have to stare at family drawings without him in them.

She was sure, too, that they’d probably be working on baby number three. She couldn’t help but smile because she knew that Frankie would be helping her now to plan out how she’d surprise him with the news that she was pregnant again. Probably something silly, like a present with a “big brother” on a t-shirt in Orion’s size.

A couple of tears fell from her eyes as she refocused on the present. It was a happier life than the one that she’d lived, she realized. She couldn’t bring her sister back, nor could she bring back the child she’d lost, even if she thought of them daily. It had been eight years but she hadn’t stopped hurting. It was hard, the idea of what could have been, had things been different. She’d missed out on so much because of it — she’d missed seeing her sister fall in love, be happy, and have children of her own. She’d missed being her maid of honor. She’d missed having a possible daughter, which she felt sure was what that first child would have been. She’d missed bumbling through those first few months with her husband; instead, she’d done so alone when Orion had come along. She couldn’t fix those things, she knew. They were still there and they always would be.

It was nice to think about the what ifs, the could’ve beens, because that was nicer, but it also hurt a lot more. She moved her chair, standing up and quickly walking out of the kitchen and away from the thoughts and the many, many things that haunted her.

Drabble | It’s A Love Story

We were both young when I first saw you I close my eyes and the flashback starts Things had gotten complicated for Stella Greyson. The blonde was staring at her sketchbook, seeing it but not really seeing it. Her mind was elsewhere, as it quite frequently was, at least lately. Leo’s return to her life had left her feeling adrift in a sea of emotion. Some days, she was drowning in the fact that she still loved him more than was probably healthy. Other days, she dreaded the fact that she knew he would text her because she wasn’t sure she should want him to. And every new day that she received that text message was another day that she was plagued by the question of whether or not she should introduce him to his son -- their son, the one he wasn’t even aware of. She knew there were a million reasons why she shouldn’t, but at the same time… there were a dozen why she should, starting with their past and just how much she’d loved him. As her attention shifted to the city outside her office window, she took a soft breath and closed her eyes, letting her mind transport her through a slideshow of their past. See the lights, see the party, the ball gowns See you make your way through the crowd And say, "Hello" Little did I know The night that she’d met Leo, they’d been at the same party. She was eighteen years old, a recent high school graduate. She and Frankie had never been to one of these before, though; only ever her parents and her older brother, because it was with the family; the Italians, the men that her father did the most business with. She was wearing a long, floor-length black dress, her hair up, for once, in some kind of complicated updo that her mom had done for her. Her sister was dressed in the opposite outfit: white dress, her hair down. The two of them were total knockouts, which was why Estella hadn’t been at all shocked when one of them was scooped up automatically; a young man came up to Frankie quickly, asking her to dance. Estella had worried, briefly, that she would suffer the opposite fate… but then, she’d seen him. The black suit had hugged his arms in exactly the right way and he’d carried an aura of authority with him as he’d crossed the room, even back then. When he’d made it to her, he gave her what she would come to find out was his signature little smirk, which had her melting into him in an instance. “Hello, I’m Leo Moretti. May I have this dance?” Of course, she said yes and let him lead her to the dance floor. She would spend the rest of that night letting him twirl her around. And my daddy said, "Stay away from Juliet" But you were everything to me I was begging you, "Please don't go.” The blonde had never expected that night to turn into what it did: a relationship. She snuck him into her family home more often than one would expect that summer and fall, falling deeper and deeper into the man who’d asked her to dance. It was on one of those days that her father came home early and everything came crashing down. He found the two of them in bed, together. Her father had absolutely flipped, yelling about wanting him gone as quickly as possible and about him staying the hell away from his daughter. Stella tried to argue, saying that she was a grown woman, but her father wasn’t having any of it. Instead, Egan Gataki pulled a gun and held it towards Leo’s head until he’d hurriedly gotten dressed and ran out the door. Stella was crying the entire time that he couldn’t fucking do that, but then Leo was gone. There was a time after that where she could barely stand to be in the same room as her dad, embarrassed and angry at what he’d done. Romeo, save me, they're trying to tell me how to feel, This love is difficult, but it's real It was weeks later when she finally got out of the house alone. She met Leo at a bar in Manhattan that night, using his name to get herself in. The two of them didn’t stay there long, heading somewhere private for the biggest part of their evening. It was that night, with her head laid across his chest, that she first told him she loved him. She was listening to the sound of his heartbeat in the darkness, her thoughts on her family and how much they didn’t like him or the criminal ties that he was involved in. Her dad had never wanted her to get involved with the family business and this was her doing exactly that, only in a way he’d never expected. He couldn’t control it or her, though. “He wants me to stay away from you,” she’d whispered into the darkness, fueled by the twin beats of their hearts and a wave of emotion she couldn’t push away. “But I don’t think I can do that. This isn’t going to be easy, but I love you, Leo Moretti.” He’d simply rolled her onto her back after that, kissing her in a way that made it obvious he was both claiming her and telling her that he loved her, too. Romeo, take me somewhere we can be alone I'll be waiting, all there's left to do is run You'll be the prince and I'll be the princess It's a love story, baby, just say “Yes” In early January of the following year, it was first suggested that they get married. They were laying in bed again; Stella was listening to the beating of his heart, his fingers gently running through her blonde locks. She was pretty sure that he was almost asleep, too, but the words fell out, anyway. “I wish we could run away together,” Stella said, her voice extra loud in the calm of the room. His fingers paused, then, and her eyes shifted up to meet his, nerves rolling through her as she waited for what he’d say. “Where would we run to?” he’d asked. “A courthouse,” she’d answered, her voice barely above a whisper. The nerves in her belly, which had been butterflies before, had now turned into wasps as she waited to see what he’d say. “A courthouse,” he repeated. She’d simply nodded as an answer. “You want to marry me, princess?” he’d wondered, then. “I want to be able to call myself your wife,” she’d murmured back. “If you want that, I mean.” He’d shifted then, so his blue eyes could meet her own. She chewed at her lower lip as she tried to assess the expression he wore. “Kitten,” he’d begun, “I’d like nothing less.” They’d kissed, then, making silent promises to one another. 'Cause we were both young when I first saw you Stella was crying, she realized, when she felt the first tear drop from her chin. Her hand moved, catching the next few that fell from her eyes. The memories were hard for her to handle because she knew how it had ended. He’d killed her sister and then she’d sent him to prison. But love like that, the kind that burned that brightly… it was hard to kill. She knew, having seen him again, that hers had never died. That terrified her. He’d consumed her once and she knew that she might just let him consume her again.

Drabble | Window Into The Past

The test would take a couple of minutes, the box said. That meant that Stella had several moments to consider all of the choices that had led up to this moment. First, she’d gone home to New York, which had been risky enough. Then, she’d run into her husband — the man she’d sent to prison four years ago. The moment their eyes had met, she’d wanted to puke. She’d been avoiding him since she’d left New York when she was twenty years old and, not even twenty-four hours after she’d landed, she’d run into him again. Not to mention, the man shouldn’t have even been out of the prison cell she’d sentenced him to. But, he’d been out and about in Brooklyn for God knew what.

What had happened next, well… she couldn’t regret it, even if it left her feeling so conflicted that she couldn’t think straight. Leo had been the love of her life, after all. Even after she’d spent years trying to get over him, falling into him had been second nature. As soon as his lips had met her own, all bets had been off. The truth was, they hadn’t done a lot of talking after that, which was okay with her. She didn’t want to think about the fact that she was supposed to hate him now, the fact that he’d killed her sister. Instead, she’d let him make love to her time and again that night. Then, when she’d woken up the next morning, she’d run away, scared that he’d change his mind and want to kill her for putting him away, instead. After all, she’d spent her life running while he’d rotted away.

It had been two months since then and she’d been sick for a couple of days, very similar to what had happened the last time that she’d been pregnant. So, she’d sent her brother off to work today and told him she’d be fine. Then, she’d run out to a pharmacy and bought herself a pregnancy test.

She was nervous, which was not helping the nausea, she’d admit. But God, what would she do if it came back positive? Stella didn’t know. It wasn’t like she could just prance back to New York and tell Leo that she was pregnant with their baby; the very idea of that scared the hell out of her. For all she knew, he was actively looking for her now and she couldn’t tell you if that was good or bad.

She also wasn’t sure she could tell her brother whose child it was, either. Her family wouldn’t understand that she loved Leo, no matter what he’d done. For that matter, she didn’t understand how she could, either, but damn it, that man had always been under her skin and nothing had changed. If she’d learned anything from this, it was that she would always love him, even if she wasn’t sure she wanted to. That’s why all of her attempts had failed; her heart still belonged to him.

She jumped when the timer she set went off, her eyes sliding immediately to the test at the other end of the counter as though it was a snake that would jump up and bite her.

“You can do this,” she whispered softly. “No matter what it says, it’s going to be okay, Stell. You’ll figure it out.”

With that, the blonde took a deep breath and stepped forward. It was a slow crossing of the room. When she leaned over to read the screen and saw those two little lines, everything stopped, including her breathing for a moment.

Then, she released a soft little squeal into the silence surrounding her. Her hand slid to her stomach, resting over it as excitement raced through her. That was something she hadn’t expected, she admitted — her nerves were all over the place, but this baby… it was hers. And damn it, she’d lost one already, she would do everything in her power to keep this one safe and happy. There were so many questions in her mind, ones she’d have to eventually figure out the answer to, but for right this minute she let herself just be happy that a little baby was growing inside of her. 

“No matter what happens next, momma loves you,” she whispered softly to her belly.

Moodboard | Stella

“Did you really think she was a tender flower you could trample upon, and damage her very soul? She is wildfire. And she is coming to devour you whole.“ — Nikita Gill