Read Online The Mimosa Tree by Antonella Preto - Free Book Online

buy Siena’s groceries or shoes or whatever she desperately needed that week. Eventually, things settled down and they started getting ahead, and everyone relaxed. Then one day, Siena announced that Robert had invested their savings in a drive-in cinema. Everyone thought he was crazy; no one was going to the drive-ins any more, especially now that everyone could watch movies on VHS. There were tears and threats and late night phone calls and everyone expected things to end badly, but just the opposite happened – not only did the cinema do well, but a few years later property prices skyrocketed and he sold it for a huge amount of money. He invested that money in another business and made even more money. They’ve been loaded ever since. Robert stopped trying to hide that he thought he was betterthan us. And we saw less and less of Siena.
    â€˜Money, big house and no husband,’ snorts Via. ‘Sounds to me like she’s won the lotto.’
    Mum puts a hand on Via’s smoking hand so that it’s trapped against the table. ‘Via, the money is gone. ’
    â€˜What are you talking about, Sofia?’
    â€˜Robert!’ she says. ‘He lost a lot of money in a business investment.’
    â€˜How much money?’
    Mum holds onto the table and leans in. ‘They have to sell the house. ’
    â€˜He lost the house? ’ says Via, and now they are clutching each other across the table, joined in mutual despair. A woman without a husband is one thing, but a woman without a house?
    â€˜She said she was going to a hotel,’ says Mum. ‘A hotel! ’ And now she really starts crying. Mum has never been to a hotel in her life, but has watched enough movies to know that only criminals and adulterers stay at hotels.
    â€˜Dear God!’ says Via to the god in our ceiling. ‘Has it come to this? My sister in a hotel? ’ It seems Via has similar concerns about women in hotel rooms.
    â€˜She could live here?’ I say, hopefully. I can easily imagine Siena and me in my bedroom, eating Tim Tams and listening to the radio all night.
    â€˜Yes, you could put her in the roof, ’ says Via.
    â€˜We have no room,’ agrees Mum.
    â€˜I could move out, then she could have my room,’ I suggest and I start to imagine what this would be like. A big house all to myself, pizza and two-minute noodles for every meal, mystereo screaming beautiful music all day long and not a single broom, vacuum cleaner, sponge or dust buster to bother me.
    â€˜All right,’ says Via dropping her cigarette into her cup and it sizzles in the remaining slurp of coffee. ‘I will get her old room ready at my house.’
    â€˜Oh Via, do you mean it?’
    â€˜It’s not forever, Sofia,’ she says, walking to the sink and scrubbing furiously. ‘Siena must learn to look after herself. We can’t keep saving her.’
    â€˜Thank you, Via. Thank you.’
    â€˜She can stay for a month. But that’s it! Three months, Sofia. Understand? No more! No more than a year, okay?’
    â€˜Thank you, Via,’ says Mum. ‘ Thank you.’
    The three of us are quiet for a long time. Via leans back against the sink and pulls out another cigarette. At the table, Mum pleats the apron on her lap. I bite at my fingernails and look over at a photo frame of the three of them together, back in the village in Italy where they grew up in. Siena is a little girl, and her older sisters closer to young women. In the photo she is cradled between them, looking straight at the camera and smiling wildly while her sisters look down and smile at her. Mum has a hand held ready as if she thinks Siena might fall over. Via has a firm grasp on Siena’s shoulder, pulling her up and back towards her. I look at Mum, realise she is watching me. She smiles, and I smile with her.
    â€˜My family, ’ she says reaching over and pulling me up into a hug. ‘Together again.’