Beautiful Broken Vows

BEAUTIFUL BROKEN VOWS SJ CAVALETTI Copyright © 2023 by SJ Cavaletti All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. For the girls who think they’re unlovable. CONTENTS Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Epilogue Acknowledgments 1 “I have cancer. But that’s not the bad news.” My father lowered his tall, lean physique into an armchair. His face remained untouched by the announcement. He placed his freckled hands on the armrests. “Go on, Rafael. Sit.” He gestured toward the sofa opposite. He’d called me to his home office. It was a minimalist space of white and gray, stark but stylish, intimidating you with its fierce simplicity, like the Hirst formaldehyde shark. Everything here was simple and motionless, yet so ready to come alive with a natural power. Only one item decorated the space that didn’t belong. Amidst the severe lines and serious shapes was one completely different. On my father’s desk sat a small, bronze, sphinxlike creature, much like a crouched woman with the bubble butt and wings. But today, I didn’t smile when I saw this item my mom used to cherish. Today, it only reminded me that my dad was the second significant person in my life to announce they were potentially dying. I perched on another sofa, trying to match his stoic energy, even though a knot in my throat reminded me I was only human. “Is it bad?” My father’s eyes widened. “The cancer or the news?” I couldn’t believe there was any news other than his cancer that I could care about right now. “The cancer.” He shrugged. “We’ll see. I’ve been told not. High cure rate.” My father’s face remained still, and I searched for subtle signs of worry. As usual, there were none. My father wasn’t cold, he was just emotionally quiet. He wasn’t one to jump up and down when things went his way or cry when they didn’t. And even though he said and showed little, he had his own way of making us know how important his family was to him. He was the dad who, despite ruling over a monopoly in the art kingdom, had somehow still made it to many of my water polo matches and swim meets when we all lived in London, even though he split his time between five continents. He’d never missed my sister’s soccer games. When I was about to take a big exam, he never forgot. When I’d traveled on my own as a teen, my dad had sent me checklists, told me if there were European rail strikes. Anders Palmquist showed us love. He didn’t tell us. It had been my mom who’d gone wild, always letting her uproar of emotion explode into our lives. She’d always expressed through words. She’d reach up on her toes, squeeze our faces, brush our noses with hers, and offer her special terms of endearment… frijolito, gusanito lindo. Even when we’d grown, I’d never stopped being her tiny bean. Together, they’d been the perfect parents. She’d been the voice of my father’s sometimes unreadable actions. We needed her. He needed her. Over the past six years, he’d become more and more tense. She’d been the confetti in his life. Being notoriously hard to please, perfectionists rarely found reason to celebrate. And now, without her, he never did. My dad was relentless, solution-oriented, and never felt sorry for himself or anyone else, so, even though the cancer news was a shock to me, how he announced his diagnosis was not. “Dad, more details. About the cancer.” “It’s just…” He cleared his throat. “It’s testicular. Seeing as I haven’t needed those for quite a number of years, it’s not a worry. Apparently, the survival rate is high.” His brow knitted. “Though I wondered if this is Ferdie’s spirit seeking revenge.” I gave a nasal laugh. “Ferdie needed his balls cut off for his own good. He spent more time on two legs than four.” Dad’s gaze met mine again. “Still… he was never the same after. He’s come to haunt me.” It was a sincere comment because my dad didn’t make jokes and, as far as I’d known, didn’t think of the afterlife. This wasn’t good. “Tell me more. What now?” “Well, surgery, radiation. Job done. We all know what it entails.” Yes, we had. We’d gone through years of it with my mom. “I spoke to Sophia,” he said flatly. “She said to keep fit and not to worry.” My sister was a prominent neurosurgeon now working in London, so apparently that meant to take her advice as gospel. She and my dad were so alike. She was practical like him, and apart from her eyes, had inherited little from my mom. I often wondered where I fell. Somewhere in between my parents. Dark hair, olive skin, blue eyes, an unidentifiable accent that only I knew was a melange of theirs; and a soul caught in the middle of passionate drive and existentialism. Though I felt everything deeply, I worked hard not to show it. And this? I felt it deep. But my dad didn’t need me to get emotional. He only had me here in Nakiki. His wife had left this world before him. His daughter lived across a great expanse of ocean, and only I remained by his side. “So what’s worse than the cancer?” “My cancer is just the impetus for this