Chapter Three. Marco
After spending the weekend brooding. Marco knew exactly what he needed to do first thing Monday morning. On Sunday afternoon he had asked around their friends, looking for the phone number of a good lawyer. He wasn't going to take this lying down. That stupid old man, taken for a ride by a bloody whore, wasn't going to get away with this! His mother hadn't worked all her life, just to have all her life's work snatched away by a money grubbing foreigner. He would put a stop to this, quick smart. Paola tried, in vain, to reason with him.
'You know, Marco, at the end of the day, It's his money, his life. We don't need his money anyway. We are doing pretty well for ourselves.'
'That's not what this is about. It's the principle of it. Taking mum's money, and throwing it away on that fat, ugly whore! I'm just not going to let him get away with that! It's so obvious that she is just taking advantage of him.'
'Well, at least listen to the lawyer. Don't go in there yelling and screaming. Give him a chance to explain things to you. Maybe I better come with you?'
She had ever seen Marco so upset in all their years together. She didn't find the situation to be so drastic. In fact, through these years of taking Alex to see Antonio, she had gotten to know him quite well. She found him to be a nice person, not the tyrant that Marco always painted him to be. It was true that people mellow out as they age. Maybe, when he was younger, he had been a bit tough on Marco, but now he seemed pretty nice. She loved having him in Alex's life.
'No, that's ok. I will sort this out. Don't you get any ideas of going to the wedding. If they go ahead with it, it will be without our participation. That's for sure.'
Marco felt incredibly betrayed. How could his father do this, to the memory of his wife? All those years she had stood by his side, just thrown out, for the sake of a money grubbing Moldovan. Surely his father couldn't be that blind? It was all so obvious. You read about these things happening all the time, almost on a daily basis. It just didn't seem possible that his father, after being such a hard man all his life, could have become so easy to take advantage of. Maybe he should see if he could get his mental faculties checked out? Maybe he was getting senile, and he had become easy prey for a blood sucking parasite? One way or another, he wasn't going to let that woman get her hands on his mother's money. Not without a fight, anyway.
Marco had found a lawyer who was a good friend of one of his friends, Pietro. Apparently he had the reputation of being a real bulldog of a lawyer. As he waited in the lawyer's waiting room, he could feel the anger in him. All those years that he had been pushed around by his father, all those years that his poor mother had stood by him, trying to protect him from his father's bullying. And now this? Along comes a young floozy, prepared to go to bed with him, and he forgets all that his wife did for him, for all those years.
'Please, Marco, come in. Have a seat.'
Marco sat on the comfortable leather chair. The studio was lavish, obviously being a bulldog lawyer paid well. He felt that he had found the right man for his case.
'Ok, listen Marco, Pietro has explained the situation to me. I have to be blunt here, a person is free to marry whoever he wishes.'
Marco was a bit taken aback. Which side was this lawyer working for?
'I understand that, but in this case, it's very obvious that my father is being taken for a ride by someone just after his money. My mother's money, as well. She is nearly 30 years younger than him, a foreigner, with no money, and no prospects. By latching onto my father, she has hit the jackpot.'
'That may well be the case, but if your father is in agreement with the wedding, that is his choice. There is just one avenue we could explore.'
Marco perked up at that. Maybe there was a way, after all.
'If your father is not in full control of his mental faculties, we could file for right of attorney, in your name. Say, for example, he is suffering the onset of alzheimer's, or some form of dementia. But, we have to be able to prove that with medical exams. Is this an avenue worth exploring, Marco?'
Much as he would have liked to say yes, he knew that they would never be able to prove that. His father seemed to be as strong as he ever had been.
'Well, not really. But what about trying to block the wedding, on the grounds that she has used sex, with an old man, to entice him into giving all his property to her?'
'There is no legal grounds for that. Anyway, the counter argument would be that an old man is taking advantage of a younger woman, a woman who is not financially independent. To be honest, Marco, at this moment, there really is nothing we can do. Your father is free to marry whoever he likes under the law.'
Marco left the lawyers office totally depressed. It was all so obvious to him, but there just didn't seem to be anything he could do about it. That woman, that parasite, seemed to be free to take advantage of a stupid old man, and suck him dry of all his money. Where was the justice in that? Who was standing up for his mother, in all this? On his way to his office, he phoned Paola and explained it all to her. She didn't seem particularly surprised.
'At this point, I don't know what we can do. It seems like the law is helpless to stop that bitch from taking all mum's money.'
'Listen, Marco, we don't know that she is just after your father's money. Maybe they really are in love. She's from another country, maybe she is lonely here. She might not have many friends. Your father is in full control of his mind, I doubt he would let himself be taken in by, well, by anyone, really.'
'I'm not stopping here. I will think of something. She's not going to get away with this.'
'You know, you may just have to let this go. Nobody is asking you to go to the wedding, and you don't ever have to see them. You haven't seen your father in years, anyway. Just carry on like that. Stay out of it, and leave them to it.'
'I just can't. Thinking about all poor mum went through, with him, I just can't let it go.'
He went into the office, but found it hard to concentrate on his work. Marco knew it was going to be a long week. He was dreading the arrival of Saturday. Why did his father always make him feel like this? All his friend's fathers had doted on them. They had always been present in their lives, playing with them, teaching them things, just being with them. Why did he have to end up with such a bastard for a father?
He remembered the time, when he was about to start university, and he asked his parents for a car. Most of his friends had cars, paid for by their parents. Some had new cars, others with a car maybe a few years old, depending on the financial situation of their families. Marco's family had been doing well, so he was hoping for a new car, or at least, a fairly new one. What had been his father's reply?
'If you want a car, you should get a part-time job, and earn some money to buy one. Simple really. In life you need to learn the value of things. When they are just handed to you, on a plate, you don't realise their real worth. When you work towards something, you feel a sense of real achievement when you reach your goal.'
With all the study he had had to do, who could have found the time for a job? If he had worked, he would have fallen behind with his studies, and could have risked not passing his exams. Never once, in his life, had his father just been like everyone else's fathers. Poor old mum, as usual, had tried to stand up for him.
'What about this for an idea? For every Euro Marco earns towards a car, we will put up the equivalent amount. That way he will learn the value of working towards a goal, but he won't have to lose too much study time. What do you say, Antonio?'
'Sure, that sounds fine to me.'
Yeah, right. How on earth would he have been able to save up even half the cost of a car, Marco had thought. That plan didn't really make any difference to him. Luckily, his mother, his rock, had devised a way to get around it. She would give him some money, which he would pretend to have earned. His father worked such long hours, that he was never around to know what was going on in the family anyway. Thank God for his mother, the same mother that was being betrayed now. How could he just sit back, and accept this? His mother had been his saviour. Without her, his life growing up would have been hell. It had been hard enough anyway. And now, along comes this,this parasite, and just effortlessly takes her place. It just seemed like the whole memory of his mother was getting thrown out.