“Luca.” He gives me that small professional nod men give when they don’t know if it’s safe to extend a hand. He doesn’t extend a hand. Smart man.
Up close, Lucia’s taller than she used to be—or maybe it just seems like it—and the coat is just armor for a simple black sweater and jeans. No rings except a thin gold band on her left hand. Her curls are tugged half back with a barrette, but pieces are escaping already. There’s a faint freckle on her left temple that I don’t remember, and a tiny scar at the edge of her eyebrow I don’t recall. Seeing the things I don’t know about her is a new kind of pain.
“Please sit,” Elena says, saving us all.
We slide back into the booth. Elena anchors me with a look: listen. I nod almost imperceptibly. Lucia and Nick take the far side. She sits first; he waits that half breath until she signals with the smallest tilt of her head and then settles beside her, careful not to crowd.
The server appears like magic. “Good evening. Can I get you started with something to drink?”
Lucia glances at me and then away. “Sparkling water with lime, please.”
“Same,” Nick adds.
“A Negroni, grazie,” I say, then catch Elena’s eyebrow and adjust. “A ginger ale with a slice of orange. Two.” She squeezes my knee, proud of me for not ordering anything stronger.
“Right away,” the server says.
Silence steps into the spot the server vacates and sits with us like an unwelcome fifth wheel.
“I’m glad you came,” I say, keeping my voice as even as I can. I have rehearsed, and still the words catch because rehearsals don’t include the way your daughter looks back at you like she’s unsure what to believe.
Lucia folds her hands together on top of the table; her fingers are long and elegant, like her mother’s. “I told Elena I would.”
I look at Elena. She gives me a little ‘go on’ tilt of her chin.
“I’m nervous,” I say, and it feels like swallowing a coin. “And I’m grateful. And I’m sorry.”
Lucia’s mouth tightens. “Which part?”
“All of it,” I say. “But if you want specifics—” I stop, check myself, correct course. “You get to ask whatever you want. I’ll answer.”
She nods like I'm doing something right, like some part of her was waiting for me to try and control this. “You look older,” she says after a beat, and I could laugh at the mercy of it.
“I am.”
“Less… shiny,” she adds, a dry little edge that would make me proud if I had any right to be.
“Good,” I say. “Shiny was a mistake.”
Her eyes flick away at that, toward the windows, toward the faint smear of the boardwalk lights. “I don’t know how to do this,” she says, and the honesty of it shaves another layer off my heart.
“You don’t have to know,” Elena says softly. “You just have to be here.”
Lucia’s gaze moves to Elena’s belly again. She inhales and lets it out like she’s resetting herself. “I don’t… want a performance,”she says to me. “No speeches. No ‘I did it for you’ or ‘it was the life’ or ‘I was protecting—’”
“No,” I cut in gently. “None of that. I did it because I chose it. It hurt you. I’m sorry.”
She swallows. Her throat works. It’s a small thing, and it’s everything. She gives me one short nod that might be acceptance or just a marker on a map.
The server returns with drinks and lays them down with practiced choreography. “Do you need another minute?”
“We’re fine,” Elena says, a smile that thanks him without needing words.
I take the ginger ale. The orange slice smells too bright. I put the glass down because my hand isn’t as steady as I’d like it to be.
Nick breaks the line of silence just enough to steady the edges. “Traffic wasn’t as bad as I feared,” he offers, calm, a small thing to keep the words flowing, even if unimportant.
“Good,” I answer, neutral. There is an old version of me that would throw him off the pier for the things he’s done, the things he’s said.
