“Love you, too, Max.”
I fell asleep again, but this time, my dream was good.
* * *
As agreed, we spent the day together. I wasn’t due at the hospital until tomorrow, so I had a whole day and another night with Isaac until my double shift.
I wanted to show Isaac around the city, but we ended up walking around Central Park all day. It was a cold mid-November day, so I’d insisted we go shopping so Isaac had a coat that was more adequate for the New York winter, but he didn’t want to leave the open space of the park for the busy stores.
We took photos of each other and the two of us together and sent some to Alex. He replied immediately telling us to have a good time and that he missed us.
He also said that Sofia was still refusing to call him papa and that Max was loving his new home at Alex and Joana’s house. Apparently, he was now Sofia’s protector and wouldn’t let anyone other than family get close to her. How he knew who was family or not was anyone’s guess.
“Do you miss them?”
“Of course I do.”
“But?”
“I like your butt,” Isaac said, pulling me closer and leaning for a kiss. “I miss them, but I can keep in touch with them. I can video chat and exchange photos. But if I’m there, I can’t be with you, and that is so much more painful to consider.” He reached up to my head to stroke my still-too-short hair.
“Come on, you. Take me home. I need to warm up, and there’s only one way I can think of that will work.”
“At your service.” I followed as he pulled my hand in the wrong direction before he corrected himself.
We stopped at the store to get some ingredients to cook dinner and then went home.
My building was an old fire station that had been converted into residential apartments, so it wasn’t unusual to see a homeless person sitting outside the main front door, hoping to get some shelter from the cold.
I always carried a card with me with my name and the address of a temporary shelter where they could get food and sometimes a bed for the night. It kept the neighbors happy that the homeless didn’t stick around very long once they had somewhere to go.
I spotted the small figure as soon as we turned the corner. Usually, we got older homeless men, but this looked like either a very small person or a very young one.
“Hi there, are you looking for somewhere you can stay the night? Maybe get some food?”
I put my hand in my jacket to get a card out when the person looked up at me.
It was a girl. She couldn’t have been older than fourteen or fifteen, with long dark curly hair that was tied in a ponytail. She had a big bruise on her face that extended to her big brown eyes that were looking at me like a deer in headlights. I felt immediately protective of her and wanted to know who’d done that to her.
“Are you Massimiliano Moretti?”
The air rushed out of my lungs. It had been years since I’d heard that name. I felt Isaac’s presence next to me, anchoring me as though he knew I needed him.
“Who are you?”
“Lucy… Lucia Lopez. I’m your sister.”
