A smile was stuck on my face when I looked up and noticed Matteo on one side of the kitchen and my mom on the other, both with such warm looks in their eyes that I wondered if the stove had been left on and I was feeling secondhand fire. But it was the love I was feeling coming off them both for me.
It would just take time for them to bond over…me. My happiness. I had all I ever wanted in my husband and more, and I had my mom back, and I’d made my mind up on the plane to get mom better. Do what Uncle Tito had said and heal her spirit, and then she would heal. I felt it in the marrow of my bones. Nonno was going to find the best doctors for her. It would be a fight, but we’d come this far. We were going to go the distance.
Both of my loves in the same room, it was…more than I could have ever dreamed possible.
And I was convinced everything was going to be fine.
But as the days passed, I was starting to feel split in half. Mom loved all the women, was herself around them, but when the men were around, it was like a wall went up, and she was guarded. No man was as locked out as Matteo. He didn’t even try to win her over with his charm. He barely spoke when she was in the same room.
After a dinner I cooked, Scarlett was helping me with the dishes while mom was enjoying dessert with Magpie outside on the veranda. Nonno and his younger brother, Niccolo, were smoking cigars and keeping them company. Scarlett set her hand over mine and waited for me to look at her before she whispered, “Life has a way of working out, one way or another,bebe. Good times don’t last, but that only means neither does the bad times.”
“The sun always finds a way to shine, one way or another, right?”
“Or the stars always find a way to shine, even against the darkness.” She winked at me.
“I feel so torn,” I whispered, so relieved to set the truth free. “I don’t know what to do.”
She flipped the dishtowel over her shoulder. “Your mom is a free spirit, I can feel it, and she doesn’t fully understand how powerful these men love yet.”
“She doesn’t trust them.”
“To a certain extent, but not fully, no. To her, their…protective natures might feel more like a cage.”
“What do I do?”
As she got back to work on the dishes, she sighed. “Have you tried talking to her?”
That…I hadn’t done. I thought after being around Matteo and his family she would understand, but it only felt like she was trying to yank me in the opposite direction of them. Like maybe she was plotting to steal me away in the night, especially when Matteo and I would gaze at each other. I’d catch her watching us and then she’d walk off, her mood changed. It felt like she was determined, probably, to get me to leave. Every once in a while, she’d make comments to me, like,Remember when you were little, and I told you how fun it would be to take off for California and then just travel the open roads together?
I didn’t remember her saying that to me, but ever since we reunited, I was relishing the mom I remembered, and getting to know who she was as more than just a mom. I never remembered her having the sense of humor of a ten-year-old boy when it came to dirty jokes, or knowing that she could play the violin and was the star of music class because of it.
Scarlett was right, though. I needed to talk to her.
I waited until Matteo had a family meeting at Nonno’scastello. Mom was sitting outside, reading a book, sipping on cucumber and lemon water I’d made and had sitting in the fridge overnight. We were already into September, but summer still lingered in the air.
Thinking that we only had a few months until our wedding in December made me antsy. I’d told mom about it, but she didn’t say anything but,that’s nice.
Niceto get married at Palais Garnier?
Nicethat the man of my dreams loved me so much, he couldn’t wait to marry me twice?
I wanted her to walk me down the aisle, and truthfully, I wasn’t sure if she would. She might just want to sit with the other guests because she didn’t fully approve. I had an idea of why, but I wasn’t positive, and that was breaking my heart. I thought for sure she’d love Matteo, not only because of how much I loved him, but because of how much he loved me.
“Do you want another glass?” I asked her.
She didn’t answer, and I called her name.
“Huh?”
I smiled and nodded to her almost empty glass. “Do you want another?”
She picked it up and handed it to me. “Sure, Bestie Boo. It’s nice and refreshing. Even if it is fancy pancy. Thank you!”
I took her glass inside and refilled it, setting it in front of her while I thought about which vegetables and herbs to use in dinner.
“Mom,” I said, laughing a little late at her remark while I looked over the garden. “Water with cucumber and lemon isn’t fancy pancy.”
“So says the girl in a big garden hat with a rock the size of Venus on her left finger.”
