They fell in love in a way that only works when you don’t know what’s coming. From what I was told, he proposed in a week.
She moved into his Greenwich apartment, which he rented after the divorce, and Linda got the house in Darien, Connecticut. She kept working at Harbor House part-time because she refused to be absorbed whole. He used to drive her in sometimes, sit and wait while working in his car.
She died in an accident outside Greenwich when I was still small enough that my memories of her feel borrowed.
After that, we moved to the city, and he worked nonstop.
I go there enough to remind myself that some things existed before Fairfax, before boards, before damage control. The place where they fell in love.
Matteo nods once. “Want a car?”
“I’ll walk,” I say. “Clear my head.”
He watches me for a beat. “You okay?”
I think about the wine glass. The fork. Bianca’s whisper.
“I will be,” I say.
He steps aside to let me pass. “I’ll be here when you get back.”
I pull my coat tighter as I step inside.
“Hey Sofie. I wasn’t sure we’d see you today.” Rita, who has been the director for as long as I can remember, smiles as she buzzes me in.
“Happy Thanksgiving,” I smile. “Dad’s other daughters are in town.”
“How are Anastasia and Drizella?”
I smile genuinely, “I missed you.”
“You do know the holidays aren’t the only days we’re here.”
“I know. Things are?—”
“I’m messing with you. Go ahead in. We have some rambunctious kids still awake.”
“You’ll be here when?—”
“I’m pulling the night shift,” she nods.
I head through the next set of locked doors and hear it first. Laughter. The full-bodied kind, the kind that can’t be curated.
I turn the corner and stop.
Aleks Kilovac is sitting cross-legged on the floor near the far wall. No suit, no tie. He’s in black training pants and a dark gray Henley, sleeves pushed up, ink showing. He’s surrounded by a small group of kids who have very clearly decided he belongs to them now. He speaks softly, shifting his tone with ease, seriousone second, animated the next. Between sentences, he taps notes into his phone and shows them the screen.
One girl leans over his shoulder, her braids brushing his arm as she looks at it. A boy sits leaning in, shoulder pressed to Aleks’s chest.
He looks different here. Not guarded like he is in public, not assessing or brutal like he is on the ice, not menacing or filthy like he has been to me lately. Just present.
The room itself is worn but warm. Scuffed floors but scrubbed clean. Mismatched chairs pushed against the walls. Crayon drawings pinned crookedly to a corkboard, cities and suns and stick figures of families holding hands. A radiator clicks in the corner, too loud, too old, one that will probably need to be replaced soon.
Rita passes by with a box of donated scarves balanced on her hip. Her hair is pulled back with a pencil. There’s flour on her sleeve, probably from the bread she insists on baking herself every Tuesday, ‘They need to learn real-life skills, too. ’ She catches my expression and smiles like she’s seen it a hundred times.
“He comes every month,” she whispers. “Good with them. Listens.”
Interesting.
