“No. Just relax. Drink your coffee. Clear your mind.”
And that’s what I do. I get lost in watching her move around the kitchen. The same room she has fed this family out of for fifty years. She and Papa bought this house right after they got married. It was big but in bad shape and Papa got it for a steal, he likes to say. They lived on one side while they fixed up the other. Then they switched. All eight of her children were brought home from the hospital to this house. All of her grandchildren have run through this kitchen.
I’m lucky to be a part of this family.
It’s not long before Uncle Michael and Tim show up.
“Olivia!” Uncle Michael says when he sees me. He crosses the room to give me a hug. My red puffy eyes are a dead giveaway. “What’s wrong?” His tone is serious as he drops onto the stool next to me. I glance at Tim, but he’s moved closer to Nonna to wish her good morning. Probably giving us a little privacy to talk.
“Tough day,” I say.
He searches my face. “Already? Can I do anything?”
Shaking my head, I say, “No, but I’ll be okay.”
“You will. No matter what’s going on, it’s only temporary. Work through the problem, find the solution, and fix it.”
I wish it were that easy.
Tim brings Uncle Michael a cup of coffee and gives me a soft smile. I’m grateful he doesn’t ask me why my face looks like this.
“Okay, you can make a plate,” Nonna announces.
You’d think with only three of us in the kitchen, one of whom has been crying her eyes out, it wouldn’t be a mad dash to the front of the line. But it is. Uncle Michael and I jump up at the same time and knock each other out of the way. He pulls me back by my T-shirt so he can get in front of me, but I stick my foot out and poke him in the stomach, which startles him enough that he lurches to the side, giving me back my lead. We’re both laughing and pushing and laughing some more, but by the time we get to the stack of plates Nonna has out, Tim has beat us there by calmly walking around the other side.
“Amateurs,” he says while Nonna piles food on his plate.
I elbow Uncle Michael in the side. “I like him.”
Uncle Michael’s face lights up. “Me too.”
When other family members start showing up, I sneak out the front door and head back to my house, leaving my car at Nonna’s since it’s blocked in by Uncle Sal’s and Uncle Marcus’s.
I head straight to my room and bury myself under my covers. With a full belly, a somewhat clear conscience, and only a few hours of sleep last night, I’m dead to the world within minutes.
“There she is! Thank God!”
“She’s sleeping!”
“That coach is going to be pissed she overslept.”
I hear the voices and know that it’s Charlie, Sophie, and Wes, but I can’t seem to pry my eyes open.
Then Charlie jerks the comforter off me. That does the trick. I sit up in bed, my hair going every direction and my eyes swollen,
“Why’d you do that?” I moan.
They all three look speechless.
Charlie recovers first. “We’ve been calling you for hours! You never told us who needed to be you today. And then you didn’t respond or answer your phone, so we got worried.”
Sophie sits down on the edge of the bed. “But your car is at Nonna’s, so we stopped there first. She said you were there for breakfast.”
“Did you get out of going to the golf course today?” Wes asks.
Flopping down on the bed again, I try to pull the comforter back over my head, but they won’t let me. Sophie crawls into the bed and settles in next to me on my right. Charlie plops down on my left. Wes is on the other side of Sophie.
“Tell us what’s wrong. You’re never like this,” Sophie whispers.
