A look of sheer terror morphed her mother’s face. “Have you called off your engagement?”
Not rolling her eyes took every ounce of her concentrated effort. “No, I did not call off the engagement.”
Maria’s sigh of relief could not have been louder. “Okay then, that’s good.” She waved her hands, shooing Lucy downthe hallway. “Come to the kitchen. I just started making dinner. You can call Joel, and he can join us. There’s plenty.”
There was always plenty. Lucy didn’t once remember her mother cooking for two, but no way was she calling Joel. She hadn’t been able to sort through her emotions regarding him yet. It wasn’t fair to be mad, but she was hurt…and jealous that her own father would trust him more than her.
In the kitchen, the scent of fresh dough filled her nostrils, and despite her tumultuous feelings, she smiled. “Pizza.”
Her mother made the best homemade pizza, and years of trying to recreate it had never resulted in the same deliciousness.
“You can knead the dough.” Her mother pointed at the big plastic bowl with a damp dishcloth laid over the top.
Lucy removed the cloth and admired the fluffy round ball of dough. So good.
“So, why are you here?” Maria asked, as she rinsed the dishes in the sink.
Lucy shrugged as she poked at the dough. “I wanted to talk to Dad.”
“You saw him all day at work. Didn’t you talk then?”
Lucy focused on the dough in her hands. “This requires a longer conversation. And he was busy in the shop today.”
“Ah, that man. He loves building more than anything else. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with him when he retires.” Maria took out a block of mozzarella and the cheese grater and set up beside Lucy. “Why do you always knead like you’re afraid it’s going to bite you? Have I taught you nothing? You have to massage it, like this.” Her mother took over, her hands working from muscle memory, kneading and shaping the dough. “Pretend it’s Joel’s bum.”
“Mom!” Lucy gasped, horrified.
“What? You think I don’t know anything, Luciana, but I wasn’t born yesterday. God gave me your sister didn’t he? I know all about you young people these days.”
Lucy laughed at the ridiculousness of the conversation and resumed kneading vigorously as per her mother’s demonstration, trying not to imagine Joel’s ass in her hands.
“So, you want to talk to your father about something important, huh?” Maria slid the block of cheese up and down the grater with practiced ease. “What is it?”
Lucy shrugged again. She didn’t even know how she was going to start with her father, never mind how she’d explain it to her mother. So she considered her reply carefully, opting to answer a question with a question.
“Mom, do you regret never having had a real job?”
“What do you mean? I had a real job. It was taking care of you and Vanessa, and God knows most days that felt like having eight jobs.”
“Right.” She hadn’t meant to sound rude or insulting. Obviously, being a mother and a homemaker required huge amounts of work. But… “Did you miss not having a career?”
Maria stopped, faced Lucy, and propped her fist on her hip. “Luciana, I had more careers than I care to list.” But she did anyway, flicking each one off a finger as she went. “I was a chef, a nanny, an accountant, a counselor, a nurse?—”
“Okay, okay, I get it.” At a loss for how else to communicate this with her mother, Lucy sighed.
“Patatina, I regret nothing of how I chose to live my life. And I don’t consider it a loss that I didn’t go work somewhere outside of my home for someone who didn’t understand my first priority was my family and that nothing else could come before them.” She went back to grating the cheese. “Besides, if I had been out of the house, you and Vanessa would have had no one. Your father workedenough for everyone. He was never home, or don’t you remember?”
She did remember, but differently. “I remember admiring how hard he worked. How proud I always was that he had his own company.”
Beside her, Maria snorted. “Barone & Sons would not be what it is if it weren’t for me. If I hadn’t done the work that needed to be done at home, raised his daughters, made sure everyone had everything they needed, groceries bought, bills paid, laundry done, do you think he would have had time for that company?” She didn’t let Lucy reply. “No. We built that company together,patatina. Him at the shop, me at home. One could not have done it without the other. You might not see it that way, but that’s the way it is. Barone & Sons was my career as much as his. I just ran a different part of it. Behind the scenes.”
With the cheese grated, Maria went to the cupboard to pull out a large rectangular baking sheet, which she handed to Lucy. “Make sure you stretch it all the way to the edges.”
Halfway through trying to stretch the dough to fit the pan, she heard the front door open and her father holler in Italian, “Maria! Who gave you a new Ferrari? Do you have a boyfriend I don’t know about?”
When he entered the kitchen, his face broke into a surprised smile. “Patatina! Why are you here?” His smile dropped marginally. “Did you call off your engagement?”
“My God, what is wrong with you and Mom? Why is that your first assumption?” She threw her hands in the air, abandoning the dough to flop onto one of the chairs by the kitchen island. “Can’t I come visit my family without my marriage having to be in crisis?” She would not mention that she had stormed out on Joel mere hours ago.
