My grandfather had no use for daughters, and he sure as hell wasn’t the type to show love to his children.
Then there’s my grandmother, who spent most of her miserable marriage high out of her mind and couldn’t be bothered to care for her kids any more than her husband did.
Honestly, it’s a miracle my mother turned out capable of love at all.
But she did. She stuck around when my father walked out. She showed up for every school event, every scraped knee, everymoment that mattered. She still wants to spend time with me even though I’m a grown man pushing forty.
She leads me inside, and the smell hits me the second I cross the threshold. Sunday gravy simmering for hours, fresh bread just out of the oven. Pure comfort, even when I don’t deserve it.
She learned to cook from the maid who basically raised her—more of a mother than the woman who gave birth to her ever was.
“Lunch in five minutes,” she says, heading for the kitchen. “Don’t even think about helping.”
I know better than to argue. Normally I’d settle into her armchair and wait, but today I’m drawn to the mantel above the brick fireplace.
Photos line the wooden surface. Most of them are ancient history, but one catches my eye. Me at seven or eight, decked out in my Little League uniform.
I lasted five games before deciding baseball was the most boring sport ever invented.
But in the photo, I’m grinning at the camera like I own the world.
Austin has that exact same smile.
My chest does something weird, like all the air just got sucked out of the room. I’ve been trying not to think about what it would mean if he’s really mine, but looking at this picture...
Fuck.
“Food’s ready,” Ma calls, saving me from my spiral.
We eat at the kitchen island like always. The dining room is reserved for holidays and currently serves as her junk mail storage facility. She pours wine, plates pasta that smells like heaven, and I try to focus on the meal instead of the kid who might be carrying my DNA.
“Amazing as always,” I tell her after the first bite.
“The recipe hasn’t changed.”
“You could share it, you know.”
She waves a crooked finger at me. “Not until you get married. I’ve told you this.”
I roll my eyes. “Never gonna happen, Ma.”
“You’ll change your mind someday. When you do, I want a good gift for my future daughter-in-law.”
The word ‘marriage’ makes my skin crawl, but I play along. “What if she’s not Italian?”
She leans forward conspiratorially. “Don’t tell anyone, but you don’t have to be Italian to make good food. A good recipe is all you need.”
Right. As if I don’t know she learned this from the maid who basically raised her. But I get it, this recipe is legacy. Family tradition. The kind of thing you pass down to your kids.
That gets me thinking about Austin again, about the magnitude of potentially having a kid. It won’t just affect me, but my whole family.
This kid would befamiglia, and that means something. It’s power and responsibility and expectations that’ll follow him his entire life. It’s a hell of a lot for any person to deal with.
“I’ve been hearing rumors,” Ma says, cutting through my thoughts. “Dario’s taking on more responsibility.”
Here we go.
“Yeah, so?”
