“My name’s Peter,” I told her, glancing at the screen where Peter Pan dodged Captain Hook with Wendy cowering in the distance.
“Like Peter Pan?” Her eyes grew wide with amazement. For the first time in twenty-six years, the comparison didn’t annoy me. I nodded. “And I’m Tinkerbell. We should be friends.”
I had no response for that. And I wasn’t sure why this little girl was back here unattended. A smart man would’ve backed out of the room and found the nearest Marino to figure out who she was, but that’d require dealing with people, which I wasn’t prepared to do now that I’d escaped the cacophony of condolences in the dining room. Hell, the kitchen would be preferable with all its clatter, but that would mean facing Freddie, and it was obvious I still disgusted him.
“Well, Tinkerbell,” I started, moving to the edge of the room and sliding my ass down the wall. At least if I was over here, I was maintaining a reasonable distance so no one could say I was doing anything inappropriate with the girl. “I think you’d be a great friend, but your mommy and daddy might not like that very much.”
“My mommy wouldn’t care. She doesn’t live with us anymore.” The girl sniffled. “And daddy’s always busy with work. But he tries to work fast so he can pick me up at Nonna’s house.”
“Oh? And who’s your daddy?” I asked.
“Freddie Marino,” she stated proudly. A pit formed in my stomach, and I worried I was about to be sick. Of course she was Freddie’s kid, because my return home was all some cruel cosmic joke. “He runs the kitchen here and my Uncle Tony is in charge of the tables and Uncle Frankie sits at his desk and makes weird noises while he builds piles of papers.” As evidence, she pointed to the desk. “Do you know my daddy?”
“I used to,” I admitted to her. The man who offered his condolences earlier today was a stranger to me. Hell, I think he’d been a stranger even before our falling out, but I wasn’t going to say any of that to a child. “I used to be friends with your daddy and your uncles when I lived here.”
“Where do you live now?” she asked, sitting down next to me and offering me half of her cookie. I considered reminding her that she shouldn’t talk to strangers, but to a young mind, I’d broken the stranger barrier the moment I told her I knew her family.
“I live in New York,” I told her. “Do you know where that is?”
A tear trailed down her cheek when she nodded. Instinctively, I reached out to comfort her. She burrowed into my side and the tears kept flowing. “My mommy used to talk about going to New York. Do you know my mommy? Did you see her there?”
“No honey, I’m sorry. There are millions of people in New York, so even if I knew who she was I probably wouldn’t see her.”
The door flew open, nearly hitting us. “Sophia, what are you doing?” Freddie glared at me as he picked his daughter up off the floor. “And why areyouback here with her?”
“Daddy, this is Peter, like Peter Pan. I told him that we should be friends because Uncle Tony and Uncle Enzo call me Tinkerbell,” she explained. Freddie scrubbed a hand over his face, and I noticed for the first time how tired he looked. In the harsh fluorescent lights, every premature gray hair and line carved into his face stood out. “But he said you wouldn’t want him to be my friend.”
“Oh he did, did he?” Freddie asked, quirking an eyebrow at me.
“That’s not what I said,” I corrected her. “I told her that her that parents probably didn’t want her being friends with someone they don’t know.”
“But then he said he knows you, so I should be able to be friends with him, right?” She was persuasive if nothing else.
Freddie sighed as he carried his daughter across the room. After getting her settled on the couch, he started gathering her things. Instead of sitting there looking like a tool, I picked up the crayons and coloring books, organizing them before putting them in one of the bags. “Sophia, Peter is leaving soon.”
I wasn’t, but I wouldn’t undermine his parenting by correcting him when he was trying to put a quick end to the discussion. “Why did he come here if he’s going to leave again?”
“You know Maria?” Freddie crouched down in front of his daughter. His face scrunched up the way I remembered it doing whenever he was trying to figure out how to say what he was thinking.
“Yeah, she’s the girl you ask to babysit me when Nonna can’t watch me.”
“Peter is Maria’s brother. Remember I told you that their mama died?” Sophia’s bottom lip jutted out, and I thought she was about to cry again.
“If he doesn’t have a mommy either, then he probably needs a friend too,” she argued. “And he said he used to be your friend. You should be a good friend and invite him to the house for dinner with us so he’s not all alone.”
“That’s sweet of you to offer, but I’m sure your daddy is tired. He worked hard today to help my family,” I told her. “And like you said earlier, he works fast so he can spend time with you. I don’t want to interrupt your time together.”
It broke my heart that I found more genuine compassion from a little girl I’d just met and bonded with because my name reminded her of her favorite movie than I had from most of my biological family. It was evident that she was a Marino, because they’d always been people who accepted everyone at face value without trying to push their ideals on anyone. Part of what left me feeling so isolated as a teen was that once Freddie knew my secret, after he looked at me the way he did, I no longer had that sanctuary.
“No, Sophia’s right.” I gaped at Freddie, who now looked back at me with a much softer expression than he’d had when he found me with his daughter. He jerked his head to the side and told Sophia to watch the last few minutes ofPeter Pan.“Look, you and your old man don’t have the best relationship. It’s a bit of a drive to my place, but if you want, follow us and have a little time to decompress.”
“Freddie, I don’t need your pity,” I argued.
He reached out and took my hand, sending a shiver through my entire body. I chided myself for thinking the contact meant anything. Forced myself to remember how he’d looked at me that day he’d walked into my bedroom and I couldn’t hide my stash fast enough. The pain when he finally regained the ability to move and raced out of our house for the last time. “I’m not trying to take pity on you, Peter. I’m trying to be your friend.”
“We haven’t been friends for a long time.” I sneered, wishing I was capable of taking Freddie up on his offer without the catty snark.
“And that’s my fault,” he admitted. I wasn’t sure he realized his thumb traced back and forth across my wrist, but it felt so damn good I wasn’t going to do anything to make him stop. “There’s not time to get into all of this right now, but there would be if you followed us back to our place.”
