Nonna loved Ben and Max. She was also very impressed by the little details Max could remember about my past. Like when we were sitting on the couch in the den, waiting for takeout—because we collectively refused her offer to cook dinner for the wolves—and Max asked, “Was it really you who told Luca he should join the church choir when he was little?”
She beamed at him. “Yes! My husband, may he rest in peace, loved older music. Well, oldernow, I suppose. Things like the Rat Pack and such.”
“Movie music, too,” I interjected. “Nonno had a lot of old soundtracks.”
“Yes, they’re still in his study upstairs.” She smiled a bit sadly. “Luca was only three years old when he started to sing along to Sinatra and many others.”
“I also liked to sing along to Marilyn Monroe,” I pointed out dryly, making everyone laugh.
“Yes, you did. It was very cute.” She beamed. “But by the time he was ten, I knew that he had something special in that voice of his. So I told him to join the church choir.” She held her hand outlike she always did at this point of the story and added, “Now, we weren’t very religious as a family. Especially after my husband passed, but we still went every time Luca was singing.”
“How did you feel about Luca getting into rock music?” Ben asked.
He and Max were sitting on the love seat, while Nonna and I were on the bigger couch. She was holding my hand, and I knew it was because she’d missed me. Not just in the last six months or so, but way before that, too. I felt bad about it, but as though she knew where my mind had gone mid-conversation, she looked at me and cupped my cheek for a moment, then answered Ben’s question.
“Oh, I was fine with it. My daughter didn’t like any of it, really, and I had to intervene a lot especially after his Nonno passed. He was the head of the house—”
I snorted. “You keep telling yourself that, woman.”
She nudged me with her elbow. “Shush, you.”
Max and Ben looked delighted, and it all made my insides warm and fluttery.
“Either way,” she continued. “He would make sure Luca got his musical education. He could be a stern man, but he cared about the grandkids.”
I squeezed her hand. “If any of us got really into something and showed talent, somehow there’d be money for whatever costs there were if our parents couldn’t afford it. Like Mikey’s hockey stuff or Lindsay’s horse riding.”
“I kept our children in line in other ways.” She chuckled and shook her head, then got serious. “Sadly I couldn’t get your mother’s mind to change on this one thing.”
I sighed. “Half of it is Dad. You know his parents were very old fashioned.”
“I know. It’s just that as a mother, you wish the best for your children and grandchildren, but you can’t help some things and that is very hard to accept.”
The food arrived then, and we moved to the actual dining room so the three of them had space to spread out the massive amounts of Italian food we’d ordered.
Now that I’d gotten used to being a vampire and how my hunger for blood worked, I’d somehow gotten less sensitive to the scent of human foods. I could even enjoy the scent a little now, especially if it was something I’d liked before.
As I watched them eat and chat, I was glad to know my mother well enough to be certain that she wasn’t going to crash this party. Because there was no way Nonna hadn’t told her when we were arriving. Nonna would’ve been celebrating and, knowing her, probably rubbing it in a little, the fact that I was visiting her and not my own parents.
After the painful call with my mother, I’d finally accepted what I’d known even before I was turned: my mother wasn’t going to be part of my life if I chose to live as another species instead of succumbing to the illness that had tried its damnedest to take me out.
If I’d died, my parents would’ve celebrated my life as an esteemed musician—something they had never quite liked me being—and given interviews, probably written a memoir or something just to cash in somewhere down the line.
I didn’t hate them. They’d been good parents in a lot of ways. They just had never understood the one child they had, and that was tragic for all of us.
I’d zoned out, so the silence made me jerk back into the present. “Huh?” I looked at the people who were the closest to my heart. Only Rian was missing.
“We were just talking about how happy we are that you’re still around,” Ben said, smiling at me with the corners of his eyes crinkling in an attractive way.
I ducked my head and felt slight warming of my cheeks—a testament of how well-fed I was now.
I cleared my throat. “Nonna, you should come visit us at the pack house at some point. Maybe in the summer?”
She looked thoughtful for a moment, then delighted. “Oh, all that nature! Yes. I think I’d like that.”
I had enough cousins to know that some of them and their kids would probably make her schedule pretty tight for the summer break, but maybe a long weekend would be doable.
We spent most of the early evening with her, just chatting, having more coffee, and playing some board games. She showed off the house and made me uncomfortable with the praise she gave me for making sure it stayed in good condition even with her small income.
