“I noticed,” Marisol replies.
Then Sofia turns to me.
We stand facing each other. Two feet apart now. The autumn park. The grey sky. Leaves skittering past on the wind.
I pause for a moment. “Sofia, I’m so sorry. So fucking sorry.”
She looks at me for a beat, and I wait for her anger, for her to blame me for training her too hard, making her too strong, turning her against the family.
“Sorry for what?” she asks.
“For driving you away. Making you lose your softness.”
The moment is weighted with heaviness. The breeze blows a strand of blond hair across my sister’s lovely face, and I would give anything for her forgiveness.
“You arrogant fucker,” she says, but there’s no venom in it. “You didn’t make me hard, I did that myself. And you certainly didn’t drive me away. I fell in love, Nico. It’s as simple as that. I fell in love with a crazy Russian man who treats me like a princess and also values my strength. If anything, I should thank you for helping me become the woman worthy of his love.”
She pulls me into a hug then, fierce and tight, and I breathe her in, feeling the weight of guilt fall off my shoulders. My wonderful, magnificent sister holds me tight as I reshape my understanding of the world again.
It’s only been five weeks since I last hugged my sister, but it feels longer. The distance Marco forced between us made everything feel like years.
She’s shorter than I remember. Or I’m taller. Or I just forgot. But she fits against me the same way she did when she was six and scared of thunderstorms and I was the brother who would keep the noise away.
“Don’t let him win,” she says into my chest. “Marco. Don’t let him decide you can’t have both.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“You’re here.” She pulls back, wipes her eyes quickly. “Next week. Dinner. Alexei will make pasta. He’s learning Italian recipes because he thinks it’ll impress you.”
“A Russian who makes Italian food.”
“Don’t be a snob.” She grins, wet-eyed, real. “Bring your cliff-jumper.”
She turns. Walks away. Doesn’t look back. Not because she doesn’t want to, but because Rosettis don’t look back. It’s the one family trait none of us can shake.
I watch until she rounds the corner. Gone. But not the way she was gone before. Not the severed, forbidden gone. The temporary kind. The kind with a dinner invitation attached.
The park settles back into quiet. Just Marisol and me and the pond and the grey sky pressing down like a promise of rain.
She takes my hand. Her fingers are cold. She’s been shivering for an hour and hiding it because she understood this moment wasn’t about her comfort.
“She’s happy,” Marisol says simply.
“She’s happy.”
“She laughed, Nico. Real laughing. That’s not a woman who regrets her choice.”
I nod. The evidence is right in front of me. My sister chose love over family loyalty, and instead of destroying her, it’s made her whole.
Marisol squeezes my hand. “You didn’t lose her. Marco tried to make you choose, and you found a way to keep both.”
“It’s going to cause problems.”
“Everything worth having causes problems.” She looks up at me. “I would know.”
I stare at her. This woman who keeps tilting the lens just enough that everything looks different. Not a new truth. Just the existing truth, seen clearly.
“When did you get so wise?”
