“I’m Raven, Salvatore’s wife.”
I smile and say good morning to all of them.
“Is that your son?” I ask them.
“No, this is Giancarlo. He’s our younger brother, Gianluca’s son. Luca sleeps in a little after game nights.”
“Gianluca’s the hockey player, right?”
Giancarlo giggles. “My papà pways baseball, zio Dom pways hockey and zio Declan and zio Cillian.”
“That’s a lot of zio’s.” I smile at Giancarlo, he’s adorable.
“I haf lots of Zio’s and Zia’s.” He grins at me. I want to pick him up and squeeze him.
Fiorella chuckles. “Domenico’s our cousin, Declan is married to his sister, Giovanna and Cillian’s my love.”
“I don’t think I’m going to be able to remember everyone.” I laugh.
“It’s okay, there are a lot of us. It’s going to take some time remembering everyone. What are your plans for today?” Fiorella asks.
“I wanted to go to the bakery. Your mamá said that I could learn to bake with them.”
“I can take you and Diego if you want. I’m headed to my shop soon.”
“Or you can escape my sister and ride with Raven and me, we’re headed to the station.” Salvatore laughs as Fiorella squints at him.
“I’ll have you know that I’m the funnest Mancini in the family. The rest of them are booooring.”
I laugh as I listen to them. They make me miss my brothers…a lot.
“Do you have sisters or brothers?” Raven asks me.
“I have five older brothers, Álvaro, Elvio, Félix, José and Juan. José and Juan are twins.”
“Holy crap. And I thought my two brothers were a lot.” Fiorella laughs.
“My mamá said there’s twins and triplets in your family?”
“Salvatore, Gianluca and I are triplets. There’s a few twins in the families here. Sebastiano and Domenico are identical, don’t worry if you mix them up.” She laughs.
I love this family already, they’re making me feel welcome and part of their family. It’s something I didn’t expect. They tell me how they’re usually here in the morning because Rosaura makes sure there’s breakfast for all of them. Leonardo came down and sat down to eat with us. He said he drives into the city everyday with his brothers. Their office is in downtown Chicago, it’s a two hour commute each way as long as traffic is nice.
I decide to go with Fiorella into town because her shop is a few doors down from the bakery. When we get to the bakery, the smells that are coming out of it make me forget that I already had breakfast. By the time we get there, it’s already seven am and Fiorella says that they’ve been baking for at least three hours by now.
We head inside and I get introduced to Graínne and Caitríona. I also meet Simone Vietti, she runs the front of the bakery. Her husband, Romano is here this morning. I swear there’s something in the water here because he’s enormous too.
“Why is every guy in the family so big? Is there anyone that’s small?” I whisper to Fiorella.
“Nope. And Romano is one of the smaller ones.” She laughs.
“Holy crap, are you serious? I mean your papá is a really big guy. My papá isn’t as big as he is.”
“My papà and his brothers are some of the biggest in the families. But I don’t think there’s any of the guys that are under six three.”
Fiorella’s laughing at me and I can’t help but laugh too.
“I was thinking today you can follow Simone in the front. You can get to know the pastries we sell. Whenever you’re ready to try getting up with us, then we can teach you to bake. We bake everything before we open and once we sell out, we’re out. We do have some things that we have extras, but for the most part, everything’s made fresh daily.” Rosaura explains to me.
