My voice sounds scared. Reedy. Thin.
Vulnerable.
“I don’t know,” Posey says, then nods once. “But we’re going to make it better. Grandma wouldn’t have left us here if she didn’t think we could do it.”
“And we’ll have Hazel soon, too.” Rose grabs a rose macaron from the display and pops it in her mouth. “Between the four of us? Silverlight Shore won’t even know there’s anything wrong.”
I sniffle, surprised to find a traitorous tear leaking out of my eye.
“Bread is the answer.” Posey turns and starts walking out the door, clearly unwilling to see any more tears.
“Pasta is the answer,” Rose calls out.
“I think Nonna will have the answer you need, Ivy.” Gunner touches his wet nose to my knee again, and I peel my gloves off and give him a good scratch.
I sure hope he’s right.
Nonna’s Table, like everything else in downtown Silverlight Shore, is only a few blocks away, and it takes us no time at all to find ourselves in front of the iconic restaurant.
It’s exactly the same as it’s always been, a little bricked up eatery that somehow feels old world and contemporary at once. Cozy without being cloying, comforting without sepia nostalgia. Clean white tablecloths neatly tucked around rectangle tables and sturdy wood chairs.
A wind’s kicked up off the ocean, and it ruffles our hair as we walk through the front door.
It’s past the lunch rush, though at this time of the year, lunch rush isn’t nearly the problem it is during the summer months.
One of Nonna’s many family members seats us without much fanfare at an empty table that looks out over the choppy water of the Reach.
Dread curls up my spine, a tentacle of unease that tugs at something deep in my skull.
Something is out there, and I don’t know what it is, and I can’t control it.
“I can’t do this alone.”
“You’re not alone,” Rose whispers, grabbing my hand and squeezing.
I didn’t mean to say it out loud.
“No, you’re not alone, and you’re not getting rid of us, so you’re just gonna have to deal with that,” Posey says.
Nonna herself chooses that moment to appear, bearing a tray piled high with steaming crusty bread, a cast iron pot of mussels in what smells like a white wine butter sauce, and bresaola and eggplant rollatini with arugula scattered around it like little green punctuation marks.
“I have missed my girls,” Nonna tells us, leveling us each with a serious glare that says she means business… and we’re about to leave here uncomfortably full. Her jet-black hair is the same it’s been my whole life, pulled back into a severe high bun that makes her look even more regal.
“It has been too long since you let me feed you,” she continues.
“We’re sorry—” Rose starts.
“Bah!” Nonna says, loading her plate with the rollatini and setting it in front of her, a challenge in her eyes. “You don’t apologize to me. You let me feed you. That’s your apology.”
“As if we could say no to that,” Posey says sincerely, and I get the feeling she’s very much enjoying herself. “Do you have any spaghetti today?”
“Spaghetti and meatballs? Is that what my Posey girl wants? That’s what my Posey girl will get.”
“I’d like?—”
Nonna holds up a hand, cutting Rose off. “No. Nonna knows what you need. Posey gets the meatballs, of course. You get what Nonna knows you need.” She nods to herself. “And you, my Ivy, you have seen our Caleb is back?”
There it is.
