GIA
I smell something that might be actual food and I am following that smell.
I have not eaten since yesterday. I married a man, survived a wedding night fully clothed, and I deserve a good breakfast.
I hear them before I see them.
Laughter. Real laughter, the kind that bounces off kitchen walls and means someone said something they probably shouldn't have, then a voice sayingno, no, stop, I'm going to choke,and more laughter on top of that.
I stop in the doorway of the kitchen because it's the last sound I expected to find in this house this morning and I need a second to make sure I'm not imagining it.
Three women are sitting around the kitchen island the size of a small country. One is perched on the counter swinging her legs. One has both hands wrapped around a mug, shaking with suppressed laughter. One is gesturing wildly with a piece of toast and talking with her whole body.
They all look vaguely familiar and I know I must have seen them at my very unplanned wedding ceremony.
They all look up when I appear.
"Ah there you are," the one with the toast says, her face breaking into a grin that looks like she's genuinely been waiting for me. "We were wondering when you'd come down. I'm Alessia. Sit, sit, there's coffee and Marta made her good eggs, not the healthy ones, the real ones with the butter."
I have no idea who these women are but I already like Alessia.
"Bianca," says the one on the counter, lifting her mug. "And before you ask, yes, we let ourselves in, we do this every time the men have their brooding morning meetings and honestly this kitchen is better than mine so. Hope you don’t mind?”
“Uh…” Idon’t know if I mind.
"Isabella." The third one slides a mug across the island toward me with a grin. "We know who you are. I’ve been dying to meet you ever since I saw you yesterday, but you looked like you had your hands full."
I sit down. I pull the mug toward me. I look at the three of them, cheerful and completely at home in someone else's kitchen, and my chest goes tight in a way I wasn't prepared for.
They're normal. Funny, loud, happy to be here, and they look genuinely at ease.
I didn’t know anyone around here would be capable of feeling any of those.
"Which one of you is married to which terrifying man?" I ask. "Because I saw them last night and I need to understand how any of you can still laugh like this."
Bianca nearly falls off the counter.
"Terrifying," Alessia repeats, delighted. "Oh, I'm telling Matteo that."
"Please don't," I say quickly, because I love my life, thank you.
"She's right though," Bianca says. "From the outside they're absolutely horrifying. I remember the first time I met Dante I thought, this man is going to be a problem for my blood pressure."
"Was he?"
"Constantly. Still is. Different reasons now." She grins into her mug. "I'm Dante’s. Isabella is Enzo’s. Alessia is Matteo's."
I look at Alessia. "You married the one in charge."
"Someone had to keep him from being insufferable full time," she says, completely unbothered. "It's basically a public service."
"They're all bark," Bianca says. "Genuinely. Terrifying to everyone else and then they come home and Dante spent forty minutes last week looking for his reading glasses that were on his own head." She pauses. "Don't tell him I told you that."
"They're protective to the point of insanity," Isabella says. "Enzo once threatened a man for standing too close to me in a line. At a bakery."
"Was the man a threat?" I ask.
"He was seventy years old and buying focaccia."
