“Don’t thank me. I was ordering stuff anyway.” This is a lie. I ordered them for him. “Merry Christmas. Or Happy holiday. Or whatever you celebrate.”
“Whatever I celebrate...”
“Uh, I don’t know what you might celebrate this time of year. I just...uh, wanted to get you something nice. You deserve something nice.”
He finally looks up.
There’s nothing in his face. The eyes are the eyes he shows me at work, not the ones that laughed with Thompson about a bass tournament five minutes ago. He looks at me for maybe a second and a half, a blink longer than the last three months of sessions combined. Then he nods once, small, and looks back to the pens.
I walk out.
Outside the treatment room the hallway’s too bright. The strings of lights are still crooked. I walk past them to the parking lot and I put my bag in the passenger seat and I sit for a minute with my hands on the wheel. Then I start the car. The song he sent last night comes back on, the one I’d been humming without meaning to, and I let it play.
Chapter 5 — TEO
“Matteo! Matteo is here!”
Nicole yells it from the kitchen and doesn’t look up from the onions. Forty-five minutes of text updates from the road and my mother is in the doorway like she hasn’t seen me since birth.
“You lost weight.”
“Ma. I didn’t.”
“Your face is smaller.”
“My face is the same face.”
“Your face is smaller. It’s the flying. You fly too much.”
Her hand goes into my hair and pushes it off my forehead the way she’s been doing since I was four. My coat is still half-on. Someone has already stacked my boots by the door.
“Stop smothering him, Ma. Let him get in the house.” My oldest sister Gina says, wine glass in one hand, the other out to take my coat. She hugs me and pats my back twice.
“You look tired.” My mother is still hovering around me.
“I flew three hours, Ma. I didn’t cross an ocean.”
“You look tired.”
“Everyone looks tired to you.”
“Because everyone is tired, Matteo. We are all tired. We are a tired family. Go say hi to your dad and Nonna.”
Nonna is in her chair in the living room and Dad on the couch watching the football game. Nonna puts both hands on my face. Looks at me. Doesn’t say anything for a second.
“Caro.”
“Nonna.”
“Sit.”
“I have to say hi to everyone in the kitchen.”
“The kitchen will be there.”
I sit. She gives me biscotti. Dad asks me about the team, about practice, where we are with respect to the playoffs. Nothing has changed in this room since I was last in it. Same couch, same blanket folded at the same angle, same conversations. The kitchen is loud behind us. Gina and Jackie are arguing about the gravy and neither of them is making it, which is how this family does it.
“You look good, Matteo.”
