“You’ve seen his face?” I never should have sent the team website to the family chat.
Nicole tips her knife toward Gina, eyes still on the cutting board. “Gina’s been looking.”
“I’m allowed to look,” Gina says, like it’s a civic duty. “Matteo, he has good bones.”
“He has good bones,” Nicole agrees to the onions.
Gina picks her wine glass back up and gestures with it. “He has a strong jaw. Matteo. He has a strong jaw and nice cheekbones.”
“Ma.” Gina holds her phone across the island. “Look.”
Ma wipes her hands and takes it. Looks at the screen.
I tense. Can’t help it. She’s seeing Zay for the first time, a Black man on a team website, and she’s putting that together with everything her daughters just said about bones and jaws and their brother’s trainer. I watch her face.
Ma studies the photo. Looks up at me then back at the phone. I can feel her taking all of him in. Then she nods once. “He’s handsome,” she says, and hands the phone back.
Jackie hasn’t said a word yet. She’s at the edge of the island with her arms crossed and a dish towel over one shoulder, watching me peel my potato with the look she had when I was twelve and lied about who broke the kitchen window.
“What?” I ask.
“You’re blushing.”
“I’m not blushing.” I can feel my face heat up.
“He’s blushing, Ma.”
Ma doesn’t look up from the pot. “He is, Jackie.”
“How’s the shoulder, Matteo?” Jackie asks again, slower this time.
“Jackie, why are we going backwards?”
“Because you didn’t really answer. Is it fine?”
“I already told you. The shoulder is fine.”
“And the man doing the shoulder?”
“He’s good at his job.” My voice comes out more careful than I want it to.
“His job,” she repeats.
The potato is almost done. I can feel the four of them waiting for me to say something.
“His name is Zay,” I say finally, because the silence is worse than giving them an answer. “He’s an assistant athletic trainer. The head AT brought him in because he’s great at what he does. His protocol works and the shoulder is a lot better since September. That’s the answer.”
“That is not the answer,” Gina says.
“That’s a press release,” Jackie cracks.
Nicole doesn’t look up from the onions, but adds, “He hasn’t said one thing about the man.”
“Matteo,” Ma says, and her voice has the specific weight it has when she’s about to make me tell her something I don’t want to tell her.
“Ma.”
“Matteo.” She stops what she is doing and gives me the look.
