Too comfortable with me.
Good.
That is how it should be.
That is not how it was at my father’s table.
Still, there are days when the sight of them across this table affects me in ways I do not expect. Matteo with his mother’s stillness when he is listening. Tomasso with her mouth when he is amused.
They are mine.
But they are hers too.
Every day, still.
“What is it?” Matteo asks.
“Nothing.”
Tomasso snorts.
I turn my head toward him.
He lifts both hands slightly. “I said nothing.”
“You made a sound.”
“I am a living man. It happens.”
Matteo takes a sip of wine. “You have been distracted since we arrived.”
“I run several companies.”
“You have run several companies for years,” Tomasso says. “Decades, even. Usually, you still notice when someone asks you a question.”
“I noticed.”
“What did I ask?”
I look at him.
He grins.
I pick up my knife. “You asked whether Edoardo has ever had a spontaneous thought in his life.”
Tomasso’s grin widens. “Fine. You were listening.”
“Unfortunately.”
Matteo looks at me for a long moment.
He has always done that. Even as a child. Tomasso pushed at the world until it pushed back. Matteo studied it first. He watches, listens, gauges. He knew when Anna was tired before I did. He knows when I am angry before I say a word.
Tonight, his quiet is too precise, too meaningful.
“What?” I ask him.
He does not immediately answer.
