Page 140 of Matteo

“Another drink?” Vlad asks, when he summons a server to our table. I nod.

“I’ll have a vodka soda this time, please,” I tell the server.

“Is Matteo joining us?” Vlad asks. “I want to get to know him better.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s with you.”

He senses that I don’t like that. “Perhaps it was wrong of me to turn up at your hotel room unannounced,” he offers, “but I wanted to know you were okay. Is that such a bad thing?”

“No.” I reply. Not when he says it like that. He's always cared about me, and for that I’ll always be grateful.

Chapter 33

MATTEO

I’m getting changed after my shower when Mama calls. She’s excited about my visit and wants to know what I’m doing in Croatia.

I tell her I’m here with a friend for a friend’s wedding. I purposely keep it vague and don’t say too much. I don’t want her to know that I’m here with a woman, let alone someone I’m starting to have feelings for. I don’t want her to know just yet, because I’m still trying to figure it out for myself.

But Mama always knows about the words I don’t say. “A friend?”

“Just someone from work.” I feign a yawn, but I can hear her brain ticking furiously in the silence that follows.

“Just someone from work?”

I pause, wondering why I didn’t refer to Elizabeth as my girlfriend. I have a hard time knowing exactly what to call her, because she feels like more than just a girlfriend.

“What’s her name, figlio mio?” she asks.

My son. I love hearing those words from Mama.

“Uh.” I pause, but I don’t know why. Maybe because saying it out loud will mean something.

“Is she coming with you?”

“I never said it was a she, Mama.”

“You never said it was a he, either.”

I can feel her smiling at the other end.

“Her name is Elizabeth, Mama, and no, she's not coming with me. She’s spending time with her friends.”

But the fact that I'd already thought about it, about asking Elizabeth to come with me to Soave, to see Mama, is a big deal. Elizabeth is a big deal to me. Then why can’t I put a label on it?

“Elizabeth, eh? Another time, perhaps. I can’t wait to see you.”

“Can’t wait to see you. Love you, Mama.”

Talking to my mom always makes me happy. I miss her. We all miss her. I wish she’d come back to the States and live with us. I want my mom around, we all do, but she keeps saying she won’t come until she has grandchildren.

I’m wondering if Rio will step up to the challenge. Could be Jett, or Dex—those boys seem pretty loved up. But Mama’s talking about her boys, though she often asks about “Aurora’s boys.”

She’s always been interested in their lives and how they are doing. We used to find it odd at first, at least I did. Why she was so fixated on them, but now that we’re all becoming closer, I see that Mama was being wise, not nosy. She understood that we were all connected, and that our lives would always be entwined.

She never asks about the old man.