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“Still won’t let me eat eggs, but good.”
He laughed and glanced at Dez.
“Cardez,” Orlando nodded at him.
“Pops.”
My husband walked past his father and went to wash his hands.
Dez told me everything the night he got the paternity test results. After confronting Orlando about it, he came home with a blank look on his face. He sat in the living room with his shoes still on and laid it all out.
Everybody that man loved had lied to him. His parents and me.
We’d worked through our mess, and I’d like to think we’d come out better on the other side of it. He and Orlando hadn’t, and I didn’t know if they would. On top of everything else, Cardez had killed his biological father and didn’t know whether the man had died knowing Dez was his son.
Rosie brought the food out as we sat at the dining table. The oxtail was incredible, tender and falling off the bone in a rich dark gravy.
“She can eat,” Orlando mused to Dez.
“You have no idea,” Dez muttered.
“I’m growing a person, thank you very much,” I said.
Orlando laughed. He was trying. He was nothing like the man I’d met at the gala who’d been so skeptical of me. Between getting shot, seeing his son get married, and finding out he was going to be a grandfather, he had softened him quite a bit.
“How’s your mother doing? he asked.
“Better. I haven’t found a way to explain everything, but she’ll live.”
“I should send her something. What does she like? Flowers?”
I shook my head. “Orlando, please, you’ll end up being husband number five, and that would be weird.”
We talked about easier things for a while until business came up as it always does in this life. Dez stiffened next to me.
“Gilberto said he’s thinking of hosting a formal dinner,” Orlando said over dessert. “To celebrate the marriage and you taking over the family properly.”
“I told him it was fine,” Dez replied flatly.
“This is a good thing. The Table’s still showing their support despite everything—”
“I said fine.”
Orlando looked at his son like he knew exactly what he’d broken but had no idea how to fix it.
“Cardez—”
“We’re not doing this in front of Belle, Pop.”
“Baby, whatever it is, I can—”
He put his hand on my thigh under the table. “We’ll deal with it, just not tonight.”
I pressed my lips together and looked at Orlando.
“More bread pudding?” he asked.
“Please,” I replied.
