by Cora Brent
He pulled me aside in the office and broke the news that he wasn’t coming over tonight. Between the weariness of the day and the fact that he had a very early meeting, he figured we’d both be better off if he slept in his own neglected bed. Dominic watched me carefully when he said all this, maybe expecting that I would be angry or hurt. I wasn’t. Even though I’d gotten used to falling asleep beside him, I could certainly manage on my own for a night. I kissed him quickly on the lips, told him to get some rest, and to let me know if I could do anything to help the family.
When I got home, Luke and Lando were overjoyed. Well, as overjoyed as cats can be. They competed for space in my lap, rubbed their faces against my Esposito’s T-shirt, and sniffed at the leftover pizza I devoured right there on the couch with no cares about crumbs or sauce stains.
“This is how I roll,” I told the cats as I switched on the television with the intention of indulging in a Gilmore Girls marathon. The next thing I knew, it was dawn, Luke was sitting on my neck, and Lando was licking marinara sauce from one of the nearby throw pillows.
I groaned, pushed the cat off my body, and sat up. “Must have been a wild night,” I said as I tried to smooth down the rowdy nest that my hair had become. It was a futile effort, so I gave up and headed for the shower.
After I was dressed, I realized I didn’t have to be at work for a few hours. I stared at my wide-eyed reflection in the bathroom vanity mirror for a moment and then made an impulsive decision. I kissed Luke and Lando on their napping orange heads and went out to buy some flowers. Only something happy and colorful would do, so I settled on a yellow daisy arrangement and drove straight to the hospital. I wasn’t sure I’d get to see Donna since she might be in the process of getting prepped for surgery, but she was still in her room. I felt timid walking in, wondering if she’d even remember who I was since we’d only met once. But Dominic’s grandmother beamed joyfully when I peeked through the open door of her hospital room.
“It’s you,” she said.
“Hi, Donna.” I crept in and set the flowers on a little table beside her bed. “I wasn’t sure you’d remember me.”
She held a hand out, and I took her fingers gently. “Of course. You’re my grandson Dominic’s girl,” she said warmly.
I felt myself blushing like a shy schoolgirl, but I was pleased. I liked the sound of that, of being “Dominic’s girl.” I wasn’t there more than fifteen minutes before a pair of nurses came in to announce that Donna needed to be moved to the surgical wing. Tara and Gio arrived just as her bed was being wheeled down the corridor. They seemed surprised to see me. Dominic should have been finished with his meeting, and I wanted to wait around for him, but today was going to be busy. I told Gio I’d bounce between Espo 1 and Espo 2 to make sure everything was running smoothly. Gio tried to talk me out of it, arguing that I was already putting in way more time at work than I was expected to, but I wouldn’t change my mind. Dom and Gio needed to be here, at least until Donna was out of surgery and settled. I didn’t want them to worry about anything else.
“Thanks, Melanie,” Gio said, and Tara hugged me.
I stopped by the old restaurant first. It had just opened for the day, and Aimee, who’d been serving at Espo 1 since the place opened, seemed to have it all under control. I told her to call if she needed anything and drove straight to downtown Phoenix, thinking about the Esposito family all the while.
Once I was at work, I shook off my feelings of melancholy. It wasn’t possible to keep a depressed mood going when there was pizza everywhere. Tim asked if I wanted some lunch; I happily accepted and carried an entire pie back to my office. As I ate, I wondered how much longer I’d be able to fit into a pair of jeans if all my meals were made of bread and cheese.
The call came at exactly noon. I remembered because I had just turned on my desk clock radio and heard the daily noontime national anthem. My favorite radio station played a different local high school’s recording every day.
“Melanie,” Dominic said, and I knew his tone well enough by now to tell when something was very wrong.
“What happened?” I asked, although somehow I already knew the answer.
His voice cracked as he told me. And my heart cracked a little, too, at the sound of his pain.
Donna Esposito, cherished family matriarch, had gone into sudden cardiac arrest five minutes after the general anesthesia took effect. Frantic attempts to revive her did not succeed. She’d had a long, rewarding life. In her eighty-two years she’d fashioned a legacy of love and good food and devoted family.
But even long lives somehow never seem long enough.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
DOMINIC
Gio said the arrangements could wait, but I couldn’t stand the idea of her being laid out in the hospital morgue. I made some calls and found a funeral home that was willing to schedule things in a hurry. I signed whatever paperwork the hospital admins shoved in my face and reluctantly nodded my head yes when I was asked if I wanted to see her.
My brother didn’t. He remained in the plastic hospital chair with his head down, not caring who was watching as he sobbed while his wife rubbed his back. Tara looked up at me with wounded eyes as she held him, and I wished I could let loose like Gio. I wished I could sink into the nearest chair and let my chest heave and my shoulders shake as some poisonous grief leaked out. I hadn’t cried yet. I’d come pretty close when I was on the phone with Melanie, but ultimately I held it in.
“Can I come to the hospital?” she’d asked, and I knew she wanted to. I wanted that too. I wanted to hold her and take comfort in something good, and Melanie was all good. But it felt like too much to accept from her right now, too demanding or something.
“No,” I said, and my voice sounded remote even to me. “No need for that.”
“Dom?” she said gently, and I was suddenly afraid of whatever loving words she was going to offer.
“I’ll see you later,” I told her, and ended the call. Then I followed a stout nurse down a series of barren hallways so I could say goodbye to my grandmother.
The room was small and mercifully dim. Someone had brought the sheet up to her neck, and there was no sign of trauma. It had happened quickly, before the first incision was made. That’s what they had told us, and they had no reason to lie. She was already unconscious. She just wouldn’t be waking up.
I knelt beside the bed and willed myself to look at her face. The peace I saw gave me relief. I’d been expecting something else for some reason.
“Gio couldn’t pronounce the word grandma,” I started to say and smiled at the flashback from over two decades ago. “So then you tried to get us to call you nonna, Italian for grandmother, but I kept hearing Papa Leo call you Donna, so I started calling you that too. You thought it was cute, and it stuck. People would say rude shit, thinking it was all your pride that wouldn’t allow you to be called Grandma, but you informed them you’ve never been prouder of anything as you were of your grandsons. And then you’d offer a few four-letter suggestions about where they could stick their opinions.” I paused. “Steven always called you Grandma. I didn’t remember that until now. I’m sorry you didn’t get to see him again. And I’m sorry that that’s partly my fault.”
I touched the sheet, wondering if there was anything left in this room of Donna Esposito, besides her body. She hadn’t raised us to be religious, having abandoned the Catholic Church long before we came to live with her. Yet I wondered if she would have wanted a priest at the end, had she understood it was going to be the end.
“Thank you,” I said softly. “Thank you for taking us in, for raising us, for loving us more than our own mother ever did. We love you, Donna.” I pressed two fingers to my lips and then rested them briefly on her cool forehead. “Sleep well.”
There was a sour taste in my mouth when I stood up, but I didn’t cry. Donna would have scolded me for crying. She would have said tears are for tragedies, and there was nothing tragic about a long life well lived. It still
hurt, but it wasn’t tragic. It was just the end.
Gio was in the same spot where I’d left him, and Tara was still holding him gently. He wasn’t sobbing anymore, though, and when he sadly looked up at me, I saw the gap-toothed toddler who had to be consoled when he buried his stuffed toy turtle so deep in the sand at Jones Beach that no one could find it again.
I held my arms out, and my little brother stood up for a hug now, just like he had then. Nobody stopped to stare at two big men embracing in the middle of the hospital. It was probably a common sight here.
“Let’s go,” I said, and Tara linked an arm with each of us for the walk outside.
“You want to come home with us, Dom?” Tara asked when we got out to the parking lot. Her soft blonde hair whipped around in the wind. The day had turned gray and stormy within the last few hours.
“You know, I think I’ll take a drive,” I said. “Maybe stop by the restaurants. You guys go pick up Leah and go home. Be a family. Teach the little one how to roll a proper pizza crust.”
Gio gave me a watery grin. “I think she’s a little young.”
I disagreed. “Nope. It’s never too early to start training the next generation.”
“You’re right,” he said. “After all, we were trained early.”
“We were trained by the best,” I said, recalling my grandfather’s patient smile.
Once Tara and Gio were gone, I reconsidered my plans. Miles to the west a thick dust storm was brewing, so taking a drive with low visibility and panicked motorists seemed like a bad way to spend the afternoon. I could have gone to either restaurant and kept busy. But I wasn’t ready to face a sea of well-meaning thoughts and prayers either. However, down the road from the hospital was a mall where I could wander around for a little while and be comfortably anonymous with my own private grief.
As I walked by one storefront after another, I realized I hadn’t set foot in a mall in years. When I passed a store that sold designer bath sponges followed by another one that carried nothing but wind chimes, I understood why. When I found myself in a bookstore, I impulsively purchased a cookbook that caught my eye. It was a large, colorful volume of authentic Mexican recipes. It reminded me of Melanie and the things she’d told me about her family.
While I was roaming around the mall, Melanie texted twice. I touched the screen, ready to text back, but I had nothing to say that could be squeezed into a terse text message, so I just returned to my car and drove over to the restaurant.
The dust storm had passed through the city and was now busy engulfing the East Valley in a dense cloud of dirt. The sky still looked ominous, though. Rain didn’t often fall this time of year, but it seemed appropriate and timely today.
I was barely through the door of Espo 2 when Melanie came running over. She flung her arms around my neck and squeezed.
“Dom, I’m so sorry,” she cried, and all over the dining room, customers and staff stopped and stared. I didn’t want to let her go, though. She felt so good, so soft and warm. I closed my eyes and rested my chin on her shoulder. The sorrow I’d been holding at bay threatened to erupt right there beside the hostess desk.
Melanie pulled back slightly and searched my eyes. Hers, so wide and blue, brimmed with tears. I remembered something Tara had said. Melanie stopped by the hospital this morning. She’d brought flowers, a sweet gesture, and for a woman she barely knew. All she did know was that Donna was very important to me.
“Are you okay?” she whispered.
I released her. “Let’s go talk in the office.”
The office was about thirty feet away, but about eighteen people stopped me to say how sorry they were, and they’d be praying, et cetera, et cetera. They all worked for me, and they were trying to be nice, but I just wanted to close myself in a quiet place where the words thoughts and prayers couldn’t penetrate.
Melanie threw her arms around me again as soon as we were in the office. She stretched to embrace me around the neck and pressed her body close. “I won’t ask again how I can help,” she whispered in my ear. Her breath was hot and sweet. “God, how I hated it when people asked me that after my parents died. I’m here, though, Dom. I’m here for you.”
I didn’t know if she was expecting me to fall apart or not. On one hand it sounded like a nice idea to lay my head in her lap and have a solid cry. The earth had lost a bright and loving spirit today, and we were all a little poorer. It was okay to cry about it.
But a basic part of me responded in a different way. Melanie’s full breasts were against my chest, and by now I knew them well. I knew how they felt in my mouth and under my hands. I knew how they bounced when I pushed her to ride me hard and fast. True, I still halfway felt like crying, but there were other options besides tears, and I suddenly wanted them instead. She was wearing a skirt today, the black bohemian-style one that loosely fell past her knees. Melanie and her damn skirts, they’d always driven me nuts.
“Dom,” she gasped when I abruptly reached beneath the hem of that stupid skirt and cupped her ass in my hands, pushing my way into satin panties.
Melanie craned her neck so she could see my face. Her eyes were wide, and those pink rosebud lips that I’d seen doing my filthy bidding were parted slightly. I tightened my grip and ground my hips on her body in a slow rolling motion. I was hard, burning for her, and I wanted her to feel it. And she did. She breathed hard and answered back with a rhythm of her own.
I grabbed her hair in one fist and kissed her. I was sloppy about it, sliding my tongue in there roughly. I’d use her right here, for no other reason than I needed to think about something else for a few minutes. I’d rip those panties right the fuck off, spread her wide on top of the desk, and have her however I pleased. It would be quick and dirty, and she’d love to let me do it. And why the hell not? It was a sad day, but we were here, we were alive. There were never enough moments on this earth. We should do the best we could with them.
Except it was a cheap and selfish way to deal with my own pain. And I didn’t want to use her that way.
“What’s wrong?” she asked a moment later when I set her down and backed away.
“Got carried away,” I said with a sigh. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”
Her face was flushed, her hair tangled. She smoothed her skirt out, looking awkward and embarrassed. “You mean today?” she asked. “Or ever?”
“Huh?” I was having trouble concentrating. My dick was still getting used to the idea that it wasn’t going to be getting anything right now.
“I can only get so far with you,” she said miserably. “You didn’t even want me to come to the hospital. You never even mentioned the fact that you told Gio about us. Why, Dom?” Before I could even respond, she winced and buried her face in her hands. “Oh god, I’m so sorry. You’ve had a horrible day, a truly terrible day, losing someone you love. I’m terrible for making it worse.”
Shit, she thought this was her fault. It wasn’t her fault. I just couldn’t keep taking from her until I gave something back. Melanie meant too much to me to do that.
“You’re not making it worse,” I said earnestly. I wanted her to understand how I felt about her. “Mel, look—”
The sharp knock at the door interrupted me.
“What?” Melanie yelled.
“Fire in the kitchen!” Tim shouted.
I leaped across the room in two strides and flung the door open. Tim blinked at me, startled.
“I’m sorry, Dom. It’s just that a bunch of pies got burned, and there’s thick smoke in the kitchen.”
I pushed past him and ran straight for the kitchen. “What the fuck happened?” I bellowed.
Isaiah was tossing some charred pies in the trash. “It’s my fault,” he said, and his lower lip quivered. “I was supposed to set the timer for this batch and—”
“It’s actually my fault,” Tim said right at my back. “We’ve been a little shorthanded, so I pulled Isaiah from dish duty and pushed him into helping out.”
&nbs
p; I sighed. I closed my eyes for a second because the bitter smoke of the fire stung. “It’s no one’s fault,” I said. “We’re a team here, and you guys have had to do more than your fair share lately. Now open up all the windows and tell Patsy over there to prop open the front door before the Phoenix Fire Department busts in here.”
The smoke had traveled to the dining room, and some of the customers had decided to leave. Melanie stepped in and started handing out coupons for free pizzas so that hopefully they would want to return at some point. The smoke cleared out pretty quickly, but from that moment on, I was a pizza tornado as we tried to catch up in light of the ruined pies and lost time. I kept thinking that I needed to find time to corner Melanie for a minute, but one thing after another kept coming up. By the time I finally got her alone in the office, the front door was shut, and she was packing up for the night.
“We got interrupted before,” I said.
“It’s okay.” She shrugged. “Work comes first with you. Always.”
I thought I detected a note of bitterness.
“Is that what you think?” I asked her.
She cocked her head to the side. “Isn’t it true?”
“No,” I said, but even as I did, I started to wonder. I’d grown up thinking of work and family as being indivisible. Ever since Gio and I had opened a place of our own, I’d been driven to the exclusion of everything else, and it felt natural to me. I’d never learned how to create boundaries, how to balance it all out like my brother had.
Melanie was gazing at me sadly. “Dom, again I’m so sorry about Donna. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.” She kissed me on the cheek as she passed.
She was offering me space, and I didn’t even want it. I wanted her. Yet I didn’t follow her outside when she walked through the door.