He gave me an ugly look, taking down his coat and storming out into the night. When I heard our car leave the drive, I realized that I’ve been shaking.
Him so much as mentioning the baby made me want to rip out his eyes.
The void in my body, my mind, my soul, it can’t be filled.
Two hours later, I hear a knock. I had given myself to scrapbooking but got up and abandoned it to see who was here.
When I opened the door, I found all of Lorenzo’s sisters. Donna, Angela, Mia, and Giada. “Buon Natale!” They all shouted at me.
I couldn’t help but smile. They are full of energy, feminine beauty, all decked out for the holidays with excitement.
“What are you all doing here?” I stepped outside into the cold; arms crossed.
“Lorenzo said that Ruby went out,” Angela lifted both brows. “We all know what that means.” The others nodded or made rude gestures.
“And,” Giada jerked her chin at their van. “We want to invite you to Christmas at the DiGregorio’s. Ma said to come get you.”
“That,” said Mia. “Plus, Liam is the only non-Italian at the house.”
Giada shoved her. “Shut your mouth.”
“It’s true,” said Angela. “That and Lorenzo, he’s brooding. He says you ain’t been by the restaurant in a while.”
Guilt washed over me. “I’ve been a little AWOL.” I thought of the last time I saw Lorenzo. When he was here, holding my hand through the mess. He’d texted me a few times, called even, but I’m still a mess. I think of him and I feel awkward. No man’s ever seen me in that much disarray, not even Noah. It should have been Noah. In some ways, I feel closer to Lorenzo than anyone in the world, and that scares me. We’ve been through more together than we have with our partners. “Tell him, hi, for me,” I say.
“Oh, nah, nah, nah,” Angela wagged her finger at me. “You get in the car and you come with us. You aren’t sitting in here all by yourself, on Christmas Eve, while your husband is out climbing Ruby mountain.”
I winced.
Mia shook her head. “He don’t even have the decency to bring home expensive gifts out of guilt. He’s obviously not Catholic.”
They all grunted in agreement, making me laugh. Then I felt my chest sink. “I really can’t… I um…” I can’t say it.
“That’s why we came,” Donna said. “We know…”
I frowned.
“Why did you tell her?” Giada scolded.
“Because pretending not to know isn’t working,” Donna explained.
“How do you know?” I asked.
Angela smiled with sympathy. “Awe, Hon. Ma knew the minute you stepped in the door at Thanksgiving that you was pregnant. She usually knows before we do. We don’t even buy pregnancy tests in this family, we just come see Ma.”
They all nodded, then Giada spoke up. “When Lorenzo was late to work the morning it happened, he told me in confidence. I told Ma.”
“Ma told me,” Donna shrugged.
“Donna told me,” Angela added. “And I been through three miscarriages.” The mood plunged. “So I know what you’re feeling, and you aren’t staying here by yourself.”
I stood and stared at them. I want to cry, but I’m cried out. So, I just stare. I need them, but I’m afraid to think about it or let the pain in because it’s waiting to swallow me. Without needing clues, they all came up the steps of the house and hugged me. All of them at once swathed me in this magical hug, where I felt warm from the cold.
We stayed like that for a long time, until they ushered me in to get my things, then out again.
“See, now, I woulda stabbed the bastard,” Angela said from the driver’s seat after I told them about my fight with Noah.
“Really, she would,” Mia told me. “She once broke the hand of a boyfriend that was stealing from her.”
“Temper is a DiGregorio curse,” Donna said.
“If you ever do stab your husband, call us,” Mia insisted. “We got an uncle in the West End that would make all that go away.”
We laughed. It felt good. A little like being on shallow ground, but slowly, it was freeing.
“You’re all so dressed up,” I said. “Am I okay?”
Three of the four looked at me, but not Angela because she’s driving. “Meh,” said Giada.
“You should come by my salon one day,” Angela hinted. “There’s a real seductress under all them layers, I can feel it.”
I laughed. “Am I that bad?”
“The question is,” Donna twisted in her seatbelt to see me. “Are you happy with you? Because if you are, then you’re perfect.”
I considered it. “Um, sometimes. But mostly… I wish I felt prettier. More like a girl. But I don’t want men thinking I’m doing it for attention.”
“You think we do it for attention?” Angela asked. She snorted. “No! We do it for us. We feel good. We like jewelry, we like to play with makeup, we like sexy clothes. Who gives a damn what men think? Huh? Half the time they don’t even think.”
Donna interrupted. “I once walked naked in front of the TV, my man didn’t even notice, the Yankee’s was playing.”
They all laughed.
“You just gotta be you,” Giada put in. “Liam sees me looking like a scarecrow sometimes, he still loves me. But I love to feel sexy, I love to be proud of my body. So long as you look in the mirror, and you like what you see.”
I didn’t say much the rest of the way. The girls did, shouting back and forth, having nine different conversations. They were a comfort. One I didn’t realize I needed.
Chapter Seventeen
LORENZO
The loud buzz of my family is white noise to me. Even now when I’m trying to assemble mom’s new fondue machine. When I hear my sisters pouring in from outside, I have no reason to look up from my task or walk in the living room and go see.
“Ma, I coulda done it,” Rocco whines behind me.
“Sure,” Ma humored him. “I only asked ninety times, if you coulda, you shoulda.”
“Lorenzo isn’t any smarter than me,” Rocco insists, opening the fridge.
“Your brother listens to me,” she said. “And shut that door. Don’t eat none of that. It’s for later when we get back from Midnight Mass.”
He slams it shut with grumbling that never ends.
“Ma!” Dante comes in steaming. “When you put my stuff away, I can’t find anything!”
“How do you find anything when it’s all in piles?” she retorts, going to pull a tablecloth from the cabinet.
“When are you gonna stop doing my laundry without asking?” Dante nips.
“When are you gonna move out? I ask that all the time. You’re twenty-nine, get a job.”
“I have a job!”
“Playing the guitar is not a job.”
He exploded in rage, making me smile.
“Lorenzo,” Ma’s use of my name makes me look up. “You look sharp, amore.” She comes and rubs my shoulder and her touch is welcome. Dante left in a tantrum and Rocco is still stealing food behind her. “You’re going to Mass, yes?”
I should have known there was a price to her flattery.
“No, Ma.”
“Why are you trying to upset me?”
I smirked. “You have Dante, for that.”
“It’s Christmas.”
“I know.”
“If you don’t go to Mass, I won’t give you your gifts.”
“That’s okay, Ma.”
She ranted. Mostly in Italian, calling me a mule. But then I saw Lydia coming into the kitchen and her rant was lost on me.
My mother greeted her with kisses, drowning her with affection. Not wanting to pressure her, I kept working on the machine. When Ma went to get candles for later, Lydia sat by me.
“Hello,” she said.
I smiled. “Long time, no see.”
She smiled back, but sadly. “I’m sorry. I haven’t been okay.”
“I know,” I stopped to make reass
uring circles on her back. “I know,” I said again.
Her eyes told me everything.
“Is it okay that I’m here? Your sisters came to get me.”
“You’re always welcome here. My family loves you.”
She looked away shyly.
“Lydia,” my mother came in, dropping all the candles on the table and I took my hand back. “Tell my son, he has to go to Mass.”
I rolled my eyes.
Lydia lifted her brows at me. “Lorenzo… you have to go to Mass,” she repeated in favor of my mother.
I sent her a side glance. “I don’t gotta do anything.”
“Lorenzo,” she said again. “Your mother asked you to go to Mass.”
My mother sent me a deathly look, and Lydia looked entertained by my being cornered. “I’ll go if you go,” I said to Lydia.
“Me?”
“Yep.”
“I’m not Catholic.”
“Oh, but you can still come,” my mom pressed. “You should come. Both of you need to come.”
Lydia looked at me in question.
“If I have to go, you have to go,” I said.
She blushed but agreed.
“They’re shaking the stuff you brought,” Angela said, coming in to sit by Lydia.
“Who’s shaking what?” I asked.
Angela poured herself some wine. “Lydia brought the kids stuff for Christmas. They’re trying to figure out what each thing is.”
“You got them stuff?” I questioned.
Lydia shrugged. “It was no big deal. I know a lot of toy shops and some of them swapped my restored toys for newer ones. You’d be surprised how many collectors—”
Angela talked over her, making me send her a look she didn’t notice. “She even got all their names right. Didn’t forget a single one.”
From just beside and behind Lydia, Angela pointed her eyes to make a point.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I said to Lydia. “You work hard on those.”
“I know,” she shrugged a little. “But it’s Christmas, these little ones are healing to be around and…” She hid under her lashes, looking at her hands. “I like to see kids happy.”
She’s thinking about the baby. I can see it.
“Here,” Angela pours more wine into her glass, then scoots it to Lydia. “You need this more than I do.”
“I don’t want to risk being tipsy for your midnight service,” she declined.
Angela took the glass back. “Strange little Christian girl.”
Lydia and I laughed as Angela drank for both of them.
To say that Lydia stuck out a little at church, would be an understatement. She’s not dressy like the women in my family and even I am diligently put together. Still, she fits. She fits because she’s with us. We sat side-by-side in a pew with my siblings, while my mother, grandmother, and aunts, sat in the one in front of us.
Lydia tugged my sleeve, and I bent to hear her. “When do I kneel or sit?”
“Just follow my lead,” I whispered back.
And she did, flawlessly.
There were a few times we sat in silence, the smell of incense and the sound of the choir, taking me back to my childhood. Most of all, times with my Dad. We usually sat together through Mass.
I saw Lydia’s eyes dancing over everything. The red carpeting rolled out down the main aisle, the lush bunches of holly at the end of each pew, the stone saints on their pedestals, and the colorful stained-glass windows.
My back pressed into the wood of our seat and it creaked, but she didn’t notice, too intent on the flickering of flames on the many candles, or the hum of the hymns being sung.
I remembered what she said in Little Italy. That our churches make her feel small. Like being in God’s pocket.
She used her shoulder to brush away a tear during a silent time of prayer, and I saw Angela slip her hand into Lydia’s from Lydia’s other side.
Lydia leaned away from me, putting her head on Angela’s shoulder.
I found a little peace at Mass. For the first time in years.
Walking home in our large group, Lydia kept her mitten-covered hands up near her mouth to breathe heat onto them. She’s like a kid sometimes. A strange cross between an adult woman that knows how to function in the real world, and a girl that needs her hand to be held while crossing traffic.
“I feel like God breathes against the back of my neck, when I’m in your churches,” she said. “Not like mine. It’s not as private at mine. There were so many people there tonight, but it felt so secluded.”
“You gonna convert?” I teased her.
“No,” she blushed. “But I never really thanked you for staying with me,” she said in a whisper. “And I need to apologize for ignoring your texts.”
I looked down at her. “You don’t need to.”
“Yes, I do. That was the worst night of my life, and you got me through it.”
I returned my attention to the sidewalk.
She kept looking at me. Studying something. “Why won’t you get a divorce?”
I find this an odd question since I already answered it and asked at an odd time. But my family was talking back and forth, loudly, not listening. “You know why.”
“But that restaurant isn’t your family’s legacy. You are.”
I was already shaking my head as she was talking. “No, no, stop. Stop.” I said it the last time firmly. “It’s not that simple, and it’s a very big risk.”
“Like the one your ancestor took when he first came to this country, and started Cibo Degli Dei?”
I felt my jaw tighten, shutting her words out. “Why are you bringing this up?”
“Because you mean far more than a restaurant.”
LYDIA
My argument with Noah was slow to heal and even when it did, there was a portion of us that was missing. We are no longer the couple we were. We’ve seen the real side of one another, and we don’t like what we saw.
Above all, he found a way to make the miscarriage his sadness. Not mine. When we talked it out, it was about his loss, his not knowing, his chance at fatherhood. When the conversation turned in my favor, and how wounded I was, his answer was that we should wait a year, then try again. Like nothing happened. Like this exact soul would return to us. Like it wasn’t unique.
New Years went by in a blur.
Noah spent it with Ruby and I spent it with Lorenzo’s family.
January first should have brought the cleansing feeling of a new year, instead, I just felt adrift.
I don’t intend to spend the rest of my life with Noah anymore, but I’ve been a dependent all my life. When I lived with my parents, I didn’t have a job and when I married Noah, I was a stay-at-home wife. I could probably sell the toys I’ve redone. I would likely be able to afford a small mansion with the money, but my heart isn’t in selling those toys. I’m proud of the work and I’m bonded to each project.
Finding a job will take thought.
But the most crippling part of facing January is that this new year will bring me no baby. The summer will just come and go, nothing special about it. No due date.
I feel like just an empty thing.
My phone rang while I was laying in bed with Noah. It’s six in the morning on a Sunday, and it took a lot of motivation to answer it. When I saw it was Lorenzo, I silenced my phone, got out of bed and tiptoed downstairs to talk in my toy room with the door shut.
“Lorenzo, I was sleeping in for once. If Noah has Ruby hidden in my pantry again, she’s going to have to stay and eat what’s in there,” I answered.
“Ruby doesn’t eat carbs. I need you to meet me in Central Park. On the Bow Bridge.”
I shook my head. “I can’t. Today is church.”
“Act sick.”
“Listen, Catholic Boy,” I teased.
“I said meet me on the bridge.”
So bossy. Always so bossy. “Okay.”
Once again, I lied convincingly, telling Noah that
my throat felt sore. This is why I need the gumption to separate. It should never be this easy to lie to the person you love.
It should never be this easy for the person that loves you, to be fooled.
I walked the park a while toward the bridge. It feels weird to skip church, like a kid skipping class. As I walk with my hands in my pockets, I also feel closer to God than I do at church. Walking alone in the park is more intimate than being surrounded.
“You walk slow,” Lorenzo calls from the bridge.
I laugh. “What was so important that we couldn’t talk over the phone?” I notice he has a pink balloon and lift a brow. “It’s not my birthday,” I tease. “Is it your birthday?”
“No, but it is for you.”
“Why?”
“Because,” he dropped his cigarette and smashes it with his foot. “You had a baby, and that makes you a mother. A mother without a baby. And you need to stop trying to make it any less than that.”
The moment he mentioned the baby, my smile fell, and my skin felt tight. The cold began to reach my bones.
The Affair (The Relationship Quo Series Book 5) Page 21