Chapter 41
Chapter Forty-One
Maurizio
Acouple of days had passed since Sophie’s arrival and Flora had managed to avoid her beyond a couple of awkward exchanges in the kitchen at breakfast. Bea was taking some leave days so hadn’t returned to work since the baby shower.
As far as I knew she was oblivious to Sophie’s return which had surprised me since she and Sophie had been close previously and I had recently discovered had remained in contact.
That didn’t bother me . . . okay, that wasn’t entirely true.
I wasn’t bothered by them being friends or whatever they were, but it being kept from me was irksome.
In the months where Sophie hadn’t seen the children, was she getting updates from Bea?
Had Bea told her about me and Flora, and is that what had prompted her return?
I knew the reason for her return, and it wasn’t me, so the no to the second question was answered with conviction.
“Penny for your thoughts?” asked Sophie as we sat together in my office discussing our divorce settlement and of all things, wills.
“Nothing important,” I told her with a slightly forced smile.
She laughed. “If you say so, but I know that face too well to buy that. Is it Flora?”
I wasn’t going to be able to hold this smile in place if she kept pushing and assumed any less than happy feelings related to Flora. Along with my children, she was the person guaranteed to force genuine smiles and happiness from me.
“No.”
“Maurice, Mo,” she offered my shortened name she had used occasionally in softer moments, especially in the early days. “I am trying to be friendly and to reassure her about us.”
“I know, but it’s weird for her because unlike Bea, she has never worked or lived in the house at the same time as you.”
“She’s used to having you to yourself.”
I supposed she was, but I wasn’t going to get into a discussion about me and Flora.
It was private and if I was going to discuss it, it wouldn’t be with Sophie.
“Shall we get on?” Pointing down at the pile of papers on the desk between us I wondered how long it would take for Flora to acclimatise to Sophie being here and just how long I could keep the real reason for her presence from anyone else.
An hour, or maybe two, passed with us shut away in my office. I was getting a headache looking at all of the things that needed to be sorted and agreed by us both when the sound of voices and something of a commotion interrupted.
The knock on the door and subsequent opening revealed Flora looking awkward and she paused on the threshold.
“Sorry, erm, Carmella’s here.”
The sound of the children giggling and their feet hammering on the floor in the hallway usually brought a big smile to my face, but when it was followed by my mother’s voice, I felt a sense of dread.
Her speaking gentle and kind words to my children was going to be short lived once she saw Sophie.
Was she aware of her presence in the house?
Perhaps the children had already told her about Mummy being here as they had with everyone they had encountered recently.
Flora physically shrunk when my mother stood alongside her and managed to fill the doorway despite her tiny frame and stature.
“Maurizio,” she addressed me before turning to Sophie, her face blank, suggesting she was not surprised to see her former daughter-in-law here but was masking her true feelings.
“Nonna, look, told you, Mummy is home!”
Rosie’s words along with Craig entering the office and climbing on his mum’s lap saw my mother’s face contort slightly before her fixed expression returned.
However, it was the physical recoil of Flora as I moved until I was stood next to the chair Sophie still sat in where I scooped my daughter into my arms that cut me the deepest. Shit!
We must have looked like something off the front of a politician’s posed family Christmas card.
I needed to stop showing Flora the family we once were, the couple she feared we may be again.
“Maurizio!” My mother snapped my name and although I towered over her, she painted an imposing figure.
“How could you? After all she has done?” It was as though she suddenly realised the children were present because in the blink of an eye, a warm and loving smile returned to her face and she visibly softened as she gazed down at them.
“Daddy, has been silly,” she told them and even managed to laugh, a light and gentle giggle almost. “But Nonna is going to help him sort things out now that she knows.”
Great, my soon-to-be ex-wife had landed unannounced, my kids were thrilled but I was scared for them, not least because I knew this was not the happy ending they hoped for, my girlfriend .
. . shit! I had a girlfriend, and she didn’t even know it, but then how would she since I had only just realised it, and now, my mother was speaking about me as if I were a child and was ready to launch into a tirade of abuse and chastisement.
At least she wasn’t angry enough to rip me a new one in Italian.
“Sciocco,” she muttered with a roll of her eyes.
“Children, let’s go and get some cookies.” Flora’s voice was cheery in the extreme, unlike her eyes that looked a little dimmer than usual, but at least her words were enough to summon the children from whatever my mother had in store for me.
“Perhaps I should go with them.” Sophie was up on her feet and already moving towards the doorway.
“If you would just go that would be the perfect solution for everyone.”
“Mama.” I got that she was upset and only felt that way because she loved me and wanted to protect me from any more hurt at Sophie’s hands, but she needed to stop because Sophie was going nowhere at the moment and no matter what else changed, she would always be my children’s mother. “Enough.”
Sophie was already closing the door behind her, and I didn’t doubt running for the safety of the kitchen or wherever else the children and Flora were.
I couldn’t allow myself to consider how awkward that encounter might be because I needed to focus on speaking to my mother and getting her to accept that Sophie was back, for the children.
“Mama, this is not what you think it is.”
She rolled her eyes so hard I wasn’t sure she hadn’t been possessed by some evil force. “So, she is not back living in the house and playing happy families? Because all evidence would suggest that is untrue.”
“Not like you mean–”
She’d heard enough and her shaking head and flailing arms confirmed that. I wasn’t sure that I wasn’t going to get hit as she stepped closer.
“That puttana! She is using you, and when she has no further use for you, she will leave again and hurt you and break the hearts of those beautiful babies a little more than last time. And Flora, what about her heart in all of this?”
I was stunned at the introduction of Flora’s name.
My mother had no clue about us being together.
I had deliberately kept it from her, so how did she know?
I briefly wondered if perhaps Nico had said something to her, but we both knew exactly how my mother was with the mere sniff of romance in the air, so I quickly dismissed him as the cause of her knowledge.
She laughed as she took the seat Sophie had vacated and gestured to my own. Sitting down, I waited for her to speak because I had no clue where to start but was relieved that she was calmer, her face had softened a little.
“You thought I didn’t know. That I hadn’t noticed the way you look at her, the way you look at each other?
Maurizio, you are my baby, and I can read you like an open book where matters of the heart are concerned.
Flora wears her heart on her sleeve so it would be hard not to know.
I know you think I interfere.” She paused for thought for a second.
“I do a little, but that’s because I love you. ”
I couldn’t fight the smirk that she claimed to only interfere a little.
“But there is a reason you and Sophie didn’t work, many reasons, but you and Flora could.
I know you loved Sophie, and that the children need and miss her, but do not make the same mistake a second time because it will only get harder to stand firm in what you won’t accept and the hurt for the children will be so much greater. ”
She was right, and had I been considering a reconciliation with Sophie, this conversation would give me food for thought and possibly prompt me to reconsider, but she didn’t understand what was happening here, and again, like Flora, I wasn’t sure how much I could or should tell her.
“I love Flora.” Those words blurted out loud rocked me more than my mother who offered me a nod and an accompanying smile.
“Then what is happening here, Maurizio? Make me understand why Sophie is living here and Flora looks sad despite you loving her?”