Chapter Thirty-Nine
Late one blustery January morning, Rico cradled Gina in his lap with her head on his shoulder as he juggled the clipboard and tried to answer all the questions the doctor’s office wanted a response for. He had no clue about most of her medical history beyond what he knew about Michelle and her parents. Half of Gina’s parental history was a total blank.
He supposed Michelle hadn’t known how to answer those questions either, but it only made Rico think he might have Gina’s DNA tested after all. Genetic testing could cover a lot of the things on this form, like family history of heart disease, some types of cancer she might have in her medical history, and a myriad of other conditions.
“My tummy hurts, Zio Rico.”
“I know, Sweetie. As soon as I get this form turned in, your doctor will take care of you in no time.”
She’d woken up feeling sick this morning, so he’d kept her home from school. No fever, but he wanted to make sure it wasn’t something serious. This was the first time she’d been sick under his watch. The earliest they could see her pediatrician was at ten.
“Hop down, and I’ll give this form to the receptionist.”
She slid off his lap slowly but didn’t sit in another chair. Instead, she stood and waited for him to get back then crawled into his lap again where he could properly cuddle and comfort her while they waited. He stroked her hair and felt her relax into him. That she felt safe and protected with him meant everything in the world.
Would he be able to protect her from everything, though? While his official status was that of guardian, he was effectively her parent now and saw himself that way. He needed to do everything he could to see that she had the best life possible.
“Gina,” the nurse announced from the open doorway.
Gina lifted her head and asked, “Are you coming with me.”
“Of course I am!”
With that, she slid off his lap, took his hand, and led him through the door.
“And who do we have with us today?” the nurse asked.
“He’s my guardian,” Gina answered before he could. “It’s like a papa, but he’s really my cousin. I call him Zio Rico, though.”
The nurse smiled at him after that long introduction. “Hi, I’m Rico Donati,” was about all that was left for him to say.
The nurse weighed and measured Gina and led them into one of the inner offices to see what was going on. Soon, she left them alone to wait for the pediatrician.
The young woman in a white coat came in soon after. “Gina, what’s going on, honey?”
“My tummy hurts.”
“Do you have any idea why?”
Gina shook her head and the doctor turned to him. Rico shrugged. “I’m stumped too. She ate normally last night but woke up with a stomachache.”
“Well, hop up onto my table, and let’s check you out.”
The doctor checked her heart and lungs with her stethoscope then helped Gina to lie down. She poked and prodded Gina’s abdomen, but the little girl didn’t wince or indicate she was in any distress.
Helping Gina to sit up again, she asked, “What’s going on at school today?”
Gina glanced away, and the doctor turned her attention to Rico instead, waiting for an answer. “Nothing out of the ordinary classes, as far as I know.”
Was she hinting that Gina might be faking it, because that pissed him off. He could tell when she was sick. She hadn’t eaten her breakfast and had looked pale and in distress all morning.
“I didn’t find anything from my manual examination. I could order some tests and scans to see what might be going on inside your tummy, Gina. But first, let me ask if there’s anything bothering or worrying you. Sometimes that can upset our tummies.”
Gina briefly met Rico’s gaze then looked down at her hands in her lap.
What was up with that?
“Is someone bothering you at school, Sweetie?” Rico asked. Bullying was a problem everywhere these days, but she hadn’t mentioned anything like that to him.
“No. It’s not that.”
Which meant it was something else. “Tell Zio Rico. I’ll make it better.” That was a big promise, given that he had no clue what the problem was, but he’d sure do his damnedest to fix whatever was going on.
A tear rolled down her cheek. Rico stood and walked closer to her, wrapping his arms around her. “What it is, Gina?” Her reluctance to talk to him worried Rico. Until now, she’d been open with him about almost everything.
A sob tore from her, and she wrapped her arms around him. “I can’t do it. Everyone else will have a perfect one, and mine is only going to be half done.”
“What do you mean? A perfect what?”
“Family tree. Everyone has to do their family tree back to their great-grandparents and I don’t know anything but Mama’s side.”
Crap. Could he fix that? Certainly not in the time she probably had for the assignment.
“Let me leave you two alone,” the pediatrician said. “But if she still feels sick tomorrow, give us a call.” She left them alone.
Once again, the need for a DNA test occurred to him, albeit for a different reason. But what if they did connect with the bio dad’s profile? Surely he was still alive, which could create major problems for Rico’s maintaining custody of her.
On the other hand, they might not get a hit.
Ugh. Did he want to open this can of worms?
“I’m sorry, Zio Rico.”
“It’s okay, Sweetie. We’ll figure something out.”
“But it’s due next week. In computer class today, Mrs. Hansen wanted us to start looking up census records online about our great-grandparents. Nonna told me her parents’ names, but I don’t want to turn in half a tree and show everyone I don’t know who my papa is.”
Gina and Aunt Sophia had been on the phone a long time last night. Is that what they’d been talking about? He wished someone had told him about the project sooner—she must have been working on it for a while. Not that he could have done much to help. Even if they’d submitted a DNA test earlier, it could take a month or more to get results. Rico could offer up his own lineage for the purposes of the assignment, but it wouldn’t be much different than Michelle’s and looking inbred wouldn’t be better than offering a half-blank chart.
Hell, let her make shit up. Who would know or care?
Gina would, and it might confuse her. No, he needed to talk with her teacher at the very least to see if there was some way to lessen the embarrassment she was going to feel about not being able to put an entire pedigree on paper.
Who makes up these blasted assignments, anyway? Surely there were other kids in the class with trees that hadn’t branched out on both sides.
Rico had a nagging thought that he owed it to Gina to find her biological father, though. He didn’t want anyone to claim paternity and take her away from him, but he could at least offer her a name and information in case she wanted to reach out to him when she was grown up.
He pushed away from her and met her gaze. “Gina, I need to talk with you about something.”
The stricken look on her face, probably at the seriousness of his tone, made him gently stroke her cheek. “Nothing bad. But it’s important.”
She waited for him to say something, but he didn’t want to initiate this conversation in here. They would probably give them the boot soon. “Let’s go get some ice cream, and we’ll talk then.”
“I don’t have to go back to school today?”
“Not today, but you do have to go tomorrow.”
Her face brightened. “Can we go to Bonnie Brae’s?” Already her demeanor had shifted, her stomachache long forgotten, but only because she’d been given a reprieve.
“Where else?” He’d learned that was a favorite of Gina and Michelle’s long ago. No matter if it was summer or winter, they always loved having ice cream there.
“Yay!” Gina jumped down from the table and gave him a hug. He wondered if he was doing the right thing not to make her face the problem. Probably not, but he had no clue how to deal with this issue yet.
It would only be a matter of time before she’d be tackling bigger problems in life. But maybe Rico could make it the last time this particular problem reared its head. Assuming he decided to have her DNA tested.
When they arrived at the Washington Park ice cream parlor, the sign said they didn’t open until eleven, so they walked around the block and talked about safer topics, none of which had anything to do with the dreaded family tree.
But once they went inside, ordered, and got their ice cream, they found a table in the corner where they could talk in private. They’d both almost finished their cones before Rico drew a deep breath and prepared himself for whatever might come of this.
I hope I’m doing the right thing.
“What I wanted to talk with you about, Gina, is whether you want to search for your biological father.”
“Mama’s boyfriend in college, the one who helped make me?”
Rico wouldn’t go so far as to call him a boyfriend, based on Michelle’s description to him, but must be how she described him to Gina, who wouldn’t understand the concept of a one-night stand or hookup.
“Yeah, Sweetie. While I can’t promise you we’ll find him, there are tests that can possibly identify who he is. If we could find out his name, would you want to know?”
Tears welled in her eyes and her lower lip quavered.
Shit. Was that good or bad?
“Come here.” She set the remainder of her cone on the napkin and came around the table to sit on his lap. He stroked her hair. “We don’t have to if you don’t want to know.”
“If we find him, will he take me away from you?”
“I would fight with everything I have to not let him.” Not happening without an epic battle. How could someone who didn’t even know her be allowed to do that just because he’d deposited his sperm at a weak moment for Michelle? Maybe he ought to check out the legalities before continuing.
“If I talk with a lawyer, and they can assure us he can’t take you away, would you want me to try and find out?” Not knowing what they were going to face if they discovered the man’s identity, he wanted to gauge her interest before pursuing this any further. “We may not have to contact him directly to find out his medical history. Some of that will show up in your DNA too.”
Gina was quiet for a few moments, then said, “I think I want to know. But I don’t want to live with him. I just want to know the names on his family tree.”
Rico smiled. Her primary interest was in completing that stupid assignment. Understandable. She couldn’t know all the ramifications of what might happen. Hell, neither did Rico. Was he about to open them up to fighting for custody in the courts?
Yeah, he definitely needed to speak to an attorney about legally adopting her now too. And tomorrow, he’d take Gina to school a little early and see if he couldn’t get a minute with the teacher to let her know the difficulties Gina and possibly other kids might be having.
One month later
Rico came into the vestibule of the apartment building after a run in the park, which had done nothing to help relieve his stress over waiting on the DNA results. His attorney’s words hadn’t totally calmed his fears, either. If the man wanted to pursue custody of his biological child, he would be within his rights. That royally sucked.
But the plan was not to reach out to the man. At this point, all he wanted was to get her paternal medical history.
Rico checked the mailbox. All junk. He took the stairs two at a time, unsure why he was more on edge today. Everything with Franco seemed to be going well. Gina was happy and over the stress about the genealogy assignment last month.
Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was about to change—monumentally. He’d pulled out the ingredients for an early dinner and had begun prepping when his phone dinged. He refreshed the screen and saw it was an email notification from the DNA testing place.
His heart jumped into his throat. He wasn’t one to have moments of intuition—other than in telling when some woman close to him was pregnant—but this must be what had made him feel anxious all day.
Cuzzo, you’ve got this.
Michelle’s spirit must have been hovering nearby waiting for him to find out the answer.
Rico sat down on the couch and opened the email. He read through a long explanation of the results and saw the pie chart results showing Gina was about 95 percent Italian.
So the asshole’s Italian.
No stretch that Michelle might be attracted to a fellow Italian. Rico clicked on the link that took him to the site where he could look over the finer details of the information concerning Gina’s likelihood for certain genetic diseases. No indication she carried the brCA gene for breast cancer, thank God. No indication of a history of type II diabetes or Parkinson’s. There weren’t many things these companies could test for, but at least he could breathe a sigh of relief about some of the scarier possibilities. Rico didn’t really see anything that would cause immediate worry.
Scrolling down farther, he saw that there had been no matches. Rico had to admit that relieved him too. No bio dad to confront. Not that he was out of the woods yet. Dakota told him she hadn’t been connected to her grandmother until she had uploaded her genetic code or whatever it’s called to a non-commercial database that contained much more genetic material.
Would his luck hold up if he took that step? Did he need to pursue it further? Selfish though it might be, he really didn’t want to find the guy. What if he turned out to be a Class A jerk? Gina didn’t need that in her life.
Rico had gotten some of the answers he sought already. Would GEDmatch or some other public database provide him with anything more definitive? Hell, not everyone who had their DNA tested even made the results public, which would make it harder for him to find a match.
Oh, what the hell? He also had control over who could discover Gina’s results, as well as his identity and location. Rico copied the raw data and googled GEDmatch. It took him a while to figure out how it worked, but he uploaded the code and set down his phone.
All he could do now was wait. Again.
But within a short time, he had another email. They’d already found a match? Was the jerk looking? How’d he even know there’d been a kid conceived that night? Hell, maybe he was searching for kids he might have from other one-night stands. That wouldn’t bode well for Gina.
Fuck.
But Gina had just turned eleven last month. His lawyer assured him judges sometimes gave kids that age a say in who they lived with, but more often that happened in cases of divorce. He was in weird territory here.
It felt as though a boulder had lodged in his stomach. With a shaking hand, he took a deep breath and clicked on the email. Rico stared at the screen without comprehension for the longest while, trying to make sense of the username staring back at him.
AngelaG-J.
Surely it couldn’t be the same Angela he knew, but with the G-J—for Giardano-Janowski perhaps?—the first person who came to mind was Mama J. There was no photo attached to the account. It listed the relationship as a close one—a possible grandmother. He looked at the email address and opened the contacts in his phone to see what email was listed.
Holy fuck.
Gina and Mama J were related in a grandmother/granddaughter relationship, which could only mean that one of Franco’s brothers had fathered Gina.
Blood pounded in his ears. As soon as Rico found out which one, he’d beat the shit out of him for being so fucking irresponsible, fathering a child without a backward glance.
After letting disgusting thoughts fester overnight as he tried to sort out which Giardano brother had gotten Michelle pregnant all those years ago, Rico was no closer to determining who’d done it.
Was there any possibility Matt or Tony had been the guilty party? Michelle had gone skiing in Breckenridge a few times, and Matt’s interest in skijoring made him a likely suspect. He’d learned to ski somewhere, and Breckenridge wasn’t far from Aspen Corners.
Rico did the math, though. Michelle had found out she was pregnant in July, so more than likely she was about two months along by then. Ski season would have ended long before Gina had been conceived. And she’d told him she’d met the man in Denver.
What about Tony? He would have been a freshman in college by then. He’d always been popular with the girls in high school and didn’t seem to date the same girl twice. Michelle had said the night in question happened because she’d failed freshman year and went out drinking. But she’d said the guy had taken her to his place. He remembered that detail because he’d been pissed that she’d do something so reckless. Didn’t she know what could happen to a girl in a strange man’s apartment? Fortunately, the result had been nothing worse than an unplanned pregnancy.
Still, would Rafe or Franco let Tony bring a woman to their apartment for sex?
Doubtful.
Which left Rafe as the most likely candidate, with Matt as a runner-up. Rafe definitely had been in Denver at that time. Clearly, Rico needed to confront the oldest brother first. Not that he wouldn’t confront the younger brothers—new wives and babies notwithstanding—if he struck out with Rafe.
Both Rafe and Franco had attended college in Denver. Franco had dated women in high school, but as far as Rico knew, not since then.
Did Angie know anything about her brothers’ sexual exploits? Doubtful. They wouldn’t have confided such things to their baby sister. Besides, he didn’t want to bring anyone else into this sordid mess unless he had to.
First, he needed to talk with Rafe—and as soon as possible.
Unlike Franco, Rico hadn’t memorized the Giardanos’ work schedules, but he figured Rafe, who worked twenty-four-hour shifts, would have either Saturday or Sunday off this weekend. He’d see if Mama J could watch Gina while he met with Rafe. She’d just assume he needed to check on things at the pub.
In some weird way, Rico was relieved to know that Gina had a blood connection to the Giardanos. They’d always been like family to him. He just didn’t like thinking about how one careless, irresponsible brother had taken advantage of a young college freshman and left her pregnant. And never looked back. Most likely Rafe, who had been old enough to keep his dick in his pants, or at least wear a condom.
Okay, like I’m one to judge. I’ve had my share of one-night stands with men I barely remember. But it’s safe to say I never got any of them pregnant and left them to deal with the aftermath on their own.
Rico texted Rafe asking if there was a time that would be good for them to meet in private this weekend but didn’t get a response right away.
Not a problem. If this weekend didn’t work out, they would set a time during the week, even if Rico had to drive back and forth to confront him while Gina was at school.
How should he bring up the subject? Rico looked across the room at the framed photograph of Michelle taken when she wasn’t much older than she’d have looked her freshman year.
I’ll take that with me to see what kind of response Rafe shows when he sees her photo.
Would he recognize her? Michelle said both of them had been dealing with emotional crap at the time they’d hooked up and both were extremely drunk. This would have been around the time Papa G had been killed. Would Rafe have dealt with his grief by having sex with a stranger?
Asshole.
Michelle didn’t deserve that.
The key in the door turned. “I’m home!” Gina came bounding into the apartment, and Rico set his phone aside. He’d let her spend the night with a friend last night, in no mood to entertain her.
“Want to play games tonight?” She tore off her coat, leaving it to hang on the back of a chair. “Can Zio Franco come over too?”
“I’m afraid he won’t be able to make it tonight.” Because he won’t be asked.
Her crestfallen expression made him feel a little guilty for taking out his anger at the other Giardano brothers on Franco. At the moment, the thought of spending time with any of them without making some ugly accusations or trying to find out what the others knew didn’t appeal to him.
He’d take it one brother at a time, but who else would it be besides Rafe?
“We might go to Aspen Corners, but I need to make sure it will work out.
“Yay! I miss everyone there.” She was halfway down the hall already when his phone pinged. He picked it up and saw Rafe had texted.
RAFE: I’m free Sunday. Noon’s great.
God, I’ll be glad when this is out in the open.
He needed to hear how Rafe explained the situation.
First, he needed to see if Mama J was free. He hated to ask when he knew she was spending every minute she could with her new grandbabies. But Angie would be busy at her restaurant.
She responded within minutes.
MAMA J: Sunday’s fine. Home catching up on some things.
He walked down the hallway and knocked on Gina’s door.
“Come in!”
She sat on her bed playing with her Monster High dolls.
“Hey, Sweetie, want to go to the Corners later tonight?”
“Yes!”
“Why don’t we head to the zoo for a while first?” The later they arrived, the less likely they’d run into any of the Giardano family before he was ready.
“I’m ready!”
Didn’t have to ask her twice.
As they made their way inside the gates at the zoo half an hour later, Gina tugged on his hand. “Zio Rico! Did you hear me?”
Crap. Focus!
He’d been trying to sort out this paternity puzzle in his head. “I’m sorry, Sweetie. What did you say?”
“Did you want to see the monkeys first or the penguins?”
Honestly, Rico didn’t care. But he needed to get his head back in the game. He’d worry about confronting Rafe later. Today, his focus needed to be on Gina.
“You pick.”
“Penguins!”
Everything seemed to be a huge pronouncement to her. Her enthusiasm was contagious. “Penguins it is.”
Remembering the photos Franco had taken of their escapades in Chicago four months ago, he pulled out his phone to capture more moments for her. She would grow up and go on with her life faster than he could blink.
His thoughts strayed again to what tomorrow might bring. Rico drew a deep breath. Would it be a showdown like high noon in the Old West? Dramatic much? He didn’t really want that much drama in their lives and didn’t want anything from Rafe other than an apology for what he’d done to Michelle’s life.
Then again, Michelle had never complained about a thing. She’d loved having Gina, even at such a young age. Rico couldn’t imagine life without Gina, either. Having lost Michelle way before her time, her having experienced motherhood was a good thing.
Conflicted by these warring thoughts, Rico needed to decide how he’d broach the subject with Rafe so as not to alienate Gina’s bio dad from her, assuming he’d tell her who it was anytime soon.
Will I?
Although telling Rafe meant he lost control over who knew about her paternity. Would Rafe insist on having some kind of relationship with Gina? At her birthday party a couple of weeks ago, Rafe had been sweet with her. But would a confirmed bachelor like him know what to do with a kid?
Unlike Franco, who’d been great with her right from the start. A natural father figure and a terrific uncle. Too bad he wasn’t the one who’d fathered her.
Of course, the entire Giardano family had embraced her. Rafe had even helped her make that snowflake ornament for Rico at Christmas.
How would this revelation change their relationships going forward?