Chapter Thirty #2
“I never liked that kid.”
“Ellie refused to get back on his motorcycle, so he left her there.”
“At the marina?” James asked.
“Yes.”
“At least she had the good sense to not get on that bike,” Mari told him.
“He left her there at night by herself. Anything could have happened,” James pointed out.
“My thoughts exactly,” Luca said. “If she refused to get on the bike, he should have walked with her to find a phone.”
James went back to his default solution. “I’m going to kill him.”
Luca nodded a few times. “I think that’s reasonable.”
Mari glared at her son. “You’re not helping.”
“If it were Franny, I’d do the same thing.”
“No one is killing anyone,” Brooke interrupted both of them. “They’re both teenagers making dumb mistakes.”
“Mistakes that could have been worse,” Mari said.
Slowly, James’s nerves started to settle.
He reached for his phone and looked at the locator app to see both of his daughters over at Taylor’s house.
“I need to call Cindy.”
Mari offered an understanding smile as he stepped away from the table.
James walked into the outside hallway and dialed his ex-wife.
“Hello,” she answered.
He released an exasperated sigh. “It’s ten o’clock, do you know where your children are?”
After getting over the initial shock that Cindy had no idea where Ellie was, James was able to deliver the facts and ease her concern. And promise to make Ellie call if she decided to stay with him tonight.
For now, it was divide and conquer.
James walked back into Luca’s apartment and pointed to the hall. “Which one is your room?”
Mari walked with him and stopped by the door.
“If you need me . . .”
James placed a hand on her shoulder, smiled, then reached for the door.
Mari sat at the table, waiting for James and Ellie to emerge.
“I’m so thankful she had the good sense to call here, to ask for you,” Mari told Luca.
“I am, too. It’s not like I’ve given her a reason to think she could.”
His comment caught Mari off guard.
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean, Mama. I’ve met the girls once. Not that you haven’t tried to make that happen again.” Luca smiled at Brooke.
She smiled back.
“If something had happened because she didn’t call here or felt like she couldn’t . . . I don’t think I could forgive myself.”
“You don’t know them well, no one could blame you.”
Luca looked at the ceiling. “I would. And I would want Franny to call on James if she needed him. Clearly, the man is a good father. And he has excellent taste in women.”
Mari gripped her cup.
Did Luca just say what she thought he said?
“What are you saying, Luca?”
Mari sent up a prayer, or a request, or whatever it was when she struggled to understand her children. Please, Paulo, help me out here.
“According to the women in my life,” he said, looking at Brooke, “I haven’t given James a fair chance. I’m going to change that. And since I’m the older brother, I’ll bully Gio to follow my actions.”
Mari’s heart truly burst into a million tiny pieces. The sparkling kind and not the ones that hurt. She placed her palms together and looked up. “Thank you.”
She pushed out of her chair, rounded the table, and put her arms around her son.
“I love you. Thank you.”
Luca embraced her back. “I said I’d give him a fair chance; I didn’t give him permission to marry you.”
Mari pushed him away, teasing. “Like we’d need your permission.”
Luca frowned.
“She’s teasing,” Brooke told him.
“We’re not there yet.” But having his blessing to even see if they could go there was more than Mari thought she’d get out of this day.
The door in the hallway opened, James stepped out.
Mari pulled away from her son. “How is she?”
“Remorseful,” he said. “Embarrassed. Angry. Hurt.”
“All the feelings,” Brooke said.
James looked at Brooke. “She said her clothes are in the dryer.”
“I’ll get them.”
As Brooke walked away, James moved close and extended his hand to Luca. “I cannot thank you enough for answering her call. I don’t want to think about what could have happened if you didn’t.”
Mari stood back and watched her son and James genuinely connect. “It’s family,” Luca said. “You never have to thank family for doing the right thing.”
“It makes me very happy to hear you say that.”
Mari had to bite her inner cheek to keep herself from tearing up.
Ellie and Brooke entered the living room. Hair still damp, but at least in dry clothes, Ellie had swollen eyes from shedding too many tears.
Mari crossed the room and wrapped her arms around the young woman. “It breaks my heart to see you sad.”
“I feel so stupid.”
Luca cleared his throat with a small laugh. “Everyone in this room has done something just as reckless.”
Mari started to nod. “I haven’t,” she teased. “But they all have.”
Ellie laughed, that beautiful smile finally lighting up her face.
They started for the door. Ellie hesitated by Luca and Brooke. “Thanks.”
Luca stepped forward and ruffled her hair, just as he did Franny’s. “Call anytime, sorellina, day or night.”
Mari placed a hand to her chest, the pet name for “little sister” rolling off his tongue said more than anything he had before.
Mari relived the time when her children were navigating the end of their adolescence.
James sprung for a limousine to take the girls and three of their friends . . . girlfriends . . . to their senior prom.
The memory of James standing beside the limo, setting all the rules, would live in her heart forever. “Remember, don’t add to the population, don’t subtract from the population. Don’t end up in the ER, the newspapers, or jail—”
“And if you end up in jail, establish dominance early!” the twins had finished.
“Everyone have their phones? All charged?” James asked.
The girls either nodded or rolled their eyes.
“Let them go, James,” Cindy told him.
Mari leaned over, whispered in Cindy’s ear. “He’s going to bounce off the walls when they leave in the fall.”
“Thank God he has you,” she said.
And he did.
Having the blessing of her children had opened parts of Mari she didn’t realize were closed.
For years, the restaurant had dominated her life. For her family, with them . . . because of them. Now if she spent any time in the kitchen, it was a rarity. The automated system put much of her work into the hands of a computer, again taking away hours that busied her up.
Salena had hired and was in the process of training her replacement.
And Mari spent about half of her nights miles away in a house with a yard. And a man who whispered beautiful things in her ear at night and woke her with a cup of coffee and a smile in the morning.
They’d even managed to have a Sunday dinner at James’s home. The weekend after Ellie was accepted to the University of Arizona. Cementing exactly where she was going in the fall.
With Emma’s due date just around the corner, the family made the trip to Gio and Emma’s vineyard estate for their family dinner.
A long table stretched under a canopy of lights hanging off a trellis covered in bougainvillea.
Emma sat with her feet up on a chair while Chloe, Brooke, Salena, Rosa, and Mari set the table. Inside the house, dinner was in various stages of readiness. Not that anyone was overly famished since dinners at the vineyard were most often overnight events and there was never an absence of food.
The sound of the twins and Franny splashing in the pool was music to Mari’s ears.
Leo was constantly entertained by the girls.
And watched over like the prize he was.
“What do you think they’re talking about?” Salena asked, pointing to the men in the family that were walking outside of the wine cellar.
“I’m sure Gio is boring everyone with the process of smashing grapes,” Emma teased. Both of her hands were perched on her belly . . . her impossibly large belly.
Mari could hardly wait to hold those babies.
“He’s already done that,” Chloe said. “Dante probably knows the process better than him at this point.”
“Yeah, but James is a new audience, so let the learning begin.”
“James loves all the attention. It means they’re accepting him.”
“They are, Mama,” Chloe said.
Salena set the last of the cutlery on the table and took a seat. “So . . . when’s the wedding?”
Mari snapped her gaze to Salena.
Everyone grew quiet.
“Who said anything about marriage?” Mari asked. She hadn’t even thought about it . . . much.
Salena snorted.
“Maybe I need to invite James to church, Mama. Have a little sit-down with Jesus.”
Considering Mari had done just that with all her children at least once after learning about a serious relationship, Chloe’s suggestion shouldn’t have come as a surprise.
“And when was the last time you were in church?” Mari asked.
“Leo’s baptism. And you’re missing the point.”
“I’m avoiding your point,” Mari told her daughter.
“You’d say yes, though, right? If he asked,” Emma said.
“I suppose we’ll have to wait and see.”
“That means yes,” Rosa announced.
“No one asked you,” Mari told her friend.
“Oh, please, Mari. I’m the one willing to live in sin. You’re not. Don’t even pretend.”
“Mama Rosa!” Chloe tried to act shocked.
No one at the table was.
“I didn’t lose all this weight and get my confidence back just to blow it on one man.”
Laughter broke out.
Emma held her stomach. “Don’t make me laugh, it makes me have to pee.”
That sent up another wave of mirth.
“And is there a man?” Salena asked.
“No.” Rosa pointed at Salena. “But if you know of anyone single I would like, set me up.”
“Most of the single men I know are young.”
“And where is the problem with that?” Rosa asked, deadpan.
Emma doubled over. “Stop . . . oh, man. I need the bathroom.” She dropped her feet from the chair.
“Poor baby,” Mari cooed.
Brooke walked with Emma into the house, leaving the rest of them behind.
“I hope James doesn’t wait too long to ask,” Chloe said.
Rosa shrugged. “He won’t.”
“What makes you say that?” Mari asked.
Rosa plucked an olive out of a dish and popped it into her mouth. “He asked me to find out your ring size.”
“What?” Mari snapped.
“Seriously?” Salena asked.