Chapter Twenty-Six
Alexei
A week after the proposal, my mother invites us for dinner. And by invites, I mean she calls three times in one day, texts Ryleigh directly—they have their own text thread now, which should terrify me—and then has Valerie guilt-trip me when I suggest maybe next weekend instead.
“She’s been cooking since yesterday,” Valerie says on the phone, her voice flat. “She bought a tablecloth. She never buys tablecloths. Just come.”
So we come.
Tracey and Jase are already there when we arrive, their kids tearing through the living room like tiny guided missiles. Ana drove in from the suburbs, which means this is a full-family production. Nobody told me it was going to be a full-family production.
“You knew, didn’t you?” I murmur to Ryleigh as we stand on the porch.
She shifts Ella to her other hip. “Your mom may have mentioned it.”
“And you didn’t warn me?”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
The door swings open before I can knock. My mother, dressed in actual nice clothes instead of her usual leisurewear—a clear sign this has been planned with military precision—takes one look at us and reaches for Ella.
“Give me the baby,” she says, bypassing me entirely.
“Hello to you too, Ma.”
She’s already got Ella on her hip, heading for the kitchen, murmuring in Russian. Ella grabs a fistful of her necklace and hangs on.
Inside, the house smells incredible—garlic, roasting meat, something with dill.
My mother cooks when she’s emotional, but she cooks like this when she’s celebrating.
There are serving dishes I haven’t seen since Easter, and the dining table has been extended with the extra leaf that usually lives in the hall closet.
A tablecloth. Valerie wasn’t kidding.
“There’s the man of the hour!” Tracey calls from the kitchen. She’s got a wine glass in one hand and is supervising Jase, who’s trying to keep their three-year-old from climbing the pantry shelves. “Congratulations again. We’re so happy for you guys.”
“Thanks, Trace.”
“Also, Mom started a wedding Pinterest board. Just so you know.”
“She doesn’t know how to use Pinterest.”
“Ana taught her. It has sixty-two pins already.”
I look at Ana, who’s setting the table and doesn’t meet my eyes. “It’s fifty-eight,” she says to the silverware.
Ryleigh squeezes my arm and heads for the kitchen, where my mother is showing Ella the contents of the spice cabinet like it’s a museum tour.
Within thirty seconds, Ryleigh and my sisters have formed their usual cluster—Tracey pouring her wine, Valerie handing her a cracker with cheese, Ana pulling out her phone to show her something—and I’m standing in the living room doorway, watching.
She fits. That’s the thing I keep coming back to. She walks into my mother’s house and she just fits, like a piece that was always supposed to be here but showed up late.
Jase appears beside me, beer in hand, looking mildly traumatized. He extends a second beer.
“Thanks.” I take it.
“Your mother just asked me if I think you’re ready to be a father.” He takes a long sip. “I’ve been here twenty minutes.”
“What did you say?”
“I said you’ve been doing 2 a.m. feedings for a baby that isn’t yours for two months, so yeah, probably.” He pauses. “Then she asked if I thought Ryleigh’s hips were good for childbearing.”
I close my eyes. “She did not.”
“Direct quote. She gestured and everything.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Tracey overheard and almost spit out her wine. Best moment of my night.” He clinks his beer against mine. “Welcome to the engaged club, by the way. It only gets weirder from here.”
Dinner is chaos. The good kind—plates being passed, Tracey’s kids flinging dinner rolls at each other, everyone talking over each other and Mom pushing more food than we can possibly eat.
Ella is in a high chair between Ryleigh and my mom, gumming a teething ring and looking deeply skeptical of the mashed potatoes Valerie keeps trying to interest her in.
We’re about halfway through the roast when Tracey sets down her fork and says, “Okay. I’ve been patient. We need to talk about the wedding.”
“We don’t need to talk about anything,” I say.
“Spring,” my mother says from the head of the table, like it’s already been decided. “April. The gardens will be blooming.”
“We haven’t even—”
“Not June. Your father sweated through his suit. I have the photos. It was embarrassing.”
“What about fall?” Ana says. “October is beautiful.”
“October is football season,” I point out.
“So?”
“So I’ll be playing football.”
“Take a weekend off.”
“That’s not how professional sports work, Ana.”
Ryleigh is watching all of this with the expression she gets when she’s being absorbed into my family against her will and quietly loving it. She catches my eye across the table and her lips twitch.
“What about a destination?” Valerie asks. “Italy. Or Greece. Or Mexico.”
“No destination,” my mother says firmly. “I’m not flying across the ocean to see my son get married. He can get married here, where I can walk.”
“You can walk in Mexico, Ma.”
“I walk here.”
Ryleigh clears her throat. Everyone turns to her.
“I don’t have a strong opinion on the date,” she says carefully. “But I do have one request.”
“What is it?” my mother asks.
“I want it to be small. Just family and close friends. No stadium, no cameras, no jumbotron.” She glances at me. “The proposal was big and public and perfect. The wedding should be ours.”
The table is quiet for a second. Then my mother nods—slow, decisive.
“Smart girl.”
Tracey raises her glass. “I can work with small.”
“Define small,” Valerie says.
“Under fifty people.”
“Fifty is small,” Ana confirms, already typing something on her phone. Probably updating the Pinterest board in real time.
Ella bangs her teething ring on the high chair tray, and Ryleigh reaches over and wipes drool off her chin. My mother watches the gesture with an expression I recognize—it’s the same one she used to give my dad when he did something that made her fall in love with him all over again.
“So,” Valerie says, swirling her wine. “Wedding date aside. What about more kids?”
“Val,” Tracey warns.
“What? It’s a legitimate question.”
“We just got engaged a week ago,” I say.
“So? Planning ahead is responsible.”
“Grandsons,” my mother says matter-of-factly, spreading butter on her bread. “I want grandsons. Granddaughters too, but start with a grandson.”
“We have a four-month-old, Ma.”
“I know. I’m planning ahead.”
Ryleigh chokes on her coffee.
“Ma, you can’t just order grandsons.”
“I’m not ordering. I’m requesting.” She points her butter knife at me. “Big, strong boys. Like your father.”
Ryleigh’s shoulders are shaking. She’s got her napkin pressed against her mouth and she’s staring at her plate, and I can tell she’s about two seconds from losing it completely.
“How many kids do you want?” Valerie asks her directly.
“We’re not having this conversation.” I reach for more bread.
“I wasn’t asking you.”
Ryleigh puts her napkin down. Her cheeks are pink from holding in laughter. “I always thought maybe two.”
“Two is nice,” Ana says.
“Three is better,” my mother says.
“I personally recommend stopping before they outnumber you,” Jase says from the end of the table, where his two-year-old is methodically dropping peas on the floor.
“Noted,” Ryleigh says, grinning.
The conversation spirals from there—someone brings up baby names, which leads to an argument about family naming traditions, which leads to my mother telling the story of how she picked my name, which leads to Tracey doing an impression of my father that’s so accurate the table goes quiet for a second before everyone laughs at once.
After dinner, I help my mother with the dishes while Ryleigh sits on the living room floor with Ella and Tracey’s kids. I can hear them from the kitchen—Ella babbling, Tracey’s son making car noises, Ryleigh’s laugh threading through all of it.
My mother washes. I dry. Same positions as when I was eight, standing on a stool to reach the counter.
“She’s a good one,” my mother says quietly, using the name only she uses, the Russian diminutive she’s called me since I was born. She doesn’t look at me. She looks at the suds. “You chose well.”
“I know, Ma.”
“Your father would have liked her.”
I nod. My throat is doing the thing. “You said that before.”
“I’m saying it again.” She hands me a dripping plate. “He would have shown up at her apartment with groceries and stayed for three hours and pretended he was just in the neighborhood.”
I laugh because that’s exactly what he would have done. “Yeah. He would have.”
She’s quiet for a moment, scrubbing a pot that’s already clean. “You’re like him, you know. More than you think. The stubbornness, the need to fix things, the way you love—all at once, no half measures.” She glances at me. “He was the same. Drove me crazy half the time.”
“Only half?”
“Don’t be smart.” She swats me with a dish towel, then folds it carefully and hangs it on the oven handle. “I’m proud of you. Not for the football. For this.” She tips her head toward the living room, toward the sound of Ryleigh’s voice. “For choosing well.”
I don’t say anything. I pull her into a hug instead—this small, fierce woman who raised four kids on her own after my father died and never once let us see her break—and she pats my back twice, the way she does, and then pushes me away.
“Go. Be with your family. I’ll finish here.”
“Ma—”
“Go.”
I go. I find Ryleigh on the floor, Ella in her lap, Tracey’s son showing her a toy truck with great seriousness while Tracey’s daughter tries to put a hair clip on Ella’s head.
Ella has approximately seven strands of hair, so the clip keeps sliding off, and the toddler keeps trying, and Ryleigh keeps catching it before it hits the floor.
She looks up when I sit down beside her. Her hair’s coming loose from her bun. Her cheeks are slightly pink. The ring glints on her left hand as she catches the hair clip again.
“Your mom okay?”
“Yeah. She’s good.” I put my arm around her, and Ella immediately grabs my finger. “She said my dad would have liked you.”
Ryleigh leans into me. “She told me that too.”
“She means it. She doesn’t say things she doesn’t mean.”
“I know. That’s what makes it—” She pauses. Swallows.
Tracey’s son drives his truck up my leg, making engine noises. Ella watches, mesmerized, her mouth open in a tiny O. Valerie is arguing with Ana about something in the kitchen. Jase looks half asleep in the armchair with a toddler on his chest.
This is my family. Loud, opinionated, relentless, and so full of love it sometimes feels like the walls can barely hold it.
And Ryleigh is part of it now. Ryleigh and Ella. Mine.
She tilts her head up, and I kiss her—brief, soft, tasting like wine and my mother’s cooking.
“Still want to marry into this circus?” I murmur.
She smiles against my mouth. “Wouldn’t miss it.”