Chapter 44Rose
Chapter 44
Rose
I sat at my dining table, Pirate at my feet, beaming at Rafe on the laptop screen. Or at least, the Rafe of eight, ten years from now.
Next to him was a lovely blue-eyed woman in her mid-twenties. Both were looking at me like I was crazy, probably because my smile was so big my cheeks hurt. A handsome guy with dark hair in a man bun came up behind Tony and dipped his head down to peer at me.
“Is she okay, Papa? She seems stuck that way.”
“Nico!” his sister pleaded. “Stop it. You’re being rude.”
The trouble was, Nico, man bun aside, looked like my imagined Rafe of fifteen or twenty years ago.
My Zoom with the Amato family was off to a great start.
Yesterday, after a few minutes on the phone, Tony ( please call me “Tony”—Mr. Amato was my father ) had suggested we set up a video call.
“It’ll be better to talk face-to-face. I have questions, many questions. I’d also like my daughter to be on the call, if that’s all right with you.” He’d shared in the introductions that he was a widower with three children.
“Will Raphael be joining us?”
I’d figured this was coming. “He goes by Rafe now. And he won’t be joining us for this first call. He’s working in Boise at the moment—a temporary coffee-roasting job.” For two months…or maybe forever.
“We can still invite him to the call. Angelina knows how to do that.”
“I’m sorry, Tony. Rafe doesn’t know yet that I’ve contacted you. Please let me explain tomorrow.”
Gentleman that he was, Tony had agreed to wait to hear my story. We’d exchanged emails for Angelina to schedule the Zoom call.
Now she took the lead in breaking the ice.
“Ms. Connolly…”
“Rose, please.”
“Rose, thanks for messaging me originally. I’m sorry it took so long to get back to you. I wanted to show Papa your café’s website and social media pages. I have one question before we get started on all our other questions.”
She grinned and leaned closer to the screen. “Do you have any pictures of Rafe where he’s not wearing a tiara?”
“Sure.” I was prepared, hitting the share screen icon at the bottom of the Zoom page. “He’s camera shy, but here’s a couple of my favorites from when he took us to the beach in October.”
All three leaned close this time. And all three started smiling and nodding and glancing at each other. The family resemblance was unmistakable.
The next question was a surprise though.
“So Rafe’s okay with having dogs around?” Nico asked.
“Oh, more than okay.” I laughed. “He’s pretty buttoned up, but he adores his pup, Princess. She was a camp dog, and he arranged for her to come all the way from Afghanistan.”
Tap. Tap. Tap. All of a sudden, a dainty dog with a long slender muzzle slipped her head under Angelina’s arm and crawled partway onto her lap. She settled and stared at me.
“This is Bella, our Italian Greyhound,” Nico said, reaching down to stroke her neck. “The latest in a line of greyhounds since we were little.”
Pirate was sitting up now, crowding close to look at the screen. “Must run in the family,” I declared, looping my arm around his neck. “We’ve had chocolate Labs all my life. My son Finn grew up with Pirate here.”
Tony’s eyes lit up. “Glad to hear it. My parents were strict—nothing to mess up, or warm up, the house. They never allowed us to have any pets. I was determined it’d be different for my kids.”
Ah, so now to the heart of the matter.
Tony went on, “Rafe was in the military before he became a coffee roaster?”
“Yes, he enlisted out of high school and served for over twenty years, both here and in the Middle East, before he took retirement,” I said. Yesterday, I’d already shared how Rafe and I had met when he arrived for the temporary roaster job at the Chocolate Lab.
“Rose, I tried to find him.” Tony looked pained. “I tell you—and I’ll tell it to Rafe’s face if I get a chance to meet him—I tried to find him.”
“Tony, you were so young yourself. You gotta know you did the best you could.” I tried to console him while Angelina and Nico patted his shoulders.
He said in a rush, “I was nine when my parents found out Angelina was pregnant. Abortion was out of the question, and they—and the priest—wanted her to give up the baby for adoption. So much crying and slammed doors. They tried to hide it from me, but I overheard enough.”
He shook his head like he was still in disbelief, all these years later. “She refused, and my father kicked her out. They weren’t going to allow her to see me. She pushed into my bedroom anyway and hugged me so hard. She told me she had some money from our grandmother and that a cousin was going to help her. That was the last time I saw her.”
Tony picked up some envelopes and waved them. “I got some letters from her—at least the ones my mother didn’t intercept—and some photos too. Nothing about her struggles, all about Raphael. When I was about fifteen, the letters stopped. I was old enough to figure out how to take the bus to where they lived in Oakland. They were gone, and nobody was around to answer any questions.”
Closing his eyes, he grimaced. “My father was quick with the slap, and my mother had no say in our house. I got out of there when I turned eighteen and never looked back. I was a hard worker, and eventually my wife and I opened a deli and grocery. With her support, I ran down my sister’s death certificate and Raphael’s birth certificate—but no trace of my nephew himself. We think the system lost any records.”
“I take it your parents were never involved in the search?” I asked gently.
“No,” Tony said shortly. “And they’re no longer living.”
Nico put his hands on his dad’s shoulders, and Angelina leaned into his side. They knew something bad was coming.
“Rose, what happened to Raphael after my sister died?”
There was no way to sugarcoat it. But I did try to soften it.
“Please know that Rafe is safe now. He’s healthy and fit. He’s a hard worker.” Here I smiled at Tony. “His experiences in the army, and maybe before, have made him over-the-top protective of the people he…cares for. He has the respect—and affection, whether he believes it or not—of my son, my friends and everyone at the Chocolate Lab.”
“Rose, just tell us,” Tony urged.
“Okay.” I was overstepping, but I swallowed over the lump in my throat and gave in. Wanting to spare them pain, I sketched in broad strokes, while glossing over details, the story of Rafe’s life with his mom, his placement in foster care after her death, and his decision to enlist after high school.
By the time I finished, tears were running down the faces on the other side of the screen. Whether it was my somber look or my halting words, Rafe’s family got the untold story.
“Last week, when Rafe was getting ready to leave for his job in Boise, I pushed him, Tony.”
“What do you mean, Rose?”
“I pushed him into telling me why he wouldn’t return to Portland, to me. He told me I deserved better. He told me to find a better man. Despite how he cared for his mom, despite all his years in military service, despite all he’s done for me, he didn’t want anyone relying on him.”
I was determined not to spill all the details about the teen gang and fighting and bloodshed to his new family. Those parts of his past had given me pause before I’d gotten my head—and heart—together. That was Rafe’s story and his alone to share.
Instead, I finally zipped my lip. “Anyway, he decided to shut me out. I got mad and told him to go. We’ve reconnected since then, and I think he’s forgiven me. But still…”
I was the one sobbing now. Why was I spilling even some of this private stuff, worse yet, all these…feelings to relative strangers?
“Rose. Rose, mia cara.” Tony had the kindest look on his face. “We’re going to make this right—we’re all in this together.”
That right there was the reason why. Because there were actually good people all around (as I knew living in Dogwood) and because I needed their help. I nodded, scrubbing my face with my palms. Pirate whimpered and stuck his head in my lap.
“Now tell me about your friend—Lauren?—who tracked me down through Angelina’s Instagram postings. She lives here in San Francisco?”
“North of you in Sonoma County, actually, but she’s moving here. In fact, next week she’s picking up my son from college in the Bay area, and they’re driving up to Portland together.”
“Do you think she’d be willing to come into the city to our place before they leave?” I was nodding again—and grinning again—before Tony could finish talking. “There are some family things I’d like to send with her so you could give them to Raphael. To smooth the way for an introduction.”
“Yes, I know Lauren would be delighted to come see you. I’ll put you two in touch by email after this call.” I laughed, remembering. “She’s one of Rafe’s biggest fans. Get her to tell you how she helped my son wrangle Rafe into living in my garage apartment.”
Nico chimed in, “You’ve mentioned your son a couple of times now. Is there a Mr. Connolly?”
“Nico, stop it!” his sister demanded. “You’re being too personal.”
I grinned bigger. “That’s okay, Angelina. Mr. Connolly was my dear dad. Finn’s father is not in the picture. He was never in the picture.”
Tony had the last word. “Rose, bring our Rafe home.”