Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
She should have told Bea.
Anna knew this even as she set the table—two places, the good napkins, which were just the regular napkins folded better than usual because Joey’s influence had apparently reached into her home.
Michael was coming for dinner. At the house.
Their house—hers and Bea’s. The house that had been Sam’s and was now theirs, the place where Bea’s art covered the walls and Bea’s books filled the shelves and Bea’s college brochures lived in a drawer that Anna pretended she didn’t reorganize when Bea wasn’t looking.
She’d invited him Tuesday, at the Shack, after close.
They’d been going over event logistics—capacity, menu, timeline—and Anna had said “we should finish this over dinner” and Michael had said “the Shack closes at three” and Anna had said “I meant at my house” and the words had come out before she could examine them.
Michael had looked at her for a long moment. Then he’d said “what time” without inflection, without exclamation, without anything except the careful neutrality he brought to everything.
“Seven,” Anna had said. “Thursday.”
Thursday. Tonight.
Bea was at Stella’s. Study session. She’d be home by eight, she’d said. Anna had done the math—Michael at seven, dinner served quickly, conversation about the party, and he’d be gone before Bea got back. Clean. Simple. Nobody had to know.
She was making pasta. Aglio e olio—garlic, olive oil, chili flakes, no dairy.
She’d learned it in Florence from a woman named Flavia who ran a trattoria near the Ponte Vecchio and fed Anna lunch every Tuesday for a year.
The trick was the garlic — golden, not brown, and the pasta water had to be starchy enough to make the sauce cling.
She’d practiced twice this week. Both times were good. Tonight’s would be better.
The knock came at seven. Three raps, evenly spaced. Michael knocked the way he did everything.
Anna wiped her hands on the dish towel and opened the door.
He stood on the porch in a pressed shirt—a different one, darker blue, which meant he’d changed after work. He carried a bottle of sparkling water and a folder.
“You brought work,” Anna said.
“I brought the list of event possibilities. And water.” He held up the bottle. “I wasn’t sure what to bring when you can’t bring wine.”
“Sparkling water is perfect.”
He stepped inside. Anna watched him take in the house—Bea’s paintings on the hallway wall, the bookshelf by the stairs, the kitchen visible through the doorway. Sam’s house, made theirs. He looked at it the way he looked at spreadsheets—absorbing, cataloguing, filing.
“Bea’s work?” he asked, stopping at a small canvas near the kitchen. Watercolor. The beach at sunset, loose and warm.
“From Florence. She was fifteen.”
“It’s good.”
“She’s better now.”
They went to the kitchen. Anna put the pasta water on and started the garlic. The smell filled the room—olive oil and heat and the sweetness of garlic just before it turns. Michael sat at the table and opened the folder, then closed it. Opened it again. Closed it.
“You don’t have to work,” Anna said, watching the garlic.
“I know.” He left the folder closed. “The pasta smells good.”
“It’s aglio e olio. I learned it in Florence.”
“Dairy-free.”
“Dairy-free.” She stirred the garlic. “That’s not why I made it.”
“I know.”
“I made it because it’s good.”
“I know that too.”
She drained the pasta, saved the water, tossed the spaghetti in the oil and garlic and chili flakes.
Added a splash of pasta water. Watched the sauce come together—glossy, clinging, the way Flavia had taught her.
She plated two servings and brought them to the table and sat across from Michael and they ate.
It was good. Better than practice. The garlic was right, the heat was right, the pasta had that quality that only happens when someone has cared about every step.
Michael ate in his precise way — fork turned, bite measured, chewing deliberate. He didn’t comment. She’d learned that his silence over food was the truest compliment. The focaccia. The bruschetta. The salsa she’d put on the menu. He ate the things that mattered without narrating them.
“I should have made a salad,” Anna said.
“This is enough.”
“Michael Torres saying something is ‘enough’ is practically a standing ovation.”
He almost smiled. The expression that wasn’t an expression and said more than most people’s faces said in a paragraph.
They talked about possible events — the menus, the setups, whether patio heaters would be needed soon.
The conversation was easy. Professional.
Familiar. Except they were in her kitchen and the light was warm and Bea’s paintings were on the walls and it wasn’t professional at all.
It was dinner. At home. With someone she’d invited because she wanted him there.
The front door opened at seven-forty.
Anna’s stomach dropped. Bea was early. Bea was never early. Bea was supposed to be at Stella’s until eight.
“Mom? Uncle Tyler needed the—”
Bea stopped in the kitchen doorway.
Michael was at the table. Pasta in front of him. The sparkling water between them. The folder closed. The kitchen smelling like garlic and olive oil and something that was very obviously a dinner that had been cooked for two people plus one.
Bea looked at Michael. At Anna. At the table—two places, two plates, the sparkling water between them. Her eyes came back to Anna and something in them shifted.
“Bea,” Anna said. “Michael came to discuss event partie—”
“At the kitchen table.”
“We were going over the timeline and I thought—”
“You didn’t tell me,” Bea said. Her voice was even. Controlled. The voice of someone who was holding something very carefully so it wouldn’t spill.
“I was going to—”
“When?”
The kitchen was quiet. The garlic smell hung in the air. Michael set his fork down—silently, precisely, the fork parallel to the plate.
“I should go,” he said.
“Michael—” Anna started.
“This is a family conversation.” He stood, picked up the folder, and looked at Anna. Not the almost-smile. Something else—understanding, and apology, and the restraint of a man who knew when the numbers didn’t apply. “Thank you for dinner. The pasta was excellent.”
He left. The front door closed. The house was quiet.
Bea stood in the kitchen doorway. Anna sat at the table with two plates of pasta—one finished, one half-eaten — the sparkling water and Michael’s empty chair.
“Bea—”
“I need to go.”
“Please sit down.”
“I can’t sit down right now.” Bea’s voice cracked. Just a fracture, just a seam.
“I know. I’m sorry. I should have—”
“You invited him here, Mom. To our house. And you didn’t tell me. You were going to—what, clean up before I got home? Pretend it didn’t happen?”
She stopped. Pressed her hands together. “I need to go. I’m going back to Stella’s.”
“Bea, please—”
“I’ll be back later.”
The front door opened. Closed. Bea’s footsteps on the porch, then the sidewalk, then gone.
Anna sat at the kitchen table with the pasta cooling. She picked up Michael’s plate and carried it to the sink and stood there with the water running and her hands on the rim of the basin and didn’t move for a long time.
She should have told Bea.
She’d known it when she set the table and she’d known it when she heard the door and she’d known it every time she’d wiped a counter instead of saying what was true.
She’d been avoiding the conversation the way she avoided all the hardest conversations—by pretending the timing wasn’t right, by telling herself she’d do it later, by arranging the world so the hard part never had to happen.
The water ran. The pasta cooled. The house was very quiet.