Chapter 46
Carmello
Now
“Wow,” I say, my chest rising and falling in reaction to Olivia’s confession. It feels like I got the wind knocked out of me. I wasn’t expecting her reason to be that at all. “Wow.”
“Are you going to say anything else?”
I clear my throat and say, “I can’t imagine how it felt being on the other side of the wall and hearing that conversation.
The truth is…I loved my life here and I was scared of leaving my mom.
What if something bad had happened to her while we were gone?
She was only in remission for a year. But I should’ve told you I didn’t want to go. I’m sorry. I just…”
“Carmello, I don’t blame you for that,” Olivia says.
“But I need you to see why you can’t just rush to solve this for us.
I don’t want you to be so scared of losing me that you don’t even take a moment to consider yourself.
I want to consider myself. I dealt with the fallout from Michael being resentful of me.
And that was okay because I know I was never in love with him.
But I learned a lot about myself being with him.
I know I was partly to blame for my marriage failing because I wasn’t intentional about how it began.
I’m solid in my decision to be with you.
I’m glad I’ve been able to open up and show you that, but you said you want to be intentional too, and I don’t know if you’ve grown past your fears.
Maybe you’re too blinded by your love for me and you don’t want to face them.
I’m afraid you’re not opening up to me completely because you fear that I won’t stay, but if you don’t trust me to see you fully, what does that mean for us?
And aside from our personal problems, aren’t you afraid to dishonor your parents?
Because I am. This shit is heavy, and I’m hesitant to say, Oh, his parents are just overprotective, they’ll get over it.
They worked really fucking hard to give you this life.
I’ve been around the world, Carmello. To do what your mom did here with Celia’s Place?
It had to be an incredible feat, and just because she cared about me doesn’t mean I should be included in her legacy.
Tricks or not. I respected her wishes back then, and I still want to now. ”
I know what she’s saying. When I was a teenager, I had a hard time understanding why my parents were so strict, why all they did was work, why they were so protective.
But I’ve long come to terms with it. And after this week working with Daniela to make time for therapists where there was none in order to give Teddy his best shot in the future, I respect my parents a hell of a lot more than I did.
Because they might not have always shown their love in warm ways, but they both came to this country with nothing and had to work twice as hard to give me an easier life than they had, and along the way they taught me the drive to reach for some of the same opportunities as my peers.
I don’t know what’s more loving than that.
But the determination they taught me is why I clear my throat and say, “I do respect them and want to honor their wishes, but we don’t know that my mom didn’t want this for me and you.
” She frowns and my eyes prick knowing my words aren’t enough right now.
She reaches up to brush my cheek with the raised skin of her palm, and I find comfort there.
And then, my face is wet and I’m hearing myself admit: “I do have fears. But I’m just so in love with you, Olivia. ”
“I know you are, Carmello,” she says with a small smile.
“But it’s up to you to decide what to make of it, because what I’ve decided is that I work too damn hard.
I’m an incredible chef, and these past few weeks have taught me that I make just as good of a boss as you.
I’m smart and talented and the event night we created together is going to fucking shine, and you’re right, a large part of that is from me giving it my all.
I love Rhode Island and Celia’s Place but I never want to give up my agency or any of my other desires either.
And Carmello, I know you love me enough to give me the shares that your mom didn’t.
” She taps her fingers to her chest. “I can feel it right here. You’d give me a place in this business that I feel I’m owed if I’m here, but I need you to be certain that it’s not just because you’re scared to lose me.
I need to know we can start fresh for real, and that you believe I’ve grown enough not to call it quits when things get hard.
Because if I lose all of this, Mello, I don’t know if I’m elastic enough not to break.
So, I think we should both take a breath and decide what our future can look like while seeing each other fully.
Read the emails in your mom’s inbox. Feel your feelings. They’re important.”
My stomach is in knots. It’s hard to breathe. But I reach and wrap my arms around her. Hold her close. “All right, O,” I say. She buries her face in my chest and cries, kisses me there. And then, she goes.
I watch her walk down the block until I can’t see her any longer, and when I turn around four sets of eyes are staring at me through the windows of Celia’s Place.
I lose track of time and space whenever it’s me and Olivia.
That’s something I can admit to being scared of.
Because as beautiful as it can be, there are other things that take up space in my heart, other people that need my love and attention.
My staff at the restaurant is one of them.
Once I’m inside, they try to act like they weren’t paying attention, but no one has started getting us ready for the morning. Then, Paula claps her hands; she looks like she was just crying. “All right, nosy gang,” she says, “this ship still has to run without its captain sometimes.”
“I like that analogy,” Debra says, squeezing Bobby’s shoulder. “Don’t you, Bob?”
He smiles, and I notice he finally looks refreshed after a few bad weeks of dealing with his family drama. “I like it too,” he says.
Steven snorts. “That analogy is played out and cringe, Debbie girl. But…I guess you have a point.” He looks at me, says, “I can get the kitchen ready on my own today.”
***
When I shut my office door for privacy, my heart is even fuller—to the point of discomfort.
But I think I know a way I can make more space.
I stop in front of my dusty bookshelf and pick up the only framed photo on it.
It’s of my mom teaching Teddy how to cook something on the stove.
I don’t remember what she showed him or how I felt about Teddy’s first time near the fire, because all I was focused on that day was that two parts of my heart felt like they were finally meeting in the same place.
And every day since my mom died, I’ve secretly come to this spot to stand in front of this frame and pray for my mom’s spirit.
But if the only thing I did was pray, that would be okay.
Instead, I spend so much time stressing while I stand here too.
My brain swirls with dark stuff that makes my chest hurt.
Reliving her most painful days when I could do nothing more than squeeze her hand while she suffered through it.
I think of ways I could’ve done better by her.
I think maybe she’d still be here if I wasn’t so distracted with my life that I didn’t notice she was getting sick again. But that’s so much to put on a person.
Memories come of me finding my mom on the bathroom floor years ago, and I think of how when I was a child she used to say the same kinds of things about me being emotionally intelligent that everyone now says about my son.
I think of how Teddy rushes to comfort me, and how I take comfort in the fact that he does it, but how that’s so much to put on a child.
And then I bring the frame with me to the desk I share with Olivia to search through my mom’s personal inbox.
She left me access to it months ago, but I never could bring myself to open it up and see her fully.
She must’ve known that I wouldn’t. That’s why she scheduled the email for my dad to do her dirty work.
Just like he said, there are only emails from Olivia and the one with the will attachment from the witness.
But since my father sat me and Olivia down at the booth to tell us what he found, I’ve been thinking of the email my mom scheduled for me to receive weeks ago with the weird one-line note she left me above the illegitimate will.
I hover the cursor over her drafts folder, take a breath, then click on it.
There are so many emails sitting in this folder. All addressed to me.
But there’s one in particular that catches my attention. It sends a quick shiver up my spine. I look over at her face framed in the photo beside me and feel her presence in my bones. My dad was right. She never made any decisions without purpose.
And I want to be intentional too.
Olivia needed to know that I would take my time.
But I have faith hers are not the emails that I need to read.