CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Thomas Gabrini, Junior, called TJ to everybody that knew him, cooked a big platter of bacon, scrambled a half-dozen of eggs, and made toast for the family as he filled up his plate, and his baby sister’s plate to a lesser degree, and sat them on the breakfast table.
Then he looked at his sister as she answered text messages on her phone.
“Who was the genius that said it was okay for babies to be text messaging first thing in the morning?” he asked her.
Gianna Gabrini, called GG to everybody that knew her, looked at her big brother. “You text message all the time,” she said.
“That’s because I’m a teenager. I’m grown compared to you. You’re still a baby. Whoever heard of babies text messaging?”
“I’m no baby.”
“Yeah right. Put the phone away and eat your breakfast. I didn’t slave over that stove for my health.”
“Daddy told you about using the word slave like it’s nothing. Daddy said our ancestors died for us to be able to eat this bacon.”
Tommy grinned. “Not his ancestors. He’s white.”
“But our ancestors were slaves because Mommy’s black. And we’re half-black. But my friends don’t believe you’re my brother because you’re as white as Daddy.”
“I may look white like that, but I’m black.”
GG grinned. “No you’re not.”
“I am. I identify as black. Which makes me all-black.”
“It’s that easy?”
“Yes it is.”
“So if I identify as Jewish, then I’m all-Jewish?”
TJ frowned. “What in the world does Jewish have to do with what we’re talking about?”
“They were slaves too.”
TJ rolled his eyes. She was too smart for her own good! “Just put that phone away, Baby Carmine, and eat your food.”
GG didn’t like it, but their parents had already got on her case about not obeying TJ.
Destiny she could understand. Destiny was a full-grown woman now.
She was thirteen years older than GG. But TJ was only five years older than she was.
He was still a kid too. But she didn’t make the rules. She put away her phone.
TJ sat down and they began eating the breakfast that both of them loved. Especially TJ. He had a game that Saturday afternoon. He ate like a horse.
But when GG and TJ saw their father enter the kitchen alongside their mother, they both jumped from that table. “Daddy!” GG cried as she ran to him.
“Daddy!” TJ ran to him too.
Although they totally ignored their mother, Grace was fine with that.
Their father had just gotten back from a business trip and they’d hadn’t seen him in days.
But they always had Grace with them. She smiled and headed for the kitchen.
Nothing warmed her heart more than the close-knit relationship her children had with their father.
Tommy picked up GG and TJ wrapped his arms around his waist. “I was so happy this morning when I peeped in and saw you in bed with Mommy,” TJ said. “I thought you didn’t come home last night.”
But Tommy heard something else. He looked at him. “You peeped into our bedroom?”
TJ realized he had said too much. “Yes sir,” he said quietly.
Tommy and Grace glanced at each other. Tommy refused to lock his bedroom door whenever he and Grace were in bed because they had rules that had to be followed. “Didn’t we tell you about opening our bedroom door without knocking, Thomas?”
“Yes sir.”
“And why did we tell you that?”
“Because you said you wasn’t locking your door in your own house.”
“And?”
“And because we know the rules,” said TJ. Then he thought up an excuse. “I forgot to stop. So I kept opening it.”
“Don’t even try that, TJ,” said Grace.
“Do it again,” said Tommy, “and I’m going to forget to stop when I start kicking your butt.”
GG laughed, but TJ knew his father was serious. They were a close family, but both of his parents were unrelentingly strict about their children obeying the rules and doing what was expected of them. They didn’t play.
Especially his father, who was still to this day known as the enforcer for the Gabrini Crime Family that was headed up by his Uncle Sal. Although TJ wasn’t supposed to ever know that nor ever mention or acknowledge that. “Yes sir,” he said, but he stopped hugging his father.
“I don’t peep, Daddy,” GG said with her adorable smile as Tommy began carrying her to the breakfast table.
“It’s easy to behave when Mommy and Daddy are around,” said TJ.
“You didn’t behave when Mommy and Daddy were in bed,” GG fired back at her brother.
“That’s not the same thing.”
“It is the same thing.”
“It’s not.”
“He’s right,” said Tommy. “Your mother and I spoke with Miss Hemsley. She told us about your excessive talking. Have you been behaving since we spoke to her?”
“Yes sir,” said GG, nodding her head vigorously. “I’ve been real good. Mommy’s been checking every day. Haven’t you, Mommy?”
“Yes I have,” Grace said as she began to plate breakfast for Tommy and herself. “Miss Hemsley said she’s been doing much better. She had no issues with her while you were gone.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” said Tommy. “You have the gift of gab, but not in the classroom when the teacher wants silence. You obey your teacher.”
“Except if the teacher tells me to do something that I know is wrong,” said GG.
Tommy and Grace smiled. That was what he loved most about Grace.
He was out of town on business more than he wanted to be, but she was that always-present influence in their children’s lives that taught them well.
And even though their oldest daughter Destiny had a baby out of wedlock, she had enough of Grace within her to not let that setback stop her either.
She went to college, graduated, and was moving forward still.
Though aimlessly at the moment. “You’re absolutely right,” Tommy said to GG. “You’re to always do the right thing.”
“And I do, Daddy, I promise.”
“You’d better,” he said, then smiled at her and kissed her. She beamed as he sat her back down on her feet.
“What time did you get home, Daddy?” TJ asked him as he and GG sat back in their seats while their father sat at the head of the table. “You weren’t home when I went to sleep last night.”
“I got in . . . What time was it, Grace?”
“Just after two this morning.”
“Just after two.”
“You must have gotten a good night’s rest because you look really refreshed.”
Tommy and Grace glanced at each other again. They both knew what refreshed him that morning, and it wasn’t sleep.
“You’re still coming to my game, though, right, Daddy?”
It’s still at three?”
“Yes sir. You’re still coming then?”
“Has he missed one yet, Thomas?” Grace asked their son.
“No ma’am. But I wanna be sure.”
“Why?” asked GG.
“Because.”
“Because why?” Grace asked TJ too.
TJ was embarrassed, but he was no liar either. “Because I get more girls when Daddy’s around.”
Grace and Tommy laughed. But GG was appalled. “Girls? Is that all you ever think about?”
TJ looked at her as if she was insane. “What else is there to think about?” he asked.
And although GG shook her head, Tommy and Grace glanced at each other.
They were a little concerned that he was following a bit too closely in one of his father’s bad steps: his prior life as an unrepentant ladies’ man.
And TJ had the looks to be that guy. It wasn’t until Tommy met Grace did he give up that life.
“I have a meeting this morning,” Tommy said to his son, “but I plan to pick up your mother later today and we’ll be there by three.”
“I’m going to Nira’s birthday party,” said GG happily. “I won’t have to suffer through your boring soccer game.”
“And I don’t have to suffer through your boring face,” said TJ.
They were about to go back and forth again, but Tommy stopped it. “That’s enough,” he said. They reminded him of when Reno and Sal were together. He was always their referee too.
Grace put Tommy’s plate on the table along with her own, went and prepared coffee, and then they all sat down together for the first time that week.