My folks wanted the town to celebrate my survival and it wasn’t in the people of Cuoricino to turn down a free Carelli meal.
“You think an hour?” I’d asked Maggie, nodding to Mr. Kempt as he and Vi crossed the street from her apartment. I’d nudged Maggie, pointing out how the old man touched her friend’s back as he walked her toward my folks’ business and earned a wide grin from her. “I’ll give her half an hour at best. She really wants me to lock you down.”
“She’s determined.”
Truth was, so was I.
“Now, Dimitri,” my mother continued, dropping her voice, “I don’t mean to tell you your business—”
“Since when?” I laughed when she rolled her eyes.
“But that was a scare with Maggie and that…man. Thank the Virgin it all worked out…”
Ma would never mention my killing Alejandro. It was always “for the best” or “God’s plan.” She never liked thinking of any of her kids as bad people.
Dante had been “misguided” when he ran drugs out of Dario’s bar.
Antonia was “lost” when she tried running off with Luca at twenty.
Dario was “honorable” when he had four more months tacked onto his sentence after some asshole tried offing his cellmate and my brother broke the guy’s jaw.
“But you know, son,” she continued, inching closer to me, pulling apart a breadstick to stuff in my mouth, “Antonia told me that Maggie had doubts about you even before everything happened.” Ma closed her eyes, rubbing at the bridge of her nose. “I don’t want to put any pressure on you but if you love her…” She let the comment hang, not finishing her thought, then my mother lifted her hands, fingers stretched as if to say, “but it’s not my business.”
I shrugged, giving her a nod like I caught her meaning. And I did. But I had my shit already locked down.
That Ma glare of hers vanished the second Maggie returned with the kid and they both sat next to me at the table.
“Did you eat?” she asked me, holding Mateo on her lap when he tried squirming away from her. “Stop, baby.”
“Ma won’t stop stuffing my face.”
“He’s so skinny now,” my mother told Maggie, waving a hand over me like I’d dropped fifty pounds and not five while being in the hospital. “We have to fatten him up.”
“He’s stubborn,” Maggie told Ma, ignoring my hand on her thigh squeezing her. She twisted the right side of her mouth and cut her gaze to me but didn’t comment on the small warning my hand on her was supposed to be. “You don’t scare me, you know.”
“No?” I asked her, taking the kid from her when he reached for me.
“Pop, pop,” Mateo said, snuggling against me, giving Maggie a smug grin like I knew the baby was on my side.
“You hear that?” I told him. “I take a couple of bullets for your mama and she still sides with my mother.”
“Dimitri!” Ma fussed, smacking my arm.
“What?” I looked between her and Maggie, the grin dropping off my face when I noticed that beautiful smile I loved so much was missing. “Bella…”
“I’ll…get the baby some more juice. Watch him for me.”
She was gone before I could stop her. I turned, the kid jumping on my lap as my old man’s stereo kicked on a hopping Little Richard tune, my gut dropping when I spotted the way Maggie swiped at her face.
“You really are a clueless moron,” Toni said, taking Maggie’s spot.
“What I don’t need is a lecture from my kid sister,” I told her, my eye on Maggie lost when the crowd circled closer together toward the dance floor.
“Well, you’re gonna get it.”
“Antonia, your brother was teasing,” Ma said, her voice sharp.
“Yeah, I know he was, but shit, doesn’t he realize Maggie feels guilty about him getting shot?” She shook her head, her gaze moving to the baby and how his attention was on the chain around my neck. The crucifix was gone, but he still liked to mess with the necklace. Antonia pushed back the baby’s hair, and a slow-working smile moved onto her lips before she dropped her hand and glared at me again. “You want to be serious with her? Pay attention to a few things. You can’t assume that everything that happened is all water under the bridge or that she’s fine with how all that shit went down.”
“What the hell do you know about it?”
When Mateo shifted on my lap again, pulling away from me, Antonia took him, and stood, her expression hard as she looked down at me. “I know what it’s like to lose someone. I know what it’s like to think I lost them forever. I know what it is to understand that forever can happen at any moment. That’s not something you forget.”
“I’m right fucking here. She knows that.”
“Doesn’t mean, big brother, that she’s still not scared.” She flipped the hair off her shoulder, glancing at our mother, her mouth quirking. “Doesn’t mean she’s not like every other woman either, by the way.”
“She’s not like anyone,” I said, meaning it.
“Big damn gestures, Dimitri. That’s what every woman wants. Forget the flowers. Forget chocolates or balloons or whatever else the Hallmark channel tells us about romance.”
“I have no fucking clue what you’re talking about.”
“Well, obviously.” She tilted her head, her eyes narrowing like she needed to focus on my face before she continued. “Maggie loves you. You love her. Put that shit together, but remember she deserves something big. Something grand.” Her gaze trailed away from me, like she got a little lost in her own head, then her attention went back to my face. “Something that is as big as you say your love is for her.”
Antonia took the baby, not bothering with even a glance over her shoulder. When ten more minutes passed and Maggie hadn’t returned, I guessed she wasn’t coming back.
My sister, for all her bratty behavior the past few months, had been a friend to Maggie. My woman had told me as much.
“I’ll be back, Ma.” She waved me off, folding my napkin when I tossed it on the table. I moved toward the back of the restaurant, looking for my bella.
Half the town was here and it took me a good ten minutes to navigate through the crowd. Mrs. Phillips stopped me to tell me, again, how sorry she was that she hadn’t known August was the punk I knew him to be.
Mr. Kempt pulled me to the side to ask what I thought Vi would say to taking her off for the weekend to the Cape.
I wasn’t fucking touching that one.
By the time I found Maggie, she was at the back of the restaurant, standing in front of the large bay window in the dining hall my folks reserved for larger parties. The light from the streetlamps outside was distilled by the thick fabric around the windows, but Maggie still looked like a fucking angel against that glass, her entire face profiled and flawless as I watched her.
She’d been like this Christmas Eve, months back, the first night we met. She’d been scared then, upset too. And I’d stood in front of her saying shit that had no business coming out of my mouth. But hell, I’d wanted her and Christ did she need to cut loose a little.