“Will you excuse me one moment?” I said, pulling out my phone from my pocket.
I brought up the group chat I had with my brothers. Consider this my bat signal, I typed.
“See you at six at Dexter’s horrible bar,” Beck replied immediately.
I smiled and slid the phone into my pocket.
“My grandmother taught me about family. About passion. About what’s important in life. She taught me how to live.” Except if she were here now, I didn’t think she’d be impressed with how I’d been applying her lessons. At least not where Sofia was concerned.
Thirty-Nine
Sofia
For the first time since Natalie had returned to New Jersey, I felt homesick. I kicked off my shoes, nudged the front door shut with my butt, and padded into my bedroom to change. Up until now, London had kept me distracted. First it was finding a job, then Andrew, James, Bob Goode, and finally Verity. I hadn’t had time to notice how lonely I felt.
As if she’d heard me from three thousand miles away, my cell flashed from where it had been discarded on my bed. Natalie.
“I miss you,” she said before I could say anything.
“I miss you too.”
We hadn’t actually spoken since she’d found out that I was sleeping with Andrew. There’d been texts here and there. I’d told her about my new job. She congratulated me. I’d told her that Andrew and I weren’t sleeping together anymore, and she offered to call. I’d assured her I was fine.
I wasn’t fine.
“I’m sorry I was so down on Andrew,” she said. “You obviously saw something in him that I didn’t.”
Even now it felt like I saw a side of him that he didn’t share with most people. And that’s why it was so hard to understand why he’d just ended things. He hadn’t even suggested we try being together and working together. Maybe I’d been wrong about thinking what was between us was special. I’d assumed he felt the same. If he had, though, he would never have been able to walk away so easily. What I’d had with Andrew had been different from anything I’d ever had with someone else. He’d been the first man I’d really trusted be true to his word—the first man I’d been so completely and utterly myself with.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s over now anyway.”
“Over? You want to talk about it?”
“Nothing to talk about. He doesn’t mix business with . . . anything. So, here we are.” I pulled on my favorite Yankees tee and slipped off my skirt.
“But he promoted you, so that’s nice.”
“He did. And I love the job. It’s impossible and stressful, but I still love it.” Sweatpants on, I shuffled the four steps to the kitchen. A life with no money in New York had me well trained for living in this tiny apartment.
“You don’t sound happy,” she said.
“I’m fine.” I had my dream job. What didn’t I have to be happy about? I was making more money. I was getting along with my father. I even had time to go and see some of London now I wasn’t job searching or sleeping with my boss. I had nothing to complain about.
“How are things with Des?”
“Good. He’s . . . He’s a nice man. Not the monster I expected.” If he’d been a monster, it would have been far easier to ask him for the money, take it and get my mom better. But he was a good man who had just made mistakes. Maybe I would find the right time to ask him. Just not yet.
“Is he going to give you the money?”
“I haven’t asked him yet.” I didn’t tell her about the will. “It’s harder than you think to ask someone for fifty grand. Even if they owe you.”
“I imagine it is. Especially if you want to have an ongoing relationship with them.” She didn’t ask it like a question, but it was one—and I didn’t have the answer. I knew I wasn’t ready to close the door on my father. I had too many questions. Too much I wanted to know. I didn’t know how long that would last.
I collapsed with a glass of wine onto the sofa that had been my bed for my first few weeks in London and told Natalie what my father had told me about his parents, my mother disconnecting her phone and him trying to find us years later when he came into his own money.
“Do you believe him?”
“I do. He defended my mother. He doesn’t blame her. He holds himself accountable and he’s . . . sorry.”
“Have you told your mom?”
I needed to tell her I’d made contact with my father. At some point. I just didn’t know when.
Or how.
“She doesn’t need to know. Not yet. It would only hurt her, and what purpose would it serve? I don’t need her feeling guilty or full of regret for cutting him loose. She did what she had to.” I didn’t blame my mom. She’d described the situation and my father as honestly as she could. There was always more than one version of the truth. My mother had hers; my father had his.
“Right. So what’s next?”
I sighed and put down my glass. “I have no idea. I suppose I keep spending time with my father and wait for the right moment to ask him. I just hope . . . I hope by asking him, I don’t undo what we’ve built. I came to London to manipulate him into giving me money. That’s not a very nice thing to do.”
“You had your reasons. And like you said, he owes you.”
“I know but it feels . . . I just wish I could pay myself. With the new job, if I save hard, work hard, hit my targets and get my bonus, I think I can get the money in a little over a year.”
"That’s amazing.” Natalie bit at her bottom lip, a nervous tell she’d been unable to break since we were kids. “Listen, I’ve been wondering whether I should tell you this, but . . . you remember Caterina Costa from—”
“I remember.” Who could forget Caterina Costa? She was one of those girls all Italians in New York knew. She’d gone to Harvard on a scholarship, and the rest of us would never live up to her accomplishments.
“I ran into her yesterday. She said her mom ran into Mamma Isabella at church, and Mamma Isabella said she’d been talking with your mom, and your mom had mentioned her knee was so bad she was going to have to leave her job at Christina’s because—”
“She has to take the subway to that job.” My heart pulled in my chest. Stairs had been a problem for a while.
“Right. And it’s been a problem for a couple of years but apparently it’s gotten worse in the last few months.”
“How much worse?” Irritation pinched at me. Why hadn’t my mom told me? Probably because she thought I’d rush home. She thought I’d come to England to follow my dreams. She didn’t know I was here for her.
“Apparently she’s going to give notice at the end of the month.”
* * *
It was like a brick had dropped through my stomach. Mamma had been dreading the moment she wasn’t fit enough to work but not ill enough to qualify for the surgery under her insurance. I wanted to book the first flight home and cook meatballs for her, take care of her—but that wouldn’t help in the long-run. I was going to have to suck it up and ask Des. There was no other way. Yes, I could probably supplement my mom’s income to cover the second job, but her knee was clearly getting worse more quickly than I expected. And what would happen if I got fired? “I’ll figure it out. That’s what the Rossi girls do.”