All of those warm familial feelings disappear when we walk into the New Jersey funeral home for the wake the next day.
A ton of people have gathered, wearing sharp black suits and designer dresses. Most of the men have black or gray hair, and most of the women are either blonde or the darkest brunette. They speak with thick Jersey accents “like ya heard about.” And they all seem to freeze when we step through the door.
“Did you not tell anyone about us?” I ask in a hushed voice, drawing Garnet a little closer at the abrupt silence that follows our entrance.
“I gave Luca a heads up.”
“Luca, that’s all?”
Before I can point out that he probably should have pre-warned the rest of his large Italian family that we were coming to the funeral with his dead brother’s baby in tow, Stone’s mother descends on us.
She’s one of the older women who’s opted for blonde side of the not gray spectrum. She’s thin, but her face has that plump dewy cast without a hint of wrinkles, only Botox can provide to a woman her age.
“What’s this?” she demands, coming to stand toe to toe with Stone, even though he has a good foot on her.
“Peg, calm down,” a taller and even thinner woman comes over to stand behind her. She has long, silky black hair, and bright blue eyes. Luca’s mother, I realize, looking at the “best friends” in a new light as she tries to pull Stone’s mom away. “Don’t want to start anything. It’s a wake. C’mon now.”
But Stone’s mom doesn’t budge. “You brought your moolie?” she hisses at Stone. “To your own father’s wake?”
Okay, I’m not sure what a moolie is, but I get the feeling it isn’t good.
“Not my moolie, Ma. We’re married just the same as Luca and Amber,” Stone answers, proving that even off anti-depressants, he’s the kind of guy who pulls out lighter fluid, instead of quietly trying to putting a small fire out.
“Maybe we could move this to…” I start to suggest.
“You got married?” another relative screeches in the background. “Without telling your mother?”
“And who’s the two other kids?” another stage whispers so loud, she might as well be shouting. “They both got Italian eyes, but one of them looks like she’s mixed.”
“Maybe they had her first and it took the moolie this long to get him to agree to marry her,” another relative suggest. Way too loudly.
“Then why’s the other one white?” the original stage whisperer asks.
“Okay, maybe we shouldn’t have come,” Cami says, her voice nervous.
Talia’s now trying to hide from all the blatant stares behind her sister.
“Can we not be that stereotypical Italian family for maybe one whole second,” Luca calls out, appearing like an angel in a bespoke black suit and getting between us and the rest of the crowd.
Proving why he was able to take over the family at such a young age, Luca calms everyone down.
He directs Stone’s mother and him to the viewing room to see the body. Then he hands Cami and her sister over to one of his personal bodyguards, telling him to “make these kids a plate and introduce them to Daniella and Luca Jr.”
I look in the direction of Luca’s adopted daughter and the son I was originally slated to raise with Amber. Luca Jr. is almost two now and a perfect match to his beautiful parents’ set. His huge eyes and curls put me in mind of a Botticelli angel. However, unlike those darling cherubs, he’s already shed all his baby fat, as if his genes decided something as pedestrian as kid chub wasn’t befitting of a boy who was destined to grow up to be movie star gorgeous.
To my surprise, looking at him doesn’t hurt like it used to. As I watch him play on a Nintendo Switch with his adopted sister, I no longer see the baby I didn’t get to co-raise. Now he’s just Amber and Luca’s weirdly good-looking kid.
“Thanks,” I say to Luca when he’s done shutting everyone up and issuing orders. For more reasons than one.
Luca doesn’t say you’re welcome, though. “Kidnapping you is the gift that just keeps on giving, isn’t it?” he asks with an annoyed sneer. “Now I have to figure out how to tell everybody that this is actually my dead cousin’s kid without causing another scene.”
He glares at the both of us for a few moments. But then his face drops into a silly look, as he tickles Garnet’s belly and says, “Yes, you are, aren’t you? You’re a little friggin’ soap opera come to life!”
He reaches out to pull her from my arms, “I’ll take her while you go talk to Amber. She’s waiting for you in the bathroom.”
“Oh, I’m not sure if she’ll go to someone she doesn’t—”
But I’m cut off by Garnet’s happy squeal as she practically jumps into Luca’s arms.
Ugh…even babies aren’t immune to Luca’s ridiculously good looks.
Feeling completely out of my element, I cross through a sea of staring Italians to finally face the friend I’ve been avoiding for nearly two years.