Chapter Forty-Three

“WILL YOU TWO be okay here? I’m sure his computer just needs a restart.” When Olivia paused in the kitchen doorway, Ellie forced a nonchalant smile. Christina leaving to see Ben’s Minecraft demonstration had been one thing. Olivia leaving was quite another.

“We’re fine. Go, go.” Nonna shooed Olivia, then shifted her attention to Ellie, who tried not to squirm. She’d been riding the high of their twin proposals when she suggested this meeting. Now, alone and face-to-face with Nonna, she felt more impulsive than brave.

Ellie had seen photos of Sophia, and Olivia had mentioned the resemblance, but it had still been a shock when Adrianna walked through the door. The woman was both a living reminder of Sophia and a snapshot of her lost future. Ellie knew she was being superstitious, but even the house seemed to recognize her. Or at least the resonance of Sophia within her. And as it turned toward that memory, it turned against Ellie. The silverware drawer jammed when she went to close it. The cabinets flustered her, revealing the wrong contents every time she opened a door. Even the espresso maker rebelled, the threads refusing to line up until Olivia took over.

Ellie spun her cup slowly in its saucer to avoid drinking her espresso—her stomach couldn’t handle its bitter bite right now.

“Add milk. There’s no Italian law for drinking it black.”

She startled when Adrianna guessed her thoughts, then smiled, reaching for the creamer.

“You have a quick smile. I like that.”

“Thanks.” Ellie smiled again, as a reflex, then blushed.

“My grandson is fond of you.”

“I love him so much.” The words burst out, betraying her. She almost swallowed her tongue trying to get them back.

Adrianna’s mask of appropriateness didn’t slip. She set a biscotti on her plate. “My daughter would be happy knowing he and Olivia are not alone.”

“It must be hard, seeing me in this house.”

“I’m old. I have seen much. This is not the hardest thing, not by any measurement.”

“Sophia.”

“To bury a child. There are no words.”

The espresso swirled and clouded as Ellie stirred. The chime of spoon on ceramic marked the silence. “I love Olivia and Ben, but I have no intention of taking them away from you. Not that I could, I mean, but I want us to be comfortable.” She bit her lip. “I’m not saying this well.”

“You think I’m upset you will replace my daughter?”

“Judging from the stories, she’s irreplaceable.”

A glinting smile carved Adrianna’s face.

Ellie set her spoon down. “I want the three of us to be a family, but it doesn’t mean leaving all of you behind.”

Adrianna pierced her with a shrewd glare. The smile flattened, grew sharper. “You are leaving something—how do they say it—on the table.”

Pressure lodged in Ellie’s throat. Her words had spun away from her, and she couldn’t reel them back. It didn’t matter anyway. Nonna had already guessed. She just wanted to hear Ellie say it. She swallowed hard. “We’ve talked about my adopting Ben after the wedding, but only if he wants it.”

Silence again. And Adrianna’s unshakeable stare. The sticky-sweet smell of Ellie’s untouched Danish grew cloying. Her stomach churned.

“My Sophia carried Benjamin.”

“I know.”

“She will always be his mother.”

“Of course.”

Adrianna sipped her espresso. Some of the steel left her expression. “It is hard to imagine him calling anyone other than Olivia…mother.”

Ellie took a slow breath, remembering Abuela’s admonition, and measured her words. “I’m sure it is, but Ben should know I’m committed to him as much as Olivia.” She leaned back in her chair and waited. Adrianna was different from Abuela—more blade, less hammer—but the fierce love for her family was identical.

“It is the right thing for Benjamin,” Adrianna said, finally. “But it will never be an easy thing for me.”

“Thank you.” Ellie tried not to slide off her chair in a puddle of relief.

“May I see the ring?”

“Of course.” The marvel of this ring on her own finger hadn’t faded. “It was my abuela’s.”

Adrianna cupped Ellie’s hand in her own clawed fingers, then lifted her reading glasses from their chain to study it. “Three roses?”

“For her three sons.”

“And now for another family of three.” She let her reading glasses drop.

Ellie almost burst into tears at the gift of those words, at their tender acceptance. She drew in a long, unsteady breath and nodded.

Adrianna patted her hand, then released it. “You must miss your abuela a great deal.”

“She was the first to accept my being gay. Knowing she loved me meant everything.”

“Then she was a wiser woman than me.” Adrianna interlaced the gnarled branches of her fingers and rested them on the table.

“But you and Sophia were close.”

“Eventually, yes, but after she first told me, a strain grew between us. It was over thirty years ago, a different time. There was no thought of marriage, or children, for women like this.” Her bent knuckle rapped the table. “You’re an immigrant. You understand.”

Ellie nodded.

“I said it was a terrible mistake. I almost told her to leave the house and never return, but I knew my daughter. She would do it. With Christina, maybe, I could threaten this, but not my Sophia.”

Olivia and Christina hovered in the doorway, but Ellie said nothing to break the story.

“I withdrew from her. Only the light things, the small things, we discussed, for a year. Before university, she came to me. She said I didn’t know what she would be giving up, to stay in the life I wished for her. She said—” Adrianna’s thin voice cracked. “Sophia said she would have to give up her very soul.”

“So you accepted who she was.”

“I said I would try, and I did, thank God, because if I had not—” She crossed herself. “A few years before her death, Sophia and Olivia organized a surprise party for me here, filled with people. Every moment was perfect. Olivia was so devoted to my daughter, so considerate of me. Watching them together, I felt such shame. My stubbornness might have kept them apart, if Sophia hadn’t defied me. Or I could have lost them all, living a life separate from mine. To imagine it even now—”

Olivia touched her mother-in-law’s slight shoulder as she and Christina sat on either side. “Sophia knew you loved her.”

“I pushed her away when she needed me to draw her close.”

“She understood you needed time. She was never angry at you. Not for one second.”

“My dear.” Adrianna touched her cheek. “That is what makes it shameful. The daughter should push away and be angry. Her mother should know better.”

Olivia’s lips stretched tight, the way they did when she pushed a smile through her pain. “I wish Sophia could—” She shook her head.

Ellie knew that shake, the way it erased the words to come. She’d seen it too often in those weeks leading up to the bridge. Worry fluttered in her stomach like a moth. Olivia had been concerned this meeting was too soon for Ellie. But she hadn’t seen Adrianna since before the breakdown. Maybe all of this was too soon for her.

“You wish she could see him now.” Adrianna finished Olivia’s thought.

“Sophia believed in him, more than I ever did. As a nurse, I clung to the realistic, the practical, because it felt safe, but she saw all of this for him. And the way he’s blossomed with Ellie makes me wonder if my grief kept him from being happy.” Even as her eyes watered, Olivia forced a flat, measured tone.

“So I understand when you speak of shame; when you say a mother should know better. To protect Ben from more pain, I withdrew and took him with me. Sophia wouldn’t have done that.” A deep sorrow threatened Olivia’s painted calm. She buried her face in her hands. “I’ve always thought, for Ben, that the wrong parent lived.”

The whispered admission shocked Ellie, but before she could reach for Olivia, Nonna peeled her hands away and lifted her chin. “You both needed the same thing—time to step out of this world until you could face it again without her. You see so much of my daughter in him that it blinds you to how much of you is there as well.” She patted Olivia’s cheek.

“When Sophia first told me about you, do you know what she said? That she had never met anyone who forgave others so easily but could never forgive herself. I thought it was a strange way to describe someone—I’m Italian, after all. We hold our grudges.”

Olivia chuckled through her tears. The wry sound soothed some of Ellie’s worry.

“I did not fully understand her until this moment. Sophia never doubted you as a parent. Always remember that.” Adrianna hadn’t forgiven Olivia, because there was no need, but she had granted Olivia permission to forgive herself. As Sophia’s mother, it was a grace only she could give. “And if you do not remember, I trust Ellie will.”

“I will, Adrianna.”

“Nonna,” she said, mock-scowling.

“Nonna.” Ellie pulled Olivia close, kissing her temple. She’d never heard her talk about this poignant regret, and she ached at how hard Olivia could be on herself.

“Is it always like this around here?” Christina teased, breaking the somber mood. “I’ve lived on testosterone island so long, I’m out of practice.”

“I said I was getting emotional in old age.” Wiping her face, Olivia released a jittery sigh.

“And I said wait until menopause. Not that some of us have to worry about it for a while.” Christina gave Ellie a playful kick under the table.

She laughed and pushed back in her chair. “Let me get you an espresso.” Ellie squeezed Olivia’s shoulder as she got up; fingertips brushed across her knuckles in response. With the murmur of voices floating behind her, she crossed to the kitchen. The silverware drawer opened with a smooth glide, and she let out a long, slow breath as she reached for a spoon.