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I press print for what must be the hundredth time on my ma’s ancient computer.
And nothing happens.
Again.
I hit the on/off button, check the power cables and connections, look for paper, ink, and any other obvious reasons why this goddamn little machine will print recipes and pictures of my mother’s rescue animals, but the one day I actually need a physical document, I can’t get the thing to show even the slightest sign of life.
“Come on, you little asshole.”
I run my hands through my hair before I check the time on my phone.
Almost noon.
Damn it.
One of my mom’s foster cats—this one is new, so I’m not sure what her name is—jumps up onto the desk and tries to nuzzle my face.
“Baby, you’re adorable, but I don’t have time for love right now.”
I’ve showered, but I’ve still got to get dressed and drive down to the station. My meeting with the chief is in an hour, and I cannot fuck this up.
I scratch her before giving her a gentle nudge away from the desk, and then I check all the printer settings again. When another five attempts at printing still don’t work, I give in and run up the stairs, and my sock snags on the wood. I catch myself before I fall flat on my face. “Oh fuck!” I yell out, aggravated beyond belief.
“Vito, language,” my mother says, sitting at the dining room table with Sassy, one of her best friends.
Ma has a group of ladies she’s tight with, and they keep one another busy. Sassy works as a waitress at my brother Benito’s restaurant, Bev runs the local animal shelter where Ma volunteers, and then there is Carol, whose son and ex-husband own the garage here in Star Falls where my older brother Franco works.
Small-town living, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I get my footing and stifle another mouthful of curses.
Sassy snorts and almost spits coffee onto Ma’s tablecloth. “Mornin’, sunshine,” she says.
I go around the table and kiss Sassy and Carol on the cheeks, greeting them. “Bev workin’?” I ask.
When I get around to my mother, she gives me a fake-angry look but then holds up her hands to cup my face. “She’ll be here for brunch in a few minutes. I’m so glad you’re here, V. You can meet Sassy’s niece.”
I shake my head. “Can’t stick around, Ma. Sorry. Got to run down to the station.”
Ladies’ brunch is a new thing they started after my sister Grace had her baby. Gracie is a stepmom to two adorable kiddos and has a one-year-old of her own now, Ethan. The brunches are potlucks where whoever is free can stop by and catch up. And Ma’s friends are definitely birds of a feather. Even though only Sassy and Carol are here, at least ten dishes are on the table already.
“This spread could convince me to stick around,” I say. “Sassy…” I draw out her name and flash her a flirtatious smile. “Are these your famous raspberry kolacky cookies?” I wink and grab one of the powdered-sugar-covered little bow ties.
“Vito,” Ma sighs,
swatting at my hand. “We have company coming today.”
I shake my head. “Right, right, okay. Ma, can you help me for a sec? The damn printer’s acting up again.”
My mother crosses her arms over her chest, and the corner of one side of her lips curls up. “Aren’t you the one who told me nobody uses paper anymore. Join the digital age?”
I shake my head and crack up at my mother’s impersonation of me. “That doesn’t sound like me, Ma. Sounds like you’re confusing me with Benny.”
Ma shakes her head but pushes back from the table. “Sassy, grab the door if anyone comes, will you? And if Eden arrives before I’m back, yell for me. This might take a minute.”
I follow my mother down into the basement.
“Oh, kitty.” Ma bends down to pet the cat who’s still in isolation as soon as we make it to the bottom of the stairs. “How’s my beautiful princess today?”
I squeeze my brows and try not to start stressing. “Ma,” I say, trying to bring my mother back on task. “I just need these three pages printed. Can you take a look?”
I lean over the print preview panel, relieved that none of the text is readable. It’s not that what I’m working on is a big secret or anything, but I just don’t really want my family meddling in my business until I actually have news to share.
Ma immediately hits cancel on the print preview and drops into her office chair to get comfy. But then just as suddenly, she whirls to look at me. “Oh my God, son…”
“What? What is it?” My heart starts to race, and sweat instantly coats my palms. “Ma, what happened?” I rest a reassuring hand on her shoulder as my chest tightens.
Ma reaches a hand up to her shoulder and clenches my fingers between her perfectly manicured nails. “Baby,” she says, looking sad. “Sassy just told me something upstairs. Something I don’t know if you’ve heard about yet.”
I squeeze her hand, all worries about the time evaporating because Sassy news isn’t anything to panic over. “Ma, you’re going to give me a heart attack. What is it?”
She stands from the chair and lifts her face to look from her five-foot-nothing frame into my eyes. “Vito, Michelle had dinner in your brother’s restaurant last night. Michelle, son. She’s moved back to Star Falls.”
I’m so surprised by this that I drop Ma’s hand and step away from her. “Michelle…"
I mutter. “Wow. Well, okay. Is she all right? Her grandpa didn’t get worse, did he?”
Michelle fucking Bianchi. My ex-wife. The woman who owned my heart and then literally crushed it under her stiletto heel.
Ma nods. “Looks that way. Sassy said her grandfather needs to move into a memory care place. You know that one on the east side of town.”
I do know the one, but I don’t say anything. I’m a firefighter, and there have been too many suspicious fires at that place over the last year. That’s part of what I want to meet with the chief about. But I hold back what I know and focus on the fact that my ex-wife is back in town.
“I’m sorry to hear that. Michelle’s gramps was a great guy,” I add.
Ma nods. “But it looks like Michelle is doing very well for herself. She’s opened her own business. Teaching at the community college too.”
“Teaching?” I shake my head in wonder, but I’m not at all surprised. My ex-wife was always smart. Smart enough to leave my ass behind when it became clear we didn’t have the same aspirations in life. Aspirations. Even that word sounds smart. “I’m happy for her, Ma.”
“Honey,” Ma says, her caring eyes focused so intently on me I don’t even have to guess what’s coming. I know. My mother is so wonderful but also incredibly predictable. “Do you think you’re going to be okay? Maybe you should see her? Sit down for a cup of coffee and just get everything out in the open.”
I hold up my hands. “Nah, Ma. Michelle moving back to Star Falls is none of my business. We’ve been divorced for five years. I’m over it. I’m over her. All that’s old news, ancient history, okay?”
Ma looks at me, an expression of so much worry and love on her face that I pull her in for a hug.
“What I really need right now is to get going, but I can’t do that until I get this shit printed.”
Her sadness seems to vanish instantly, but I know she won’t be convinced so easily
“You got it, sweetie. I’m on it.”
Thirty minutes later, I’m dressed in dark gray dress pants, a white shirt with the top few buttons unbuttoned, and I have a tie slung over my shoulder. I dig through my closet for some nicer shoes, but since Ma doesn’t like us wearing shoes in the house, I loop my fingers through the laces to carry them to the door.
I look through my room for anything I can use to protect my paperwork and eventually have to settle on an old issue of one of my favorite camping magazines. I tuck the paperwork in, check the time, and haul ass down the stairs.
Just as I skid to a stop at the base of the stairs, my sister Grace raises an eyebrow at me and grins. “This little nugget has been asking for you for the last ten minutes.”
“Gracie.” I lean down to give my sister a kiss. “And look at you, little man. Got my hands full today, buddy. Hang on.” I rush to the front door, drop my dress shoes, and gently set my magazine on top of them. Then I turn and open my arms wide to my nephew.
Gracie sets Ethan on his feet, and he struggles to make it all the way across the hallway. All thoughts about the time rush out of my head as I watch my nephew take shaky steps across the living room. His mouth is open in a thrilled grin, his arms in front of him as he reaches for me. I drop to my knees and inch across the floor just in time to catch him before his little legs buckle.
“What was that?” I ask, picking him up and blowing loud kisses into his belly. “You run better than I do, buddy.”
Little Ethan’s baby teeth show as he laughs and laughs. He clamps his mouth against my shoulder and squeezes me tight in a hug.
“So proud of you, little man.” I set my nephew down, and when I stand back up, he grabs my leg and tugs to be picked up again. “I got to run,” I say reluctantly.
Ma’s friends are gathered around the living room table, including Bev, who must have arrived while I was getting dressed.
“Bev.” I blow her a kiss and wave. “Got to dash, ladies. Have a good brunch.”
The smells of coffee and the sounds of happy chatter are so welcoming, for a minute, I consider texting my chief and canceling our meeting to stay home and hang out with my family and Ma’s friends, who, after all these years, are family too. I look down at my nephew and catch a glimpse of the magazine that is protecting my list of accomplishments and my résumé.
I have a moment of self-doubt seize me so hard, I almost drop back onto my knees.
Ever since my divorce, I’ve been stuck. Lost. Every time I get close to something that matters to me, I lose it, fuck it up, or run away.
I’m thirty-six, live at home with my parents, and haven’t been on a real date in three months.
What I’m doing with my life, what I’ve done… I don’t know.
I’m not like Benito, driven and intense in work and deeply committed to sowing my wild oats. My older brother Franco has had the same job for his whole life practically, and he has a woman he loves by his side. Gracie is an accomplished tattoo artist with two stepkids, a great husband, and now her own little nugget, Ethan.
I’m a middle child who’s always been the lost kid. I thought that marrying Michelle was the answer to making the life I wanted, but turns out, I wasn’t enough for her.
And I just got passed over for a promotion at work I wanted badly, but I wasn’t enough for that either. For a hot second, I consider saying fuck it.
Dreams are for different
people.
I could stay and eat brunch and hang with my family, but then what?
When everyone goes home to their lives, I’m going to go back upstairs to my bedroom and feel like shit about myself all over again?
I shake my head and smooth Ethan’s hair. “Love you, kiddo, but I got to hustle up.”
“Who you looking so sexy for, V?” Sassy gets up and heads over to pick up little Ethan. She lowers her voice. “Speaking of sexy, did your mother tell you who I saw last night?”
I stifle a groan.
The last thing I need is for my mom’s friends to get into matchmaking mode.
Michelle is my past. She is most definitely not my future. She made that much clear when she divorced me.
“She did, Sassy, but you know that’s old news. Nothing I’m going to get myself worked up over, and none of you need to either.”
“What? What’d I miss?” Gracie pours some cream into her coffee and starts cutting up a child’s plate full of food. “Who’d Sassy see?”
“Wish I could stay, but I’m late.” I slip my feet into my shoes and tie the laces as fast as I can so Ma doesn’t yell at me for running around without them tied. “Y’all can talk about me once I’m gone.”
I check my pocket for my wallet and phone, then reach for the shelf Pops installed on the wall for my keys. But there’s nothing hanging on the hook where my truck keys should be.
“Ma!” I yell. “Where are my keys?”
“Oh, shoot.” Ma pushes back from the dining room table and pads over to me. I try not to think about the time. The chief is going to give me hell for this. “I’m sorry, honey. I moved your truck onto the street so the girls could park in the driveway. Your truck is down the street.” She fishes the keys out of a pocket in her rhinestone-bedazzled jeans. “Here you go, baby. Have a great day, son.”
I grab the keys, grin, and with the magazine in one hand, yank open the front door.
“Oh, uh…hello?” a soft voice says. Standing on the front stoop is probably the most stunning woman I’ve ever seen. And since my ex-wife was
a stripper, that’s saying something.
“Hello?” I look into her eyes and realize this woman is tall. Like nearly eye level with me, and I’m just shy of six feet. She’s not skinny and lean like Michelle was. This woman is full-figured, which I cannot miss since she’s holding a wriggling little girl about Ethan’s age against her ample chest.
“Oh God. I’m so sorry. Did I knock on the wrong door?” The woman is staring at me, blinking her brown eyes rapidly. She squints and takes a step back, looking for the wrought-iron numbers that correspond to our street address on the front of the house.
“This is the Bianchi residence.” I’m gripping the keys in my hand so tightly I feel the metal cut into my palm. I loosen my grip and cock my head. “Who are you looking for?”
“My aunt Shirley,” she says, looking dazed. She frowns and pulls a cell phone from the front pocket of a large purse-style diaper bag. “I’m sorry to have bothered you.”
She turns and starts to walk back down the walkway when I call out to her. “Shirley… Do you mean Sassy?”
Just then, Sassy bellows from the dining room table. “Eden!” My mom’s friend bolts past me to meet the woman—Eden, I assume—at the door. “Oh my God,” Sassy cries again. She takes the little girl from Eden’s arms and plasters her face with kisses, then turns to me and holds out her arms. “Vito, hold my grandniece for a second. I need a hug from this one.”
Before I know what’s happening, there is yet another kid in my arms. “Uh, hello there,” I say, holding the stranger’s child awkwardly in my arms.
The little girl looks like she’s about to start crying, and I don’t blame her. I’m a strange man, and she was just yanked from her mama’s arms. I plaster on a bright smile and sort of jiggle her up and down in my arms the way I do with Ethan. While I try to stall a meltdown, Sassy wraps Eden in her arms and rocks her wildly back and forth, tears literally streaming down her face.
“I’m so glad you’re here now, baby. We’re going to take good care of you.”
With keys and my magazine in one hand and this kiddo in the other, I’ve literally got my arms full.
Sassy finally releases the woman whose cheeks are red even though she’s wearing a smile so beautiful my heart cracks a little. ...
