“I’ll take you and watch Mateo while you’re there.”
“You don’t have to do that! I have someone who watches him while I’m at work.”
“Where?”
“In my building.”
“You can’t go back there right now, Sofia, and you can’t leave Mateo there either. I assume Joaquín knows what you do with him while you’re working. What if he makes bail, and you come home to find Mateo gone?”
“He… He can’t do that. We have a custody agreement. He only gets him one night a week.”
“And he’s been so great about following the rules and the law. He’s in jail for violating the protective order. I imagine he’s pretty angry to be locked up, and who’s he going to blame for putting him there? Himself? I highly doubt that.”
She rolls her bottom lip between her teeth. “Maybe I shouldn’t go to work if there’s a chance of trouble.”
“We’ll talk to my uncle Vin and tell him what’s going on so he can be aware.”
“He’s not going to want me there if I bring trouble with me.”
I tip her chin up. “You’re family to us, Sofia. Your troubles are our troubles. That’s how it works in a family.”
“But I’m not really family. This might be too much for them.”
“My family doesn’t only care about me when things are going well for me. They care about me all the time. They feel the same way about you and Mateo. Abuela and Nona would beat the shit out of anyone who tried to hassle you.”
That draws the first hint of a smile I’ve seen since Diego and his buddies smashed into us in traffic.
“I wouldn’t want to mess with them,” Sofia says of my grandmothers.
“They’re a formidable team, and they protect their own. They’ve made you and Mateo part of our family, and that extends to bad times as well as good.”
“They’ve done so much for me. The last thing I’d ever want is to bring trouble into their lives.”
“You’re not the one bringing the trouble.”
“You know what I mean. There’d be no trouble to worry about if I wasn’t here.”
“Maybe not, but we’d worry about you if you weren’t here.” I put my arms around her and hold her close under the water. “I’ll talk to Vin in the morning, tell him what’s going on, and we’ll see what he has to say. All right?”
“I guess so. I just hate that this is happening and that I have to involve him. It’s the best job I’ve ever had. I love everything about it.”
“I’ve heard everyone say how great you are with the customers and how much they love having you on the team.”
“They say that?”
“All the time. Giordino’s is a very special place. They don’t let just anyone work there. If you weren’t a good fit, they would’ve helped you find another job somewhere else. They wouldn’t have kept you on. One of my dad and Vin’s cousin’s daughters lasted two weeks before he showed her the door. She was a terrible waitress, which is bad for business. Vin apologized to his cousin and said it wasn’t going to work out. End of story.”
“Wow, that must’ve been awkward.”
“It was, but he’s very unapologetic about doing what’s best for the business that supports a lot of families, not just his. He takes that obligation very seriously.”
“I’ve learned so much working there, not just about the restaurant business, but about life and people, too.”
“I know what you mean. Every day, I apply some lesson I learned working there in my own business.”
“Thank you for everything you’re doing for me.”
“You don’t have to thank me. I’m so glad you’re here. You and Mateo are welcome for as long as you’d like to be here.”