24
“Mama, stop.”
Sofia batted my hands out of her hair for what was probably the fifth time that morning.
I couldn’t help it. I was nervous. Not just for myself, but for Matthew, who was taking a very, very big step today.
I’d known about it for a couple of weeks. Honestly, I’d tried to dissuade him. Bringing a woman home to attend church with his family was a big enough deal. It was basically declaring his intentions to all of us—that this was someone he wanted to be family too. Maybe someone he wanted to marry.
That might have been acceptable. Unfortunately, the one he was bringing home was already married. And every person in this family was acutely aware of it.
Three months ago, Matthew had returned from Italy a changed man. He had pretended it was nothing, that he had just had a nice break from reality. But I knew better. My brother had been depressed for more than a year, and suddenly he was prancing around Brooklyn like Gene Kelly.
Then, a few weeks back, Matthew had finally confessed that he and Nina had been seeing each other for months. I had smacked him on the head and said, “No shit, you idiot.” I’d heard his phone calls late at night to the girl he called “doll.” I knew whom he was rushing out to meet at ten o’clock at night and whose lipstick was smeared on his collar when he returned the next morning.
I was lucky, really, that Matthew was too preoccupied with his own love life to pay much attention to mine. Or, I should say my daughter’s. Because over the past few months, Sofia had also fallen deeply in love with a man she still didn’t know was her father.
Our plan had been working like gangbusters. Xavier had been back and forth between New York and London, showing up every few weeks to take Sofia to a park, a movie, children’s museums, or whatever else he had come up with to spend time with her. It was always something she would talk about for days, but luckily Matthew was so distracted that he barely noticed her chatter, much less put together that “Xavi” was, in fact, my ex, Xavier Parker.
But I couldn’t ignore the fact that Xavier’s name was on Sof’s lips every other sentence. One way or another, the cat was going to jump out of the bag. As easy and comfortable as it had been to let them get to know each other, a decision was coming. It was time to tell Sofia. And everyone else.
First, though, Matthew had news of his own. Because today, as we drove the final blocks to Nonna’s for Sunday Mass a few weeks after Easter, Nina de Vries, my brother’s obsession, sat primly in the front seat of Matthew’s Corolla while he parked outside the old house off Arthur Avenue.
There we were, the secret keepers. Me, Sofia, Matthew, and his Upper East Side princess.
Nina de Vries was everything I wasn’t. A bona fide socialite who had literally graced the covers of magazines. She was reserved, as still as a statue, someone who wore her breeding and wealth like a mask.
But when she looked at my brother, something in her icy demeanor shifted. Her eyes shone with pure, absolute love. I didn’t need to ask if she would do anything for him. It was etched into every crystalline feature.
That alone was enough for me to give her a chance.
* * *
The service was just startingas we slipped into the second row of our family’s customary pews. All of my sisters were present this weekend. Not surprising, since Matthew had informed us all in a group text that he had an “announcement.” For that, I had received another four texts from our sisters asking me what the hell was the big secret.
I wouldn’t say. I had a newfound respect for secrets, and Nina wasn’t mine to tell.
Now, as we crept into the pew behind the rest of them, Lea predictably turned around, eyed Nina with suspicion, and hissed at Matthew. “Nice of you to show up.”
“Eyes front, ladies,” Matthew snapped back in a whisper. “God hates a gossip, you know.”
I snorted. Lea always acted like the oldest, but Matthew had her by several years. It always gave me, one who had borne the solid brunt of her henpecking, satisfaction when Matthew put her in her place.
“Hush,” was all Lea could come up with.
“Yeah, hush, Zio,” Tommy, her eldest, parroted.
“Psst!”
We all sat up a little straighter at Nonna’s familiar hiss. Above all, she hated when we misbehaved in church. That hiss was the one that threatened a spanking when we got home, no matter how old we were.
“Hush,” Sofia whispered next to me, though she wasn’t quite brave enough to admonish her cousin in the middle of church.
I smiled encouragingly. When it really came down to it, Sofia just wanted her cousins to like her, bozos or not. Unfortunately, since they were all boys except for the baby, it was harder than she would have liked.
She caught me watching her, then reached up and tugged on my sleeve so I could bend down.
“What’s up, bean?” I whispered.