I sighed. “Have a nice holiday, Dolores. We’ll see you in the new year.”
We walked out to the car and drove to the Y while Sofia babbled about her day (most of it involving Billy Hendrix, whom I suspected she liked more than she actually hated). Every now and then she would look sharply into the rearview mirror, and my heart thumped loudly in response.
Maybe I could have forgotten Xavier Sato’s face if Sofia didn’t look so much like him. She and I shared some features, of course. Her almost black hair was almost as unruly as mine. We had the same slightly bronzed skin and petite build, having both inherited Nonna’s teeny tiny bird bones.
But that was where the similarities stopped. My nose could politely be called Roman while Sofia’s was adorably button-like. My lips were curved and heart-shaped, but my daughter’s were impossibly full. I loved pinching them to make her laugh. Her wide-set, slightly upturned eyes were a deep, dark blue, whereas mine were muddy green like the rest of my family. They twinkled when she laughed and flamed when she was angry, with all the passion of the man who had given them to her.
There was no getting around it. My little girl was the spitting image of her father. Who had no clue that she existed.
I had considered telling him over the years. The email he had used was no longer valid, apparently. I’d long since blocked, then deleted his cell phone number, so that was out of the question. I’d done a few cursory internet searches, but Xavier Sato seemed to go dark on social media and everywhere else just after we met. It was almost like he had never existed at all.
I could have tried harder. But honestly, it seemed cruel. Not to him, but to his fiancée—probably his wife by now. How could you fight something like cancer when you realized your husband fathered a love child in another country? I couldn’t have cared less about Xavier’s feelings at that point. But I couldn’t do that to her. Whoever she was.
And then, as time passed, it just seemed more and more pathetic. Who shows up years after claiming to have had your baby? Xavier was rich. That much I remembered. His friends and family would call me a gold digger. And maybe that I could have taken. Sticks and stones, right?
But the idea of anyone calling Sofia names like bastard? That was out of the question.
Besides, Sofia was happy. She had a mother who loved her, aunts and an uncle who treated her like she was their own. We needed nothing more.
Or so I told myself. Most of the time.
* * *
“Mattie, we’re back!”
Three hours later, Sofia and I arrived home, her dizzy with excitement after meeting Santa Claus, me still in my worn spandex after teaching cardio hip hop hours before. I desperately needed a shower. And dinner.
The little townhouse in Red Hook wasn’t much. Twelve hundred square feet of crumbling brick that Matthew was slowly remodeling into something livable. Three small bedrooms (if you counted my blocked off area at the top of the stairs) upstairs, a kitchenette, living room, and half bath on the main floor, plus a basement apartment he rented out to help with the mortgage.
I was proud of my brother. Matthew had worked hard for a long time to have something of his own in the most expensive city in the world. And he was sharing it with us. I knew I should be grateful. And nearly every day, I was.
“Mattie, are you home?” I called as I dropped my bags in the foyer. “And by any chance, do you have dinner? We are starving.”
There was a loud thump from upstairs, followed by a series of loud footsteps trampling down the stairs.
“Ouch, shit. I mean, shoot!”
“Zio!” shouted Sofia as she dropped my hand and made a beeline for her favorite guy on the planet.
As he was tackled on the landing, Matthew obediently swept her up and twirled her around. He looked a far cry from his usual polished self in a pair of old Marine Corps issue sweatpants, a ratty T-shirt, and three days of beard growth.
“Had a nice day?” I called from the kitchen. “Or should we say good morning?”
He gave me a dirty look, and I felt bad. For the last few months, Matthew had been on forced administrative leave and subsequently had to work nights as a bartender to make ends meet. It was only six p.m., but clearly, he was just getting up.
“Did you just wake up, Zio?” Sofia demanded. “It’s almost nighttime!”
“Nighttime is my daytime, baby girl,” he informed her before putting her down.
She scampered upstairs to say hello to her toys while Matthew and I walked into the kitchen. It was cold. No food or anything. My stomach grumbled.
“Stop,” he said as I started rummaging around in the fridge. “I’ll do it. You’ve been on your feet all day. Also, you need a shower.”
“So do you,” I said. “At least I have work to blame. You just stink of cigarettes and booze. What have you been doing all day?”
He shrugged as he pulled a few plates from the cupboard. “Sleeping. Hanging around.”
“Chain smoking and drowning your sorrows with Oprah and a bottle of Jack?” I emerged from the fridge with a half a pan of ziti and things for a salad.