When I looked back at Kate, she was drumming her nails on the counter.
“What?” I asked.
“Don’t ‘what’ me. You know what. Give it.”
I sighed. There was no getting out of this. “Fine.”
And so, in hushed tones my daughter wouldn’t hear, I proceeded to tell her everything that happened. All about seeing Xavier at the party. The way he had followed me around the Upper West Side. About the carriage ride in the park and just how close I’d come to spending the night with him in the Plaza.
“Holy shit,” she said again once I was finished. “No wonder you were upset.”
“Yeah.” I took a long drink of my tea. Nothing was better than tea.
“So, what happens now?”
I glanced at Sofia, then back at her. “What do you mean, what happens now? Did you not hear my story? He’s a sociopath, Katie. He doesn’t believe in love, of all things.”
She shook her head and looked at Sofia for a long time. “I don’t know. I seem to remember him saying it to you…you know…back then. More than once.”
I didn’t reply. Yeah, I remembered that too. Just like I remembered the feeling of having my heart torn out of my chest.
Kate shrugged. “His best friend dies. His mom dies. His dad’s a jerk. Seems like the guy has been through a lot. That kind of trauma can take a while to come back from. We should know.”
Something squeezed deep in my chest when I remembered the look on Xavier’s face as he had told me about Lucy. Or mentioned his mother. On the outside, that wasn’t the expression of a man who couldn’t love.
So maybe it wasn’t that he couldn’t. Maybe he just wouldn’t.
But really, wasn’t that worse?
“Also, and I hate to bring this up…if he’s loaded, couldn’t you sort of use the money?”
“Oh my God, thanks! I’m not a gold digger.”
She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t say you were. But hello, you’re bringing up that one by yourself, and dude owes you five years of child support. Make the rich bastard pay up.”
I bit my lip. I couldn’t pretend the thought hadn’t occurred to me, particularly when the B61 woke me up for the third time in the night. But even then, the thought of Sofia’s face upon learning she had a dad only to have him break her heart killed any instinct to pad our savings or her college fund. It wasn’t worth it if he couldn’t be the father she really needed.
“No,” I said. “I can’t. It’s better I didn’t tell him. And it’s going to stay that way.”
This time, Kate remained silent, lips pressed together. She clearly didn’t agree, but unlike the rest of my family, she knew when not to press an argument.
Which reminded me of something else.
“One more thing. Katie, you cannot tell anyone in the family. Especially not Matthew.”
She gaped. “You can’t be serious. Frankie, you live together. He’s basically Sofia’s surrogate dad.”
“So? You know how everyone gets. Joni and Marie will gossip with everyone, Lea will come over here to tell me what to do, and Matthew is so bored and depressed right now over that woman uptown. He’d probably hunt Xavier down with his Beretta just for fun.” I sighed. “I don’t want him sticking his nose into my business. Especially when I’m not even sure what’s going on.”
Kate looked doubtful. “Still. This is huge. You can’t expect me to keep your secret indefinitely.”
“Why not?” I countered stubbornly. “I keep yours. Did I ever tell Nonna that you spent that week in Paris with your boyfriend, not on a class trip? Or have I ever told anyone about that girl you dated last year?”
Kate just scowled. Her somewhat fluid sexuality wasn’t something she was particularly open about inside our grandmother’s extremely Catholic purview. She wasn’t in the closet, per se. But like me, she wasn’t interested in inviting our nosy family into her personal life.
“Fine. Your secrets are your secrets, just like mine belong to me. But that doesn’t mean I agree with them.” Her dark eyes gleamed. “Is he a good kisser, though?”
I blew a raspberry. “Um. Yes.” Good didn’t even cover it.