I tipped my head back and forth. “I suppose it depends on who you ask. My younger sisters don’t really think of you at all, to be honest. They’re too absorbed in their own lives. But Lea—that’s my oldest sister—probably thinks you’re the devil incarnate, and she’s a bully. She’d be able to corral the others to her side in a jiffy.”
“That’s three. What about the fourth? And your brother?”
I twisted my mouth around. “The fourth is my second oldest sister, Kate. We’re close. And lucky for you, she has a more nuanced view of things. She isn’t likely to judge you until she actually meets you. Mattie, though…”
“He was the dark-haired bloke with you at the party?”
I nodded. “That’s right.”
“The one who looked like he wanted to tear me a new one?”
I bared my teeth guiltily. “I’m afraid so. He’s the oldest, and on top of raising me and my sisters after our dad passed, he took Sofia and me in. He’s probably the one you have to worry about the most if you really want my family to like you.”
The idea of Xavier and Mattie meeting face-to-face made me kind of queasy. I couldn’t put my finger on why, exactly, I wanted my brother to like Xavier. I wasn’t even sure I liked Xavier anymore.
Sofia. It must have been for Sofia.
Xavier whistled. “So what you’re saying is, I can’t exactly pop by for tea.”
I chuckled. The idea of Xavier popping anywhere was just plain funny.
“It’s not your fault completely. I have some explaining to do. But they’re all very…” I sighed, trying to come up with the correct word. Pushy didn’t even cover it.
“Protective?”
“I would say controlling. Nosy. And completely unaware of boundaries. There’s a reason I had to leave my grandmother’s house.”
It was true. I loved my family. Sofia and I trudged uptown every Sunday so she could grow up with her cousins, eat her great-grandmother’s food, attend Mass, and know her people. But that didn’t mean I wanted to go back to five different people busting into my room (or landing) at any given moment. I only had one now who did that. And she had the excuse of being four. What was theirs?
“Kate knows everything, but she keeps to herself,” I told him. “My brother knows you were involved with someone else. The rest of my family knows I had a fling, and like an irresponsible college girl, got knocked up. But that’s it.”
Xavier frowned. “You don’t think they should know I’m here now? Maybe I should meet them all. Get it over with.”
The idea of Xavier crammed into Nonna’s kitchen for Sunday dinner, peppered by questions from all five of my siblings, plus any of the cousins, aunts, uncles, and neighborhood friends who would probably show up once word that “Frankie’s man” was back on the scene was too much to bear.
I grimaced. “Believe me, that’s all you want them to know for now. Unless you’d like about a hundred Italians and Puerto Ricans to show up at your restaurant every day to henpeck you, critique your food, and demand why the hell you haven’t married me, that is.”
That got him. The abject horror on his face made me laugh out loud.
“Perhaps a bit later,” he agreed. “After I’ve met…her.”
I didn’t have to ask who he meant. It was telling enough that he struggled even to say her name. Still, he was trying.
“Right. Well. Perhaps.” I stopped outside a large brick building and turned to Xavier. “This is where I leave you today, I’m afraid.”
He frowned in confusion. “What? Why? I thought you had more time to talk.”
“I did. About twenty minutes, which I spent walking here with you and talking. And now, if I don’t get in there within the next ten, Sofia’s preschool will fine me a small fortune per minute I’m late.”
He started, like a cat who had just seen a bird, then swiveled his head back and forth between me and the door next to us, which was clearly marked “Happy Faces Preschool” between two picture windows mostly covered by closed white curtains.
“She’s—she’s in there?”
“She is. Xavi, I trusted you enough to walk here, but now you need to go. It’s not the time. We have other things to discuss. A timeline, for instance. What is expected of you if you really want to be a father. What it means. You understand?”
He looked suspicious. “So you still want to keep me away. Francesca, I already told you. I’m not going to be kept from my own daughter. It’s not happening.”
I frowned, resisting the urge to argue with him. I didn’t like being dictated to any more than my four-year-old. But this was no place for an argument, and I didn’t want to escalate things further.