A huge tree stood in one corner of the living area, the hardwood floors were polished to a high gleam and the kitchen packed with people and what looked like a feast of antipasto and lasagne and other delicacies for the meal ahead. Christmas decorations—some clearly home-made by the gang of children, whose names Ellie was struggling to remember—adorned every surface, while more lights had been strung from the ceiling.
As they had their coats taken, wine was poured, and the flowers placed in pride of place on the huge makeshift table that stretched from the kitchen into the living room. Everyone talked at once, asking questions, introducing yet more children, offering around plates of cold cuts and warm nibbles. Ellie had never felt more overwhelmed in her life, but for the first time ever she felt like a part of something more than herself.
Alex stood beside her throughout, and while the tension didn’t leave his body—a body she had become so attuned to she could feel every ripple, every jolt—she could also feel the emotion she knew he was trying so hard to hide. Her heart pounded against her ribs as she watched him react to the outpouring of love, of laughter, of joy and emotion, and sensed how hard it was for him to remain aloof, and untouched. He responded with wit, with charm, but beneath it was that brutal whisper of cynicism that told her, while these people loved him, he didn’t feel comfortable in their midst.
Alex reluctantly took a toddler thrust into his arms by his sister Lucia’s girlfriend, Ava, then stared at it as if it were an alien being.
Alex didn’t know how to be loved, she realised. Was that it?
Would it be wrong to try and fix that? Surely not, especially if she didn’t make the mistake of thinking she could make him love her too.
‘Hey, Uncle Sandro, you wanna go shoot some hoops with me and Jacie?’
Alex stared at the gangly kid of about twelve who had offered the invitation—Ari’s son Leonardo, if he remembered correctly. The boy reminded him of himself as a pre-teen, all elbows and knees and not a lot of coordination. But unlike him, the boy’s winning smile was as instant and beguiling as the confidence that oozed from him. He looked so comfortable in the melee of a Da Costa family Christmas, his place assured and understood. Unlike Alex at his age.
By the time he was eight, Alex had lost all that confidence, had stopped feeling like a part of his own family.
The prickle of resentment, and anger for that lost kid twisted in his gut now, along with the meal he had struggled to digest over the last two hours, while his family fired good-natured questions at him and Eleanor and regaled her with stories about him as a boy.
She’d lapped it up, as he’d known she would—and his family had adored her. She’d remembered all the kids’ names, cooed over the baby until his brother Aldo’s head had grown to twice its usual size, and helped with the meal prep like a pro. Once they were all seated, she’d dived into the platters of cold cuts, enthused over his brother Matty’s famous lasagne, and still found room for the roast beef joint and a very alcoholic tiramisu. And all the time, he’d sat there struggling to swallow a single bite.
The Da Costas were a boisterous, welcoming bunch who knew how to cook, and they’d lavished Eleanor with the uncomplicated affection he remembered from his siblings as a kid. Because they didn’t know the ugly truth of what really lay beneath all those big family get-togethers from their past. And he had no plans to ever tell them. It was the least he owed all of them, not to destroy their memories of their childhood the way his childhood had been destroyed. And why he had avoided them for years. He wished to hell he’d done the same thing today, because every attempt to include him in the conversation, to show him the uncomplicated love and affection they obviously felt for the boy they remembered only made the guilt heavier in his gut. He hadn’t been that boy in twenty years.
‘Isn’t it kind of cold to shoot hoops?’ he said, even though he could do with getting out of the house. He couldn’t give these people what they needed from him. Because he was a coward and he always had been. But the struggle to hold back the truth was starting to give him indigestion.
The boy slung a protective arm around his kid sister—a petite dark-eyed girl dressed in overalls and a Yankees sweatshirt who clearly idolised her older brother.
‘Nah,’ the boy said. ‘Uncle Aldo always keeps the court clear so we can come shoot hoops with him, cos our dad doesn’t come around much any more,’ the boy added with a maturity beyond his years. Alex remembered the boy’s father had run out on his kids and Arianna a couple of years back, according to the very talkative Mia, who had cornered him earlier.
‘Okay, good enough for me, let’s go,’ Alex said, hauling himself out of the chair, grateful for the chance to escape. Arianna’s kids clearly craved male attention, he’d seen his brothers Matteo and Aldo making a fuss of them earlier, and he could do that much at least.
‘For real, Uncle Sandro?’ the little girl asked, clearly astonished her sulky new uncle would agree to hang out with them.
‘Yeah, for real,’ he murmured, patting her soft curls, and struggling to dismiss the renewed pang of guilt when she stared at him with the same hero worship he remembered from when his siblings had once looked up to him.
Don’t get too attached, kid. I’m not gonna be any better at being an uncle than I was at being a big brother.
‘By the way, my name’s Alex now,’ he added, correcting them automatically, surprised when the pang throbbed at the thought that Sandro no longer existed, and hadn’t for a long time.
‘Yes, sir, Uncle Alex,’ the boy said, that uncomplicated smile beaming back at him.
He followed the children out of the back door, before anyone could jump in to stop them. But the weight he had hoped to lift off his shoulders as he shot hoops with his niece and nephew while the light faded failed to budge an inch.
Ellie picked up the framed photograph from the sideboard picture gallery she had noticed earlier while being given a tour of the house by Aldo.
It showed a young family—a heavily pregnant woman with a slightly worried smile on her face, with two little girls and a smaller boy holding onto her skirts. An older boy of about eight or nine, who had to be Alex, stood to one side, and a strikingly handsome man, who looked exactly like Alex, was throwing a chuckling toddler up in the air.
Ellie studied the photograph. They should have looked like a happy family, because they were all smiling in varying degrees, except for Alex. But something wasn’t right with the photo, just as something hadn’t been right with Alex all day.
She recognised his expression in the photo. Watchful, wary, cautious, and so guarded. It was the same one he had been trying to hide behind today, a bland smile and the easy confidence he had worn like a mask all afternoon—which hadn’t fooled anyone.
‘That’s our pop two years before he died,’ Isabella, Alex’s second oldest sister, murmured from behind her. ‘Sandro always looked so much like him, and that hasn’t changed.’
‘He’s very handsome,’ Ellie said, her fingers tensing on the frame. She could hear the note of grief in Isabella’s voice and her heart went out to her. ‘It must have been very hard for you, losing your dad when you were all so young.’
‘Yeah.’ Isabella sighed. ‘He was such a huge part of our family, charming, charismatic, the kind of guy every woman in the neighbourhood threw themselves at. There were a lot of broken hearts when he died suddenly—not just my mom’s and ours. But it was hardest on Sandro,’ she said, with a simple compassion Ellie had to admire, but which made her feel strangely guilty at the same time.
The visit hadn’t been a success. Alex’s brothers and sisters had been so kind, so sweet, so welcoming, so happy to see him, but he hadn’t reciprocated. Not really. Deflecting their stories, eating very little of the incredible feast they’d laid out. And she couldn’t understand it.