A Winter in New York(87)

“I brought you some things,” she says quietly, putting milk and ham in the fridge, bread beside the kettle. “Why don’t you go and put some clothes on while I make us some fresh coffee?”

I do it, because it’s almost a relief to have someone tell me what to do.

“I saw your letter,” she says, passing me a mug when I walk back to the kitchen. “He didn’t want to show me, I made him.”

I sit down at the kitchen table and try to raise a half smile out of my boots, because it’s kind of Sophia to come here and I can well imagine her not taking no for an answer. She sits down in the chair next to mine and shuffles it until she’s as close to me as the table allows.

“You could have told me about him,” she says, covering my hands with hers. “I’d have listened.”

“I didn’t have the words,” I say, pushing my hair out of my face as I lift my eyes to hers. “Is Gio okay?”

“He will be. I promise.” She unwinds a hairband from around her wrist. “Will you?”

I shrug, because I have no idea how I’m going to be, or where. She gets up and stands behind me, gently finger combing my hair back into a ponytail. She puts her hands on my shoulders and squeezes, warm and reassuring, and I reach up and hold them. We stay like that for a while, connected, and I think about how, actual brother and sister or not, Gio and Sophia Belotti share the same big beautiful heart.

“Don’t leave New York,” she says. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I can’t stay here,” I say. “It’s too much. I need to be somewhere else, find myself a fresh start, somewhere without baggage.”

“Baggage,” she says, almost scathing. “Jesus, Iris, everyone has baggage. You do. Gio does. You guys have enough baggage between you to fill a goddamn carousel at JFK, but isn’t that kind of the point of love, that you help each other carry the bags? Fresh starts are for Hallmark movies, not real life.”

She slides back into the chair next to mine and looks me in the eyes.

“You’ve done the worst part. Gio knows the truth now, he’ll make his peace with it, I’m sure he will. Stay here. Stay for him. Stay for me.”

She makes it sound so easy, so seductive, this life she’s laid out before me. I wish with all my heart that it could be so easy, but she only knows what she sees. She doesn’t know her father has asked me to leave New York in order to protect the secret he’s kept for decades.

“I can’t, Sophia. Please don’t ask me again, because I honestly can’t.”

She sits with her knees touching mine and rests her forehead against my head.

“Who am I going to talk gelato flavors with when you’re gone?”

I close my eyes. “Vanilla forever.”

“You know it.”

She laughs softly, and a tear falls from her cheek onto our clutched hands.



* * *



—

IT’S NEW YEAR’S EVE tomorrow, which makes today my last full day here. This time there will be no moonlight flits or sleeping in storage units. I’ll welcome Bobby and Robin home, and I’ll wait for Gio to come, and then I’ve booked myself a ticket out to Toronto in the small hours of January first.

New year, new country, yet another new start. I’m not sure I have it in me to reinvent myself all over again, but I looked up where Schitt’s Creek was filmed and let that be my guide. It’s about one percent more targeted than throwing a dart at a map, but it’s going to have to do.

So this is it. Officially my last full day in New York, and there’s something I have to do before I leave. I pull on my snow boots and my winter coat, then hook my backpack carefully over my shoulders and head out into the cold, clear morning.

I’m not going far. Just to the park across the street, in fact. I’ve walked there countless times over my year as a temporary New Yorker, and today I’m going there to scatter my mother’s ashes. I may be leaving the city tomorrow, but leaving her here feels like the right thing to do. I’m glad when I hear the familiar tones of the busker, serenading passersby with Christmas favorites. I hope they’re giving generously, she deserves it. She sees me and raises her hand, and I make my way across and stand to the side as she finishes the final minute or two of “White Christmas.” And it really has been. There’s still quite a lot of standing snow around, I’m so glad I got to see New York like this.

“Are you taking requests?” I say, giving her a quick hug when she reaches behind her speaker for a bottle of water once the song’s over.

She grins. “For you, yes.”

“Do you know ‘River’?” I say.

“Joni Mitchell? Of course,” she says, like it’s a no-brainer.

It was one of my mother’s favorites, she used to sing it at the end of late-night sets in smoky clubs. The melancholy Christmas lyrics feel as if they were written for today, the minor chord treatment of the opening bars turning “Jingle Bells” from a lilt to a lament. I’ve asked to hear it for my mother and for me, because it’s a song about things coming to an end, about leaving, and about the pain of causing the people you love distress. For all that, it’s beautiful, and I find it uplifting because it reminds me of my mother at her happiest—singing for an audience.