At the thought of Serena, my brain immediately reached for all the usual insecure feelings I often clung to, but my heart piped in and pushed them aside. Cleo had said something to me that day we’d run into Serena in Central Park, something like “You’re all those things, and more.” It was true, and it was time I let myself believe it.
Gazing out at the harbor in front of us, I felt the oddest sense of calm wash over me. So much of the past few months had been filled with tension, and yet in this moment, I was at peace. I was reaching into my bag to snap a photo of the bridge when I noticed I had a new email. I peeked at it, just to be sure it wasn’t something work-related. When I saw who the sender was, I gasped.
“What?” Hayes shifted to look at me.
I sat there silently reading for a second. “My half sister in Italy wrote back,” I said finally, still not looking up from my phone, where I was rereading every single word.
“Oh my god.” I grabbed for his arm excitedly on instinct, like I would reach for Lola or Cleo. “She sent some photos too.”
The look on Hayes’s face was utterly patient. “Do you feel like sharing what she said?”
I passed the phone over to him so he could read it.
Dearest Franny,
How wonderful that we both work in design. We are connected beyond just our DNA, it seems. My apologies for my delay. I have been traveling for work. Would you like to arrange a time to talk via video chat? My English is much better in conversation than writing. I’ve attached a recent photograph and a picture from when I was a baby, of me with our dad and our grandmother, Giuseppa. She’s 88 and still lives in their village.
—Anna
“Wow,” he said, passing the phone back to me. “How do you feel?”
“Okay,” I replied, and I could almost feel my shoulders release, relaxing for the first time in forever. “Good, actually. Should I open the photos?”
“Of course,” he said eagerly. “I mean, if you want to, then you should. Of course.”
I pressed the first attachment, and a face popped up, smiling dark eyes, and curls like mine, only longer. Hayes leaned in over my shoulder.
“It’s uncanny,” he muttered. “Obviously, you’re related. But still.” I’d always assumed my hair came from my birth father, because everyone else in my family was walking around with fine brown hair. But to really see it, and know it, felt entirely different. The sureness steadied something inside me.
The next picture was grainy and harder to see, but there was a short older woman, with a handkerchief in her hair, gazing sternly at the camera. Standing next to her was a taller man, with a broad smile and thick jet-black hair that grew long on the sides, a slight mullet. In his arms was a tiny baby, with the same inky hair.
“My grandma’s got a real resting bitch face going on,” I joked, despite the racing of my heart.
“She looks like she doesn’t take crap from anyone,” he replied. “Reminds me of someone I know.”
He said this with a playful nudge of his elbow to my ribs, and I felt a surge of self-confidence.
“I wish I could meet her.” The words got caught in my throat. I knew all along that learning more about my newfound family would be intense, but I still wasn’t prepared for the emotion it churned up inside me.
“You have to get to Italy,” he said as if it were a thing I could do tomorrow.
“Someday,” I agreed. Though I’d never offered up any further information, as far as I knew Hayes was still under the impression that my business was booming, an immediate success story. I knew I’d eventually have to come clean about it. But for now, this night was too good to spoil with my money woes.
“At least I can tell my sister I finally had gelato, so she won’t be totally ashamed of me,” I said.
“I’m sure she’ll be very impressed,” he said, a lightness in his voice that matched the smile on his face. “Have you told your mom?”
I shook my head. “I just don’t know how she’d handle it. Any of it,” I said, thinking of the other things I’d kept from her lately. “I’m seeing her this weekend, but I don’t think it’s the right time to tell her.”
I tucked myself into him, so warm and inviting. I could feel the weight of what was unraveling between us, the unspoken acknowledgment that this—this—was something. We were people who shared things, intimate things, deeper than just kissing. All my worries, insecurities, and thoughts of not being good enough, suddenly seemed so pointless now. Because I knew that there was nothing that could compare to this.