Luca finished his notes on the inventory and pushed the paperwork aside. He reached for the bread and broke off a generous piece. “Maybe tomorrow you can take Franny to the park.”
“Maybe.”
Giovanni made his way to the back of the restaurant where they were sitting and tossed his apron on a chair. “We need to hire more waiters.”
Luca moaned.
Mari clicked her tongue.
Chloe came in with Franny at her side.
How had his daughter gotten so big? “Shouldn’t you be in bed?” he asked with a smile.
Franny took his grin as an invitation and ran to him and jumped in his lap.
“What did I say about running in the restaurant?”
“No one is here,” she argued.
“She has a point,” Gio said, reaching for the lobster ravioli Luca had prepared for the daily special. It was their mother’s recipe, but she didn’t spend as many hours behind the stove as he did. Not when Francesca needed supervision.
Sergio raised his voice from behind the bar. “I’m leaving.”
“Are you hungry?” Mari asked.
“I ate earlier,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Ciao, ciao.”
A chorus of the same followed his goodbye.
Chloe walked behind him, locked the restaurant door. “I’m not here until after three tomorrow,” she said as she approached the table.
“Which is perfect since I’m leaving at four. You’ll have to wait tables,” Gio informed her.
“I can wait tables,” Francesca announced.
Her willingness to help had Luca hugging her tight. “In a few years, my sweet.”
“Nonna says she waited tables when she was my age. Right, Nonna?”
All eyes moved to Mari. “It was a different time.”
Gio was shoving food in his mouth and talking. “Labor laws would bury us, but if we don’t hire some staff soon, we might have to dress Franny up and see what she can do.”
That had Francesca giggling.
“It will work out,” Luca found himself saying.
Franny’s mouth opened wide for a lion-size yawn. Luca smiled and said, “Okay, kiss Nonna. Time for bed.”
“But . . .”
He placed a finger on her nose, and she stopped her argument and slid off of his lap. Luca watched as his pride and joy moved around the table kissing everyone goodnight and returned to his side. He lifted her into his arms, even though she was getting way too big to do this much longer. “You’ve been eating Santorini’s gelato,” he teased.
“Only a little.”
He walked to the back of the building and through the family door to the stairway. The floor directly above the restaurant was where his mother, Giovanni, and Chloe lived. He and Francesca had the one above that, although it was common that his daughter wanted to sleep with her aunt or grandmother, and Luca never stopped her.
She needed the women in her life, considering her mother wasn’t a part of it.
“Papa?”
Franny’s head rested on his shoulder as he walked into her bedroom.
“Yes?”
“Can you take me to school tomorrow?” she asked when he set her down on her bed.
“I can, but Nonna will pick you up.”
That seemed to make her happy by the smile on her face. She snuggled into the blankets and reached for the tattered stuffed llama she’d yet to give up when she slept.
“Go eat, Papa.”
He kissed her forehead and tucked the blankets around her. “Sweet dreams.”
Her eyes were already closing.
He backed out of the room, leaving the doors open on his way downstairs.
This was his life, every day, and he wouldn’t change it for the world.
“How much do you want for this?”
Brooke looked over her shoulder at the man hollering from the other side of the driveway. It was eight in the morning, and the yard sale was busier than the sale rack at Walmart during the holidays. “Fifty.”
The man narrowed his eyes, shook the power tool in his hand. “It’s not worth that.”
“You’re right, it’s worth a hundred, but I want it to go today.” Power tools were the only thing of value her father had. And since she’d already danced on this stage once before, after his stroke, she knew how to price the items he’d decided to keep. And now that he no longer needed them, and she had no intention of using them herself . . . “Fifty-five for you.”
“I’ll give you sixty,” another man said.
Brooke smiled. “My dad’s in a nursing home. Highest bidder gets the tool.”
The first man set it down and moved on. “All yours, dude.”
By nine, all the tools were gone, and the bulk of the money she would make was in her pocket. Garden tools were the next to go. She planned on finding an apartment, and the extent of yard work would be a potted plant for him and maybe an herb garden for her. Rakes and shovels had no room in her life.
The minimum of furniture was staying in the condo up until it was sold.
Her father would only need a bed, a small sofa, TV, and side table for the space in the assisted living facility. She’d been combing through his things, without him, and choosing what he would keep and what was going to someone else forever.
The conversation about going into a home had been one of the hardest she’d ever had.
Her father’s confusion was completely gone, but his physical self wasn’t bouncing back like it had before.
“We have to think about what comes next,” she’d started when it became apparent that he wasn’t going to be able to care for himself once he was discharged from the nursing home. “Living alone isn’t an option any longer.”
Her father blinked several times before he released a long-suffering sigh. “I know. But you’re here now.”
She swallowed . . . hard. “I can’t be your nurse.”
He placed his hands over his protruding stomach. She could only imagine what he thought of in that moment. The wound that was slowly healing. The diaper he was wearing since getting to the bathroom in time was a struggle.
“We can hire a nurse.”
Brooke hated to dash his hopes. “That’s an expense we can’t afford. Medicare doesn’t pay for it.”
“What if I get better?”
“What if you don’t?” She sat forward, placed a hand over his arm. “Dad, listen, I can’t live in Upland. Even if the condo was an option, I can’t stay there. And as much as I love you, I don’t see me cleaning your bottom.”
“I’ll wheel myself off a cliff before I . . . I let my daughter wipe my a-ass.”
They were on the same page there. “I’ve looked into assisted living homes.”
He narrowed his gaze, opened his mouth . . .
She cut him off before he uttered a word.
“It’s your own apartment, Dad. Yes, there is help there, someone to keep you clean,” she said as delicately as possible. “They do your laundry, keep the place tidy. Someone else is making your meals three times a day. You have a small space for your own food if you want it.”
“O-old folks’ home.”
“Assisted living. And here is the bottom line. You can’t afford to hire help, and I can’t hire any help without selling the condo.”