Brooke couldn’t stop herself. “You know . . . maybe the wine isn’t a good idea for this conversation.” She pushed her glass aside and reached for what was left in Antonia’s.
Antonia said something in Italian and volleyed for the glass.
It was Luca’s turn to hold Brooke down. “I think this discussion is good where it’s at. I’ll talk with Franny, see what she wants. We can go from there.”
Antonia smiled as if she had won and glared at Brooke as she finished what was in her glass.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Luca, Brooke, and Franny were calling it family night.
Their family night.
Midweek when Luca wasn’t needed in the kitchen and the three of them could have a private meal, one they prepared together that looked like Play-Doh but tasted amazing.
This first one was celebrating Franny’s graduation from second grade.
Luca looked to his right and then his left.
Life was perfect.
Brooke’s doctor had said she hadn’t suffered another miscarriage, which gave them both peace. Brooke had been taken off the pills and Luca wanted to convince her to ditch the condoms as well.
He thought about how he needed to physically restrain Brooke from spilling Antonia’s wine on her and smiled. His Brooke was going to be a wonderful mother when the time came. Already was when it came to Franny.
“Go fish,” Brooke said, her cards in her hands.
Luca picked up a card, discarded another. “Your mother stopped by today,” he said, bringing up the topic for Franny.
“Six of hearts,” Franny said, pointing to Brooke.
Brooke moaned, forked over her card.
“She wants to spend more time with you.”
“Jack of spades.” Franny pointed to him.
“Go fish.”
She moaned.
“Are you okay with that?” Brooke asked.
Franny shrugged. “I guess.”
It was Luca’s turn. He moved his cards around. “You don’t want to?”
“All she does is look at her phone. And she treats me like a baby sometimes.”
“It’s up to you.”
Franny shrugged. “I don’t want to make her sad.”
Brooke reached out a hand. “She’s a grown-up. If this is too much, too soon, we slow it down. I’m not saying you shouldn’t give her a chance to catch up, but you don’t have to rush.”
“Thanks, Brooke.”
Luca had his answer and dropped the subject.
“Oh, I forgot something . . .” He got up from the table and walked into his bedroom.
“Hey, we’re playing a game here,” he heard Brooke complain.
He returned with a plain paper bag and handed it to Franny. “I meant to give this to you earlier.”
“It’s not my birthday.”
“I know. But it’s summer and you are spending more time away from these walls.”
Her jaw dropped as if she knew exactly what was in the bag.
She tore into it with abandon and screamed.
Go fish was forgotten.
“A cell phone!” She jumped from her chair and threw herself into his arms. “Thank you, Papa.”
“No Facebook.”
“I’m eight.”
Luca did the math. She was halfway to dating.
“Can I have TikTok?”
Brooke and Luca said “No” at the same time.
“This is so you can call me anytime. Night or day. I’ll be there.”
The cards were forgotten, and Franny was deep into the workings of her phone.
“Tonight, this is fine, but family time means the phone is put away. Never during a meal.”
“Okay, Papa. Thank you. I can’t wait to tell Regina.”
Brooke reached over the table and took his hand.
They both watched Franny poke and tap around the phone. “Everyone’s number is in here.”
Luca smiled. “Yup.” Even her mother’s, much as it pained him to do so.
Franny jumped out of her chair and scrambled into the living room.
Brooke stared at him. “You did that for you.”
“Yup.”
“Because of Antonia.”
“Guilty.”
Brooke blew out a breath.
Paused.
“Did you put her on Friend Finder?”
Luca lifted the coffee cup to his lips. “Yup.”
Brooke lifted her cup to her lips.
Both of them watched Franny from across the room.
“Guess who is coming home this winter?” Rosa asked Mari during their weekly coffee.
“Dante?” Because who else could it be, really?
Rosa’s smile spread ear to ear. “My heart is full.”
“For good? Is he staying?”
“No, but he says he wants to diversify his income stream. Whatever that’s supposed to mean.”
“I’m happy for you.”
“I asked Antonia to find different accommodations by the fall.”
Mari lifted both hands in the air. “That’s fair. She’s not paying you anything and isn’t family.”
Rosa rolled her eyes. “You’d think I was kicking her to the street. Screaming and yelling. I never saw her like that.”
“The woman is allergic to work,” Mari pointed out.
“Then she brought a man home.”
Mari leaned forward. “What? Who?”
“Some man . . . I think he was in the navy. I shut that down. Not in my house. What was she thinking?”
“Sad . . . really. She knows she can’t have my Luca.”
Rosa sighed. “I told her she’d be better off going back to her parents, back to Italy, where she could have a place to start over.”
“Hard on Franny, but maybe best for Antonia. Her struggle reminds me to give Chloe room to educate herself and find work outside of what I have built. I never want to see my daughter struggle as Antonia is.”
“Please, Chloe has worked since she was Franny’s age. Antonia hasn’t worked a day.”
Mari found a smile. “Speaking of Chloe . . . when will Dante be coming home?”
Luca sat across from Antonia in the piazza up the street from his home with a calendar on the table.
“Four nights a month? That’s all you’re suggesting?”
“I asked Franny what she wanted, this is what she said. Maybe once you have your own place and she isn’t sleeping on a sofa, that will change.”
“Are you sure this isn’t your significant other talking?”
Luca was getting sick of that title. “Leave Brooke out of this.”
Antonia dismissed the calendar, sat back. “I’m starting to think that the only way I’m going to have any relationship with my daughter is to get in front of a judge. I came to this country with nothing, and you promised to take care of me.”
Luca shook his head. “You divorced me.”
“You didn’t fight. You offered a paltry amount of money and shooed me away.”
Luca watched as Antonia’s world crumbled around her. The unreasonable behavior was what he remembered from her first pregnancy. Only this time it seemed amplified. “Your memories of our past are twisted, Antonia. You might need to seek some help with that.”
She switched from English to Italian. “I’m tired of you and your significant other implying I’m crazy.”