She cried without making a sound.
Lucia wiped her mother’s cheeks with her small palm.
In the hallway afterward, Daniel tried to approach.
Vittorio stood.
Daniel stopped three feet away.
“Serena—”
“Don’t,” Serena said, holding Lucia tighter. “You don’t get to do this again.”
Daniel looked at Lucia.
Lucia looked away and pressed her face into Serena’s neck.
He left.
No one followed him.
That night, the kitchen was warm.
Not perfect. Flour on the counter from Lucia and Elio attempting cookies. A chair tipped over where Nico had climbed to reach the honey.
But warm.
Serena stood at the stove, Lucia on a stool beside her whisking eggs, Elio beside Lucia correcting her wrist motion with grave expertise.
Marco set the table, counting forks out loud.
Matteo, who now only threw apples into the fruit bowl, carried water glasses without spilling.
Nico built a napkin fort in the middle of the table and dared anyone to knock it down.
Vittorio entered, loosening his tie, and stopped to watch.
He didn’t interrupt.
He just leaned against the counter where he had once stood with wine, and his face did something it hadn’t done in eleven months.
It softened.
Elio looked up.
“Papa, are you going to eat with us?”
Vittorio crossed the kitchen.
He lifted Elio effortlessly onto his hip, kissed Lucia’s head, and brushed his fingers against Serena’s wrist where it rested on the pan handle.
“I am,” he said. “Every night you let me.”
They ate.
They were loud.
They laughed with their mouths full and argued about who got the last piece of pancetta and Mrs. Chen pretended to be scandalized and threatened to eat it herself.
