Chapter 17 - The Question Dominic Learned to Ask
Dominic proposed in the kitchen.
Of course he did.
Not a restaurant.
Not a ballroom.
Not beneath fireworks.
The kitchen.
The room where everything began.
He waited until Saturday afternoon.
I arrived with Lily.
Leo stood suspiciously straight beside the island.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Nothing."
"You're terrible at lying."
Dominic appeared.
He wore jeans.
That should have warned me.
Dominic Moretti only wore jeans when trying very hard to appear casual.
There were bubbles floating through the kitchen.
I stared.
"No."
Lily screamed happily.
"Yes!"
Leo held a bubble wand.
Soap covered one small section of the floor.
"Absolutely not."
Dominic smiled.
"It's controlled."
"I've heard that from you before."
He walked toward me.
Then I noticed everyone else.
Matteo near the doorway.
Vittorio beside him.
A few staff members.
People who had watched this house change.
My heart started pounding.
"Dominic."
He stopped in front of me.
"No speech."
"Good."
"I had one."
"What happened?"
"Lily edited it."
I looked at her.
She shrugged.
"He used too many words."
I laughed.
Dominic took my hands.
"When you came into this house, I thought keeping people safe meant controlling everything around them."
His voice trembled slightly.
"You taught me safety can also mean giving someone space to choose."
My eyes filled.
"And Lily taught me three-year-olds are terrifying."
Laughter moved through the kitchen.
Lily looked proud.
"Leo taught me that children do not need perfect fathers."
He looked at his son.
"They need fathers who come back."
Leo smiled through tears.
Dominic looked at me again.
"Elena taught me love doesn't disappear because life continues."
He swallowed.
"And you taught me continuing can still be beautiful."
I started crying.
He reached into his pocket.
Lily whispered loudly, "Shiny jewelry."
Everyone laughed.
Dominic closed his eyes.
"Thank you, Lily."
"You're welcome."
He knelt.
No one in Boston would have believed it.
Dominic Moretti, once a man who expected rooms to bend around his decisions, kneeling to ask instead of command.
"Isabella, will you marry me?"
I looked at him.
Then at Leo.
Then Lily.
Then the kitchen.
I remembered soap.
Fear.
A little girl's voice.
He doesn't laugh much.
I only wanted him to be happy.
I looked back at Dominic.
"Yes."
Lily screamed.
Leo cheered.
Matteo clapped Dominic on the shoulder too hard.
Vittorio wiped his eyes and pretended he had something in them.
Dominic stood.
He kissed me.
Then Lily pushed between us.
"My turn."
Dominic picked her up.
She hugged his neck.
Leo joined.
Soon all four of us were tangled together.
And because nobody in this family knew how to leave emotional moments alone, Matteo threw soap foam at Dominic.
Dominic stared at him.
"Don't."
Matteo smiled.
"Too late."
What followed destroyed the kitchen.
Again.
Vittorio tried to escape.
Lily attacked him with bubbles.
Leo slipped in water.
Dominic caught him.
I laughed until my stomach hurt.
This time, nobody's laughter stopped when Dominic entered the room.
He was already inside it.
The wedding was planned for six months later.
Small.
Family.
No press.
No business associates who required background checks beyond reason.
Dominic wanted fifty guests.
Vittorio made a list of three hundred.
Dominic tore it up.
"Fifty."
"Our family alone—"
"Fifty."
"You cannot invite Morettis selectively."
"I have spent my entire adult life doing exactly that."
Matteo laughed.
I stayed out of it.
Lily wanted a yellow dress.
Leo wanted to carry the rings.
Then Lily wanted to carry the rings too.
This became a diplomatic crisis.
We solved it with two boxes.
Only one contained the rings.
We did not tell them which.
Our lives became wonderfully ordinary.
Wedding invitations.
School schedules.
Foundation meetings.
Arguments about paint.
Dominic discovered I hated the dark walls in his mansion.
"It looks like Dracula owns real estate."
He stared.
"This house is historic."
"So is tuberculosis."
We painted the family room cream.
Vittorio mourned.
Dominic survived.
One evening, while choosing flowers, Dominic looked at me.
"No white roses."
I smiled.
"No white roses."
"Elena hated them."
"I know."
He looked surprised.
"You told me."
He nodded.
For a second sadness touched his face.
Not the kind that ruined happiness.
The kind that lived beside it.
I squeezed his hand.
"We can include something she liked."
He thought.
"Sunflowers."
"Then sunflowers."
Our wedding would not pretend Dominic had no past.
It would honor the people who helped create the future.
Weeks before the ceremony, we visited Elena's grave.
Dominic placed sunflowers beside the stone.
Leo talked about school.
Lily told Elena she was going to be a flower girl.
Then corrected herself.
"Actually I'm ring girl too."
Dominic smiled.
I stood back.
This was their moment.
Before leaving, Dominic touched the headstone.
"I kept the promise."
His voice was quiet.
Leo looked at him.
"What promise?"
Dominic smiled.
"To let you laugh loudly."
Leo grinned.
Then he laughed deliberately.
Too loudly.
Lily joined.
I did too.
Dominic shook his head.
"She didn't mean constantly."
But he was smiling.
On the drive home, I realized something.
The happiest endings are not the ones where sadness disappears.
They are the ones where sadness no longer decides everything.
Yet one final obstacle remained before the wedding.
Not an enemy.
Not a threat.
Something far more difficult for Dominic.
Leo asked whether he could call me Mom.
May you like
And suddenly, every adult in the room was afraid of answering the wrong way.
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