Chapter 16 - The Promise in the Kitchen
Elena stopped laughing.
Mia did not.
“Knee! Knee!”
“I am on the knee,” Antonio said.
“Other knee?”
Antonio looked up.
“Elena, control your daughter.”
“She is currently directing your proposal.”
Mia clasped her hands.
“Ring!”
Antonio sighed.
“This was supposed to happen Saturday.”
“Today better.”
Antonio looked at Elena.
And everything playful disappeared.
He opened the box.
Inside was a simple diamond ring.
Elegant.
Nothing like the enormous jewelry Antonio would once have chosen to demonstrate money.
“I had a speech,” he said.
Elena smiled through tears.
“What happened?”
“Your daughter destroyed the operation.”
“Our daughter.”
Antonio stopped.
Mia went quiet too.
Elena had said it naturally.
Our daughter.
Antonio's eyes filled.
Elena touched his cheek.
“Continue.”
Antonio took her hand.
“I spent most of my life thinking love was something a man protected by being stronger than everyone else.”
He glanced toward Mia.
“I was wrong.”
Elena squeezed his fingers.
“I cannot promise nothing bad will ever happen.”
“Good.”
“I cannot promise I will suddenly become easy to live with.”
“Obviously.”
“I can promise I will never choose pride over this family.”
Mia whispered, “Ring.”
Antonio ignored her.
“I can promise I will tell the truth even when it makes me look weak.”
Elena smiled.
“That will be difficult.”
“Extremely.”
“And therapy?”
Antonio sighed.
“Apparently forever.”
She laughed.
He continued.
“And I promise I will spend whatever years I have left trying to deserve the home you and Mia gave me.”
His voice broke.
“Elena Rossi, will you marry me?”
She made him wait exactly three seconds.
Antonio looked alarmed by the second.
“Yes.”
Mia screamed.
Antonio stood.
Elena threw her arms around him.
Mia wrapped herself around both adults’ legs.
Their engagement became the least elegant event ever associated with the Moretti name.
There was no champagne.
Mia spilled apple juice.
Biscuit somehow acquired a sticker reading BRIDE.
Rosa arrived forty minutes later with a cake despite nobody telling her.
Sofia called.
Apparently Mia had called her first.
“You trusted a child with classified information?” Sofia asked Antonio.
“I have learned my lesson.”
“No, you haven’t.”
The wedding took place six months later.
Small.
Forty guests.
No press.
No men with weapons pretending to be cousins.
Antonio wore a dark suit.
Elena wore a simple ivory dress.
Mia served as flower girl and dropped almost every petal within the first six feet.
Then she became bored and ran directly to Antonio.
Guests laughed.
Antonio crouched.
“You're supposed to walk to Mommy.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Need check.”
From a pocket inside her flower basket, she produced the old red-and-white stethoscope.
Elena covered her face.
Antonio laughed.
Mia pressed it against his chest.
Everyone watched.
“Well?” Antonio asked.
Mia listened dramatically.
“Good.”
“Good?”
“Happy.”
Antonio looked at Elena.
His eyes shone.
Mia ran toward her mother.
Rosa cried openly throughout the ceremony.
Sofia cried too.
Antonio cried once.
He denied it afterward.
After their vows, Elena placed one hand against Antonio's chest.
“No secrets.”
“No secrets.”
“No locked rooms.”
“No locked rooms.”
“No deciding what's best for me without asking.”
Antonio hesitated.
Elena raised an eyebrow.
“I'll work on it.”
“Acceptable.”
They kissed.
For their honeymoon, they spent four days in Maine because Mia insisted on coming and Antonio secretly refused to leave her behind.
It rained for three days.
Mia loved every second.
A year later, Antonio received a letter.
Damen was eligible for a transfer to a lower-security facility.
Included was a handwritten note.
Congratulations on the marriage.
Rosa sent me a picture. You look old.
Antonio almost laughed.
Then he read the final paragraph.
I know forgiveness is not something I deserve. But if you ever want to tell me about the life Lorenzo should have had, I would listen.
Antonio sat for a long time.
Elena found him.
“What is it?”
He handed her the letter.
“Are you going to answer?”
“I don't know.”
“You don't need to forgive him to stop carrying him.”
Antonio looked at her.
The therapist had said something similar.
He hated when everyone coordinated wisdom against him.
That evening, he wrote:
Lorenzo would be nine.
He liked boats.
He hated peas.
And he would have loved Mia.
Antonio mailed the letter.
Nothing inside him magically healed.
But something loosened.
Two weeks later, the foundation received an anonymous donation.
Exactly $4,217.
Lorenzo’s birthday.
April 2, 2017.
Antonio knew who sent it.
He said nothing.
Life moved forward.
Then one spring afternoon, Elena stood in the bathroom holding a small plastic test.
Antonio knocked.
“You've been in there twenty minutes.”
“Antonio.”
He opened the door.
She looked at him.
He saw the test.
His face went completely white.
“Is that—”
“Yes.”
Antonio sat on the edge of the bathtub.
Elena laughed nervously.
“Say something.”
He stared at her stomach.
Fear appeared first.
Then wonder.
Then a grief so old and love so new that neither could be separated.
“We’re having a baby?”
Elena nodded.
Antonio began to cry.
May you like
This time, he did not deny it.
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