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“Please, Ma.” I scrape my hands through my hair and lace them behind my head, pretending I’m not going crazy wanting to know if my plan to help Hope is working.
Mom has a gift for stretching a one-sentence answer into an hour-long story. And at the rate this story is going, I’m not going to end up being the hero I’d hoped to be.
Not that my plan is perfect. I don’t know if Charly is in a pre-school specifically for kids with special needs. She won’t find that here—there’s not enough need. But Mom has the training to teach kids with special needs, so whenever kids in Paradise need extra help, they go to Mom’s pre-school.
“She’s such a nice girl,” Mom goes on. “We talked about Charly—her daughter with the boy’s name—and how she can come to my pre-school, and we’ll do the therapy she needs, and I can help take care of her as much as she needs.” Mom sets the bread on the table, but when I reach for another piece, I get the same treatment Stella did. “Wait for grace!”
“So Hope is coming?” I run my suddenly clammy palms down my thighs.
“She’ll be here Monday.” Mom takes her place at the head of the table and clasps her hands together.
“Monday?” I cough.
“Wait. Is this Evie’s stepsister?” Stella’s grin grows into a full-blown smile. “You still like her?”
“I barely know her,” I mumble over the sound of my brain exploding.Hope will be here on Monday.
“Yeah, but you’re not over her. I can tell.” Stella’s voice bounces off all four kitchen walls, like I needed my personal business broadcast in stereo.
“Shut up, Stella.”
“Leave your brother alone.”
Mom makes the sign of the cross. Stella and I quickly follow, bowing our heads just before Mom mutters a quick prayer. She ends, as she always does, with a plea for my father—who never converted—to be granted peace and rest.
Most Catholics don’t pray for their dead at every meal, but Mom has always done things her own way, even before she eloped with Dad while he was based in Italy.
“Don’t worry, Sebastian,” Mom says, which is my cue to worry. “I told her all the reasons you are afraid of single mothers.”
“Maaaaa, nooo.” I moan and tip my head back as she scoops lasagna onto my plate. “I’m notafraidof them.”
“Not like they’re scary or will hurt you.” She looks to Stella here. “What’s the word when someone is scared of someone else for no reason besides they seem stronger?”
“Intimidated.” Stella’s stares at me, a smug smile playing on her lips as she jabs her fork into her lasagna.
“Yes! That’s it! Single moms intimidate Sebastian!” Mom claps her hands together with satisfaction. “I told your Hope that it’s my fault. I did too much. I was too strong. You think a woman can do everything by herself because I chose not to marry again after your dad died.”
I shake my head; my cheeks are hotter than the oven I stuck my hand into minutes ago. “I’mnotafraid of them.”
Mom grasps my wrist and leans close. “I didn’t marry again not because I didn’t need someone, but because I could never love anyone like I loved your father.”
Stella’s smile falls and I’m forced to meet Mom’s eyes. “Love like we had only strikes once. I knew that the minute I saw Erik for the first time.” Her face goes softer, and her grip on me loosens. “The way he looked at me with those deep blue eyes, like he saw everything in me, all the way to my core. And his muscles, the way he would make them look bigger, showing off for me…”
“Mamma,” Stella warns, but Mom is back on the military base in Italy where she and Dad met.
“He was so handsome. And so strong. But gentle. The first time we—”
“Ma!” Stella and I shout together, bringing Mom back to the dinner table instead of … wherever it was she was going.
“When lightning like that strikes, you don’t run from it,” she says to me.
“I don’t want kids, Mamma.” I stick my fork in the lasagna, wanting to feel hungry for it again, but the moment may have passed.
“When lightning strikes, you don’t run from it!” she repeats more forcefully. “I didn’t raise you to be afraid.”
Stella scoffs. “You did raise him to be a man-child. He can’t even pick up after himself. How’s he supposed to take care of a kid?”
“Hush!” Mom orders, but I nod in agreement with my sister. One of the hardest things about living with her is that she babies me. I’ve quit telling her she doesn’t have to pick up after me.
