“I have to go to the market,” she says, raising an eyebrow at Gio. “A certain little bird is coming to stay with me tonight, if I’m not mistaken?”
Gio makes pretense of being offended. “You feed her too well, Mamma, she takes advantage.”
“The house is too quiet without Santo.” She’s already on her way out of the door on a cloud of expensive scent and the jangle of bangles. “She’s good company.”
“Mamma, wait up. I’ll walk over with you, I need some ingredients,” Sophia says, then glances at Gio. “As long as I’m still making my flavors? Because they’re selling so well and I still want to—”
He raises a hand to stop her mid-flow. “Yes.”
“Cool.” She grins as she bobs after Maria, shoving her arms into her coat as she goes.
There’s a hush once they’re gone. On a usual day Gio and I would head to the kitchen by now, but there will be no gelato-making today. Or there might be, but it’ll be the big industrial machines that rumble back into action rather than my little machine.
“Coffee?”
I nod, unsure how to play things, whether to sit or stand, what to say.
“Let’s sit,” he says, carrying our drinks to the table in the window.
I stir in milk and sugar, thinking. In some ways this has made things easier for me. Logistically, I am no longer needed here. They’ve made a plan to keep the business operational, in the short term at least. They will need their recipe by the spring but that’s a few months away—hopefully Santo will recover his memories and that will be that. And if he doesn’t, then maybe I can say I’ve been working on it too, at home, and hit on it. I don’t really know. It all feels unnecessary this morning, too far down the line to think about when what I really need to say is goodbye.
“You’ve been avoiding me over the holiday,” he says, quiet.
Gosh, that was direct. “I’ve been under the weather,” I say, knowing it sounds like the lie it is and hating myself for it.
“Is there something wrong?”
I can’t drink my coffee, my throat feels swollen with the effort of not crying. I’m so distressed at the way things have turned out for us. In a different place and time, I really do think Gio and I have what it takes to make each other happy. It probably makes me a weak person that I cannot bring myself to tell him the truth about Adam. I’m the first person he’s emotionally invested in since his wife died seven years ago. What would it do to him to know I’ve lied through my teeth from the very first time we met? Will he lose faith in his own judgment, retreat to his place behind the counter forever more? He deserves better than that. He deserves better than a relationship based on secrets and lies. I just need to find the words to walk away, words that feel as if they don’t exist in the English language, because how do you end things when every fiber of your being wants to stay? But…Bella. Adam. The recipe. I’ve been ostriching over the lies and keeping my head in the sand because being with Gio feels so separate, so safe, like an island we visit where only we exist and everything is about us, but that’s not real life, is it? The island is surrounded by shark-infested waters, and if I just do nothing, it will sink with us both on it. I don’t have to let that happen. I can wade into the water and battle the sharks—maybe I’ll survive and maybe I won’t, but at least Gio won’t get a mauling in the process. Bella needs her dad, and the Belottis need him to be the rock he’s always been. So I look him in the eyes and take a deep breath, my hands around the mug with my name on.
“I lied about feeling unwell,” I say, miserable.
He doesn’t say anything, just waits.
“And now there’s no need for me to come here anymore. For the recipe, I mean.”
He looks at me levelly. “Is that all you come for?”
“In the beginning, yes.” I swallow. “But then things got out of hand between us…”
He nods slowly. I can see his expression setting like fresh plaster. “Out of hand?”
I look at Mulberry Street outside, Christmas lights strung from streetlamp to streetlamp, pretty even on this frosty morning.
“It’s just all happened so quickly,” I say. “I can’t separate being with you from being with your family, and Bella too. The last thing I want is for anything to hurt her.”
“She’s my worry,” he says, a coldness inching into his voice that feels like snow on my heart.
“I think now is the right time for me to not come here anymore,” I say, walking around the edges of saying it’s the right time for us to not see each other anymore.
“I don’t understand,” he says. “I thought you felt the same way I do about us.”
I can’t look at him. “What we do when we’re alone…it’s been good, Gio. It made us forget the rest of the world for a while, but the truth is we both have real lives and it’s threatening to spill over into them, and neither of us want that to happen.”
He leans in and covers my hands with his. “What if I do? What if I say I’m ready for everyone to know, that Bella will be thrilled, that my family have probably guessed already and are just waiting for us to say something?”
Oh, how I would love it to be that easy. I close my eyes and allow myself to imagine it, vivid and piercingly sweet, like a five-second montage from the Hallmark Channel. There’s a tree, and Christmas jumpers, and Bublé on in the background. I can almost smell the hot chocolate and pine needles, feel the warmth of the fire crackling in the hearth. Those movies usually come with a heavy dose of sugar and a problem that’s resolvable with a sensible chat and the belief that love conquers all. That isn’t going to cut it here. I don’t see a world where Gio and I have a sensible chat about the fact my ex isn’t dead after all, and how I’m only here because my mother and his de facto father had a love affair and he divulged their closely guarded family secret. That’s not a sensible chat, it’s a flood of problems for a family who don’t deserve it.
“I’m not ready for that, Gio,” I say, little more than a whisper. “I just don’t think we’re a good idea anymore.”
“Oh.”
He fills that one tiny word with a million others, and I see the shutters slowly roll down over his face, the stiff brace of his shoulders, the lean of his body away from the table. Away from me.
We look at each other in hurt, disbelieving silence. There isn’t a single thing I can say that will make this easier, so I stand up from my chair and leave the gelateria without looking back, the glass door rattling behind me for the last time.
Vivien
…
LOWER EAST SIDE, NEW YORK, SUMMER 1985
THE DOOR HANDLE WAS ALREADY sun-warm when she pushed the painted glass door open the following morning. Santo sat at the same table he’d sat at the previous night, his smile pensive, his eyes saying I’m so glad you came as she slipped into the chair opposite his and held his hands on the tabletop.
“I can’t stay here,” she said. “A big part of me wants to, but I can’t.”