I nod, miserable because I know it’s true.
“My Maria,” he says, prayer-like, looking to the skies for guidance as he shakes his head. “Your mother’s name is not part of my family story. I was a stupid young fool. I made mistakes. But they’ve stayed in here”—he taps his chest—“and in here”—he taps his head, and his eyes tell me how hard he’s labored to keep his secrets all of these years. “And then I walk into my gelateria and there you are, with her cornflower-blue eyes, and it’s a judgment on me, because of what I did. I gave my family secret away and so now it’s been taken away from me, blown straight out of my head.” He makes a hand gesture toward his head, like a small bomb exploding. “Some kind of judgment, huh?”
I reach into my coat pocket.
“And now I’m giving it back to you,” I say, and I hold out the torn mint-green napkin.
He looks at it in silence without taking it from me.
“She treasured it,” I say. “She made this gelato for me my entire life. She made me swear to never share the recipe with a living soul, but somehow I don’t think that promise included you.” I place it in his hand, even though letting go of it is like letting a piece of her go too. “Please, take it. It’s always been yours.”
He studies his own youthful handwriting for a few seconds, then tucks it away inside the chest pocket of his overcoat. I can see he’s moved, so I watch the snow fall and wait.
“Your mother…it was like trying to hold on to lightning. Too bright, too hot. I loved her, but I got burned.”
I think of how she was in Felipe’s video, and I see how easy she must have been to fall for.
“What is it they say, lightning doesn’t strike twice? It felt like it did when I saw you standing there, only it’s Gio who’s going to lose this time and he’s lost too much already.”
My heart twists.
“The question I’ve been asking myself over and over is how to do right by my family. For Gio. For Maria. For my girls. La mia famiglia.”
The way Santo says “my girls,” how the phrase encompasses every woman in the house behind us but me, reinforces my position as the interloper. I’m the kid on the outside again, as always. My heart has a go at anger, tries to rally, to ask what about me, but it’s too hard.
“What are you asking me to do, Santo?”
He looks down. “I see you, Vivien’s girl, and my old heart wants to help you, you know? I know Felipe thinks you should tell Gio your connection, your history. But the price is too high. If Gio knows, then Maria will know. This family you love, your place in it is built on a lie, on a betrayal. My betrayal, yes, but yours too. To welcome you in is to let all of the rabbits out of the hats.”
He takes a long drag on his cigar, and I hate that this is the way things are playing out between us.
“I got over your mother. She left, and I let go of her in time. You know what I learned from that? A clean break heals easiest.”
I look at the picture-perfect snow scene in front of me, and I feel the chill all the way through to my bones. He’s telling me to go, to be my mother’s daughter and leave town. I can’t pull myself together enough to form words.
“He won’t forgive you for deceiving him. So why tell him? Just to hurt him? To hurt us? Just go. He’ll be all right, you have my word,” Santo says eventually. “He’s my boy, and he has his family.”
And he is. Gio Belotti is their boy, even though for a while it’s felt like he’s mine. Every word that Santo has said out on this step tonight is true. Blood is thicker than water. I stand beside him, the only man my mother ever loved, and feel wretched. The Belottis have their recipe back. Order has been restored to the family, and now it’s time for me to leave.
* * *
—
I DON’T KNOW HOW I got through the last two hours. I stepped back inside the house and walked straight into the bathroom, locked the door and sat on the edge of the tub with my head in my hands. Santo has told me to leave. Or asked me to, I guess, but he made himself crystal clear. I wanted to scream and shout, to punch the walls until my knuckles bled, but I didn’t do any of those things. I splashed cool water on my face and cycled through breathing exercises, and then I stepped outside and painted a smile on my face. I hugged Maria, thanked everyone for the best afternoon ever, packed the boxes of leftovers already set aside for me. I fake-groaned when Pascal winked as he slid a bottle of limoncello in my bag. I accepted sticky kisses from the kids and lipstick ones from Gio’s sisters, and hugged Bella so hard she laughed and said she couldn’t breathe. I did all of those things. I kissed Felipe, who slipped a Christmas card into my coat pocket, and then I kissed Santo, who couldn’t meet my eyes, and then I lied and said I had a call coming from family back in London and better get home because they could talk for hours.
When my cab arrived, Gio carried my bags out onto the sidewalk and loaded them in, then pulled me in for a hug.
“I’d kiss you but I get the feeling we’re probably being watched by most of my family,” he whispered, laughing. “I think we should tell them soon, they all love you.”
I took a step back.
“New Year’s Eve?” he suggested, his eyes trying to read mine.
I couldn’t speak, I didn’t know how to say goodbye.
His fingers brushed mine, the briefest of touches. I wanted to cling on, to tell him I loved him, to pull him into the cab and make him understand, but I didn’t.
“When the ball drops,” I said, and he smiled his heartbreaker smile.
“I didn’t get you alone to give you your gift,” he said.
“I have yours too,” I said, thinking of the only gift still wrapped beneath my tree.
“Iris, I—” he said, but the cabdriver slid his window down and asked us to hurry things along, so I’ll never know what he was going to say. Perhaps he was going to say he’ll call me later, or maybe he was going to tell me he loves me. I hope not.
I climbed into the car and he closed the door for me, and I laid my hand against the cold glass as we moved away from the curb.
“Chrystie Street?” the driver said, meeting my eye in the mirror.
I nodded and gave him the address of the noodle house, then laid my head against the window and closed my eyes, exhausted.
33.
COULD I HAVE DONE THINGS differently? I could have not lied about Adam in the first place. God, how I wish I could change what happened in that bookstore, that I hadn’t spoken so impulsively. I’m so tired of shaming myself for it. I’ve hung my green dress back in the wardrobe and scrubbed my face clean of makeup. I haven’t turned the tree lights on, because I’ve never felt less celebratory in my life. It’s too hard, being in love, like jumping from a plane without a parachute and trusting someone to catch you. I’m in terrible distress.