Besides, what good would knowing all of this be to Gio? He’d realize I’ve known their recipe all along, that I could have solved his problem on day one. He’d know that I’ve been part of his life for months without saying a word about the connection between our families, that the woman in his family album with her face turned from the camera is my mother. It feels like one betrayal after another. I can see how it looks from the outside, but only I know how it is on the inside. That curiosity propelled me through their painted glass door, and that I only ever wanted to help without compromising my mother’s memory or Santo’s confidence. I didn’t plan on falling in love with Gio, or with the rest of the Belotti family either, for that matter.
There’s an undeniable part of me that wants to tell Gio everything, to throw it all out there and let him be the judge, because surely this is about our lives now, not my mother and Santo’s lives more than thirty years ago? But then I hear my mother whispering in my ear to never tell another living soul, and I hear Santo asking me to make a clean break, and I hear Felipe telling me blood is thicker than water. And that’s the crux of things, really. Blood is thicker than water, Belotti blood most of all. Gio is first, foremost, and forever a Belotti. He would always want what’s best for them, and he’ll get over this because he has them.
I wish it was tomorrow, that the goodbyes were behind me and Canada in front of me. I know nothing about Toronto beyond the name of the airport. I don’t have any of the plans or preconceptions I had when I flew to New York, none of my mother’s steps to retrace. I’m going to be completely on my own there, and there isn’t a single part of me that’s looking forward to it.
* * *
—
I’M CLOCK-WATCHING, WAITING FOR Gio, missing him desperately and sick at the thought of this being the last time I’ll see him. He sent a text to say he’ll come by around one, and it’s almost twenty past twelve now and he’s never late. My hands are clammy. I wipe them on my jeans as I turn the kettle on to make coffee and then turn it off again because I know I won’t drink it anyway. I sit on the sofa, change my mind and sit at the kitchen table so I’m closer to the door, ready to let him in. I’ve nothing in my stomach. I couldn’t face food this morning, yet still my guts churn like my gelato machine.
The buzzer goes loud and shocking in my quiet apartment and I freeze like a kid playing statues. He’s here. I almost run to the buzzer and press it several times in case it doesn’t work and he leaves. I take steadying breaths as I listen to his footsteps on the stairs, and then he finally taps my door and I brace myself and open it wide.
“You stopped replying to my messages, little mouse. Upset me so much I’ve come all this way to check up on you in person.”
38.
I LURCH BACKWARD, SICK WITH PANIC at the sight of Adam Bronson. I’ve promised myself so many times he isn’t lurking in the New York shadows, reassured myself that he would never go so far as to turn up here. And now he’s inside my apartment, closing my front door, smiling broadly as if I should be rolling out the welcome mat.
“What are you doing here?” I say, holding my nerve.
His eyes move slowly over the apartment, taking everything in. “So this is where you went.”
I don’t say anything else. I’m shaking violently inside; I don’t trust my voice not to betray my fear. He ambles across the room toward the sofa, picking things up to inspect them as he goes. A letter from the bank. A store receipt. Insignificant pieces of my life that I resent him touching.
“Well now,” he says. “How are you, Adam, would you like a cup of coffee, Adam, how was your flight, Adam?” He sits down and crosses his legs, throwing his upturned hands out to the sides. “Take your pick. Or shall I just answer all three, save you the bother? Yes, I’d like coffee, you know how I take it.” He ticks it off on one finger. “My flight was fucking long and expensive, and no, I’m not doing so well, seeing as you ask. I lost my job and then my little mouse blocked my number.”
I stare at him. “I don’t have any milk.”
He looks at me and raises his eyebrows, then gets up and crosses to the kitchenette, opening the fridge.
“Oh, look. You do.”
He puts the carton down on the counter next to me, slow and deliberate, and I swallow back vomit, bilious when his distinctive aftershave clogs my air space.
“I’m not making you coffee. I want you to leave. Right now.”
He laughs lightly, as if I made a joke, and bitter, furious tears sting the back of my eyes.
“I missed you, mouse,” he says, putting his arm around my shoulders.
I shrug him off and half run to swing my front door open. “Get out.”
He looks at me like I’m a child trying his patience, and it sends a cold shiver of recognition down my spine. I’ve seen that glance so often before, and I know the unpredictable snap into rage that can follow it.
“I’m not frightened of you,” I say, raising my chin.
“Why would you be?” He laughs. “I’ve never laid so much as a finger on you. Not one you weren’t gagging for, anyway.” He wriggles his eyebrows up and down suggestively, and I watch them in disgust, like two slugs crawling into his hairline.
“If you don’t go, I’ll call the police,” I say. “The station is right round the corner.”
“And say what? My boyfriend came to visit and asked for a cup of coffee?” He holds his wrists out in front of him. “Cuff me, officer, it’s a fair cop.”
“Ex-boyfriend,” I say through gritted teeth.
He gives me that warning look again, and I swallow, trying not to let him see how much he’s getting to me. The buzzer goes, and he watches me with interest.
“Expecting anyone?”
Oh shit, no. No, Gio, no. I shake my head, stringing words together out of nowhere and hoping they make sense. “It’ll be the mailman. He buzzes to let me know if he’s left a parcel.”
Adam nods slowly, then crosses to the window and checks.
“Doesn’t look like the mailman.”
Someone bangs on the front door when I don’t buzz it open.
“Iris!”
It isn’t Gio. It’s Sophia.
“Friends of yours?”
“Just someone I work with.”
“Iris, open up!”
Adam puts his head on one side as he peeps outside again and then looks back at me with a scandalized expression that tells me he’s thoroughly enjoying himself.
“Please, we need to speak with you.”
I close my eyes and swallow hard, because that was Maria’s raised voice, not Sophia’s. I want them as far away from this place as possible, but the fact that they’re both here instead of Gio spikes fear through me in case something terrible has happened to him.
“I really need to go and talk to them,” I say quickly, hating my own lack of volume. “Please, Adam, just wait here.”
He folds his arms. “You want me to leave, you want me to stay, you won’t make me coffee, you threaten me with the cops, and now you want to run off and chat to your friends. This isn’t going how I thought it would at all, mouse, and I don’t think I like it.”
He frowns and turns back to the window at the sound of car doors slamming.
“Oh good, more people. It’s turning into a street party.”
I can hear the commotion and I’m desperate to go and see, but he’s by the window and he screws up his face in disgust when Smirnoff appears on the fire escape the other side of the glass. Adam detests cats. Dogs too, for that matter. He’s not an animal person generally, which, thinking back, should have been a major red flag.