I wake up Monday morning to someone slapping my face. When I open my eyes I find that I’ve been mounted by a five-year-old girl in army fatigues. She’s sitting on my stomach, poking at my cheek.
I rub my eyes and try to muster a smile. “Well, hello there. You must be Ava.”
“Why are you sleeping in my sleeping bag?”
“Ava.” Danika marches into the room and suddenly the weight on my stomach is lifted as Ava is hoisted into the air. “What did we say about sitting on people?”
“But she’s the enemy!” Ava defends, thrashing violently. Danika manages to hold the restless child far enough in front of her to avoid a knee to the chest.
“She’s not the enemy. She’s my friend.”
“She’s a zombie!”
Danika sighs. “She’s on a zombie kick. Tomorrow she’ll be convinced everyone is a cyclops.”
“What’s a cyclops?” Ava asks.
“I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
I groan and prop myself up on my elbows. Danika sets Ava down and hands me a glass of water from the nightstand. I guzzle it. “Feeling better?” she asks.
I eye the small child kung fu fighting the air next to me. “No.”
Danika begins picking up toys that have magically materialized in her bedroom overnight and dumps them into a chest in the corner. “You’re more than welcome to hang out with us today. If you want to avoid you-know-who.”
Ava stops mid-kick and frowns. “No. She can’t come. She’s a zombie.”
“Ava,” Danika warns.
“It’s fine,” I tell her, “I have plenty to do at the restaurant. I can keep busy. Besides, right now I pretty much feel like a zombie.”
“See,” Ava says triumphantly.
“Ava, go change your clothes. You can’t wear your army fatigues to gymnastics.” The little girl protests for a solid thirty seconds before finally succumbing to Danika’s orders.
I unzip the Dora the Explorer sleeping bag and swing my legs out. “Thanks for letting me crash here. I don’t think I could have gone back into that house last night.”
“Are you going to talk to him?”
“Not a chance.” I kneel at the edge of the sleeping bag and begin rolling it up. “That ship has sailed. I tried to talk to him last night. I tried to ask him what the hell was going on and he couldn’t form a coherent sentence to save his life.”
“Well, to be fair, he did have a massive boner at the time.”
“No excuse,” I assert.
“It’s actually a pretty good excuse. You can’t expect men to think clearly when all their blood is...elsewhere.”
I tuck the rolled-up bag under Danika’s bed. “Whatever. I can’t do this anymore. It’s exhausting. It’s like when we’re together, that’s all there is. That’s all there ever was. It’s more intense than I ever imagined. But when my sister’s around, it’s suddenly like I’m back to being that stupid little girl with a stupid little crush, and all he wants to do is save me from being stupid.” I stop, gasping with realization. “Oh my God. I’m Lois Lame!”
Danika snorts. “You are not.”
“I am,” I resolve. “Lois Lane is this totally strong, independent chick who’s got all her shit together until Superman appears, and then somehow she magically morphs into this weak, vulnerable damsel in distress who always needs to be rescued.”
“See, there goes your entire theory right there,” Danika argues. “You don’t have your shit together.”
I sigh. “Sad but true.”
“You said the S-word!” a small voice shrieks from the doorway. I turn to see Ava dressed in a sparkly red leotard, pointing an accusing finger at Danika.
Danika sighs. “I’m allowed to. I’m an adult.”
I roll my eyes. “I wish I could say the same for me.”
I take my time walking up the beach. I’m in no rush to get home. But I have to at least grab a hot shower and a change of clothes. Plus, I left my car at the restaurant last night so I need my dad to drive me into town.
My plan is to try out yet another recipe tonight. The one yesterday didn’t go over too well. Three people sent their food back claiming it had a funny taste. I didn’t have the heart to tell them it was my shattered dignity they were tasting.
I have no idea what I’m doing wrong.
With that restaurant.
With the recipes.
With life.
Why is it all such a disaster?
When I reach the back porch, I peer through the windows to see my dad and Alex at the breakfast table sipping coffee and reading the paper. So far, no sign of Grayson. I breathe out a sigh of relief and pull the door open.
If I’m lucky he’s still asleep and I can tiptoe past Alex’s bedroom door without an unfortunate encounter in the hallway.
“Hi,” I say, trying to sound cheerful.
Alex glances up from the Finance section. “Where were you?”
Fortunately, I already have my lie all teed-up and ready to go. “I wasn’t tired when we got home last night, so I went to Danika’s to hang out and ended up passing out there.”
I pull a cup from the cabinet and fill it with coffee. The hot steamy liquid smells amazing. Rejuvenating. “Grayson still asleep?” I ask, trying to sound casual as I take a small, cautious sip.
“He left,” Alex says, matter-of-factly, her face buried in her newspaper.
A scalding hot river of coffee streams into my mouth, scalding my tongue. “Fuck!”
My dad and Alex both look up. “Burnt my tongue,” I mumble as I rub it against the roof of my mouth. “Um, why did he leave?”
My heart thuds in my chest. For a minute I think Alex is going to tell me that he came clean. That he confessed everything. They broke up and now it’s over. And by the way, I’m going to beat the shit out of you just as soon as I’m done checking the stock prices.
But she just casually flips the page and says, “He had to work. He took the earliest train out this morning.”
Work?
That can’t be the truth. I practically give him an ultimatum on the beach last night and the next morning he miraculously gets called into the office?
No. That’s not a coincidence.
It’s a choice.
It’s his choice.
If it wasn’t already clear last night, then it’s certainly clear today.
He’s opting out. Unsubscribing. Canceling his account.
The rejection tastes bitter in my mouth. More bitter than the burnt taste buds on my tongue.
I dump the remainder of my coffee down the drain and drop the mug in the sink.
“You okay?” my dad asks, glancing up with concern.
I’m already halfway to the stairs. Halfway to shutting down. Halfway to total numbness.
“Fan-fucking-tastic,” I call back.
I turn my key in the lock of the back door and push it open. I flip the light switch, illuminating the restaurant’s small kitchen. I launch into my usual opening routine—turning on the pizza oven, booting up the computers, gathering the mail from the slot in the front door.
I toss today’s mail onto the desk in the office and collapse into the chair. The large manilla envelope on top of the pile immediately catches my attention. The return address appears to be a legal firm in New York City.
I rip it open and pull out a stack of paper, skimming the neatly typed cover letter.
It’s an offer to buy the restaurant. Or rather the building that houses the restaurant.
Apparently some hotshot real estate developer in the city wants to turn this land into a high-end retail center. It’s not the first offer of this nature that I’ve received since taking over the place. But I didn’t work this hard to see my mother’s dream turn into a day spa.
I stuff the stack back into the envelope and push it aside.
The rest of the mail is the usual assortment of bills, credit card offers, and coupons. But my body freezes when my eyes land on the small square envelope with familiar cursive handwriting waiting at the bottom of the pile.
Just like the seven other letters of its kind, the envelope is addressed to me, care of the restaurant. And it’s postmarked from Italy.
The letters started coming a month after my mom left. I never told my dad or Alex that she’s been writing to me. I always felt like the knowledge would be more damaging than beneficial. Plus, I figured if my mother wanted them to be in on this bizarre one-sided communication, she would have sent the letters to the house.
But she didn’t.
She always sent them here. Almost as though she knew my dad and Alex would rarely ever step foot in this place after she was gone.
There is never a return address. Just a teasing postmark from somewhere in Italy. Like she wants me to know where she is, but not with enough specificity that I could come looking for her.
Not that I would.
Would I?
The letters usually consist of the same thing: A rundown of all the wild adventures she’s having with Paolo, the former La Bella Vita bartender/love of her life/Italian earthquake that left my family with a gaping fault line down the middle, followed by a short heartfelt mention of how much she misses me.
But it always seemed as though the selfishness of the first half canceled out the sincerity of the second.
With shaking hands, I rip open the square envelope and unfold the thin, crisp paper, holding my breath as I read:
Mia Natalia,
I hope this letter finds you well and that the restaurant is still thriving. Have I told you how much it means to me that you’ve kept it going? Every time I sit down in an internet café here, I can’t help but smile when I search for La Bella Vita online and see that it’s still open.
Italy is gorgeous this time of year. Paolo has a huge family and we’ve spent the summer hopping around the country, visiting all of his relatives. Home life here is very different than in the United States. Especially the family dinners. Everything is so jovial and celebratory. It feels like Christmas dinner every night.
My grasp of the language is improving every day. Paolo is an excellent teacher. Last night I had my first dream in Italian! That’s supposed to be a good sign.
But of course, I do miss you girls immensely.
I understand if you’ll never be able to come to terms with my decision to leave. Please believe me when I tell you it had nothing to do with you, or your sister, or your father. I just know that this is the life I was meant to live.
And I hope with all my heart that one day, you’ll, too, discover the life that you were meant to live. And when you do, I have only one piece of advice for you: Take it. Seize it. Don’t wait. Most people go through their entire lives not knowing what they truly want. It’s a sadness I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
So if you do know, if you even have a hint, don’t be afraid to chase after it. Don’t be afraid to fight for it.
The choices that lead us to happiness are never the easiest ones or the least painful.
But it’s the happiness that comes from these tough choices that makes the pain worth bearing.
I love you.
Mom
I hear the security beep of the back door and I quickly stuff the page back in the envelope and hide it, along with the contract from the lawyer, in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet, next to the rest of her letters.
Who the hell is here at this time?
The staff are not due in for hours.
Curiously, I glance at the food delivery schedule tacked to the bulletin board behind me. We don’t have a drop-off scheduled until tomorrow. Unless someone changed the date and forgot to tell me.
I walk out of the office and feel the heat instantly drain from my body when I see him.
He looks tired and weary. Like he hasn’t slept in days.
“I thought you left on the earliest train,” I say, my voice inflectionless.
“I did.”
I walk over to the range, remove the large sauce pot from the hook and place it on the burner. “Then what are you doing here?”
He drops his overnight bag on the floor, like he has every intention of staying, and clears his throat. “I thought you might need some help.”