Love & Gelato(21)

I started tearing up the edges of the paper tablecloth, keeping my eyes off the ring.

“Are you feeling . . . comfortable here?”

I hesitated. “Yeah.”

“You know, if you need anything, you can always just ask.”

“I’m fine.” My voice was gravelly, but Howard just nodded.

After what felt like ten hours, our server finally walked out and set two steaming pizzas in front of us. Each of them was the size of a large dinner plate, and they smelled unbelievable. I cut a piece and took a bite.

All weirdness evaporated immediately. The power of pizza.

“I think my mouth just exploded,” I said. Or at least that’s what I tried to say. It came out more like “mymogjesesieplod.”

“What?” Howard looked up.

I shoveled in another bite. “This. Is. The. Best.” He was right. This pizza belonged in a completely different universe from the stuff I was used to.

“Told you, Lina. Italy is the perfect place for a hungry runner.” He smiled at me and we both ate ravenously, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” filling in for conversation.

I had just taken an enormous bite when he said, “You’re probably wondering where I’ve been all this time.”

I froze, a piece of crust in my hand. Is he asking what I think he is? This couldn’t be the big unveiling moment—you don’t go around telling your children why you weren’t around while stuffing your face with pizza.

I snuck a glance up. He’d set his fork and knife down and was leaning forward, his mouth set in a serious line. Oh, no.

I swallowed. “Um, no. I haven’t really wondered.” Lie with a capital L. I stuffed the piece of crust into my mouth but couldn’t taste it.

“Did your mother tell you much about our relationship?”

I shook my head. “No. Just, uh, funny stories.”

“I see. Well, the truth is, I didn’t know about you.”

Suddenly it seemed like the whole restaurant got quiet. Except for the Beatles. “The girl that’s driving me mad, is going awaaaayyyy . . . ,” they sang.

I swallowed hard. I had never even considered that possibility. “Why?”

“Things were . . . complicated between us.”

Complicated. That was exactly what my mom had said.

“She got in touch with me around the same time she started getting tested. She knew she was sick, just not with what, and I think she had a feeling. Anyway, I want you to know I would have been there. If I’d known. I just . . .” He rested his hand on the table, palm-side up. “I guess I just want a chance. I’m not expecting miracles. I know this is hard. Your grandmother told me you really didn’t want to come here, and I understand that. I just want you to know that I really appreciate having this chance to get to know you.”

He met my eyes, and suddenly I wished with all my heart that I could evaporate, like the steam still curling off my pizza.

I pushed away from the table. “I . . . I need to find the bathroom.” I sprinted to the front of the restaurant, barely making it inside the restroom before the tears started rolling.

Being here was awful. Before today I’d known exactly who my mother was, and she certainly wasn’t this woman who loved violets or sent her daughter mysterious journals or forgot to tell the father of her child that—oh, by the way, you have a daughter!

It took all three minutes of “Here Comes the Sun” to get myself under control, mostly deep breathing, and when I finally cracked the door open, Howard was still sitting at the table, his shoulders slumped. I watched him for a moment, anger settling over me like a fine dusting of Parmesan cheese.

My mother had kept us apart for sixteen years. Why were we together now?





Chapter 7




THAT NIGHT I COULDN’T SLEEP.

Howard’s bedroom was upstairs too, and the floorboards creaked as he walked down the hall. I didn’t know about you. Why?

The clock on my bedroom wall made an irritating tick-tick-tick. I hadn’t noticed it the night before, but suddenly the noise was unbearable. I pulled a pillow over my head, but that didn’t help, plus it was kind of suffocating. There was a breeze blowing through my window and my violets kept swaying like Deadheads at a concert.

Okay. Fine. I switched on my lamp and took the ring off my finger, studying it in the light. Even though my mother hadn’t seen Howard in more than sixteen years, she’d worn the ring he’d given her. Every single day.

But why? Had they really been in love, like Sonia had said? And if so, what had torn them apart?

Before I could lose my nerve, I opened my nightstand drawer and felt for the journal.

I lifted the front cover:

I made the wrong choice.

A chill moved down my spine. My mother had written in thick black marker, and the words sprawled across the inside cover like a row of spiders. Was this a message to me? A kind of precursor to whatever I was about to read?

I mustered up my courage, then turned to the front page. Now or never.



MAY 22

Question. Immediately following your meeting with the admissions officers at University of Washington (where you’ve just given official notice that you will not be starting nursing school in the fall) do you:

A. go home and tell your parents what you’ve done