Page 206 of The Bonus

“My dad has the name Ferrara, and his dad has the name Ferrara. Way back in history, my family all had the name Ferrara.”

I stare at them for a moment and I was going to have this conversation much later, but I feel like the universe has given me an opening.

“Would you like to add Ferrara to your name?” I ask. “Because you know, you’re my kids, and kids have their dad’s name on the end.”

Lucia smiles broadly.

“What would it be?” Dominic asks.

“It would be Dominic Porter Ferrara. That way you would have Mom’s name and my name.” I smile softly as I look between them. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had the same name?”

Grace

I sit in the clean house and watch the clock.

It’s been a weird day, no school dropoff, no school pickup, no dinner to cook, no kids to watch.

Just me…and all this horrible spare time.

I’ve been for a walk, vented for an hour to Deb on the phone, folded all the washing and cleaned the house, not sure what to do next.

I see the headlights shine up the driveway. They’re home.

I jump up and open the door in a rush and walk down to meet them. Gabriel gets out first and I smile. “Hello.”

He looks right through me and doesn’t respond before opening the back door of the car.

Great.

“Here we go. Home time.” He smiles to the children.

The kids bound out of the car and he bends and hugs Lucia. “I’ll see you Friday,” he tells her, he turns to Dom and messes up his hair. “I’ll see you Friday, buddy.”

Dominic smiles up at him all starstruck.

Gabriel turns back to the car.

He’s completely ignoring me…of course he is.

“Goodbye,” I say hopefully, surely we can at least be civil.

He waves without looking and gets into the car and pulls out. The kids bounce happily inside, and I watch the car as it pulls away.

Ugh… I follow the kids inside.

“Mom, we had the best time.” Lucia beams.

“Upstairs and into the shower, it’s pretty late,” I say. We walk up the stairs with her talking a million miles per minute.

“We had brownies and then we played baseball and then we played catch.”

“I helped light the fire,” Dominic chimes in. “And we got new beds and are staying over on the weekend,” he says as he begins to undress.

“That sounds…” I smile sadly, I hate that they’re making plans that don’t involve me, “…great.”

“Oh, and we have stuffed toys,” Dom says.

“And we had hamburgers for dinner and fries, Mark made them he’s a good cook and he’s very funny,” Lucia tells me as she brushes her hair.

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