Page 23 of Come Back to Me

As they bicker, I glance at Tee, who’s apparently given up on leaving because she’s slumped at the table, gaze flickering between the three of us.

Nonna, however, bores quickly of the biker topic. “So, tell me, Cody, what’s brought you back to town? That leg of yours?”

Angela, harrumphing, retreats to the dishwasher and loads it.

“My leg?”

She nods. “You had a cast when you arrived.”

“Oh. No. It was…” I never mention the issues I had with my arm. “…time to retire.”

The memory of Paulie’s plane exploding right in front of me has my throat bobbing.

I’m almost grateful when she chides, “But you’re still a boy.”

“I’m tired of war.”

A dish clatters as Angela almost drops it into the rack.

They all look at me.

Three generations of...

God.

They pack a punch.

Even her mom, who’s very annoying and not as pretty as her daughter or her mother.

“It’s fine,” I say dryly, sensing their distress and wanting to soothe it.

“No,” Nonna disagrees, “it isn’t. We do our soldiers a disservice by forgetting what they’ve seen and had to do while fighting wars that the higher-ups deem important.”

I don’t answer because she serves me a gargantuan helping of tiramisu. Barking out a laugh, I dig in.

It’s delicious.

Better than Mrs. Abelman’s.

“Wow,” I murmur after the first bite.

“You eat all of that and I’ll make you my cannoli on Saturday too,” she exclaims, patting my hand. “Good, strong boys need to be fed. Remember that,piccola.”

“Nonna,” Tee whines.

And it’s right then, right there that I realize Tornado Tee inherited her talents honestly.

Her nonna is the pro and Tee is the amateur.

Delighted by the revelation, I watch as Angela shoots Tee a pointed look. Huffing, she grabs the coffee pot and pours some into a mug for me. My mind drifts back to those early letters, where she abused my search engine algorithm with talk ofbrujería.

It’s why, when I accept the mug with a nod of thanks, I keep my gaze locked on hers as I take a sip.

It doesn’t matter that a family conversation’s triggered by my silence. They leave me to eat my dessert, and I absorb everything the three women have to say. Anything to feed the nascent obsession with one Christy ‘Tee’ MacFarlane.

As a result, I learn that Nonna spends most of her time at home, at The Coffee Shop where her beau, Mr. Ravenly Sr., courts her, or in the library. I also learn that Angela wants Tee to get a job and that as much as the love between this triangle of women flows strongly, mother and child will never understand one another.

Angela is salt of the earth. She’s been a stay-at-home mom her whole life. She hovers over her family like a clucking hen while her husband cares for the town’s children in his role as principal.

---