Page 62 of A Winter in New York

Felipe finally removes his mirrored sunnies to study the photo, tapping it lightly with his index finger.

“Always the hero,” he murmurs, a story between brothers for another day. The Santo in the photograph is eighties cool and unencumbered, unaware that in years to come he’ll raise his brother’s son.

“It was the glass door,” I say. “The photo could have been taken anywhere, but I walked past that door on Mulberry Street and I knew straightaway that this was another echo from my mother’s story. I couldn’t not see inside. It was as straightforward as that. No agenda or plan, I just walkedthrough the door and met Gio and Sophia and everyone else, and that’s where my mother’s story ended and mine began.”

“And no one knows about your mother’s connection to Santo?”

“Idon’t know about my mother’s connection to him, besides this single photo,” I say. “Her history led me through the door, but what has happened since has had nothing to do with the past.”

I think of the photo of my mother in the Belotti family album, her face turned away from the camera.

“You have to tell them,” he says. “Our family doesn’t stand for secrets like this.”

Childish defiance grips me.Why? Why should I tell them? What good will it do?I don’t ask him the questions that thunder through my head.

“Is there something between you and Gio?”

My defiance turns to desperation. I look into the depths of my drink because I don’t want to tell Felipe the truth. I know Gio and I cannot stay forever at the Monday Night Motel, but it seems grossly unfair that this man who is never here should be the reason why it ends.

Felipe reads my silence for what it is and sighs.

“Look, some might say I don’t have a right to steamroll in given how little I’ve been around, but the family seem to genuinely like you and that concerns me. I’m sure you’re a decent kid, but they’ve been through enough already, with Santo. It was a long time ago, but your mother did a number on him, and the shock of seeing your face, given his condition now, worries me. And Maria—she doesn’t deserve to feel like the consolation prize…” He swallows his drink and reaches for the bottle to refill his own glass. I wonder if it’s irresponsibleof me not to stop him, but then I think of the photo of him with my mother and realize he’s more than aware of his own limits.

“I haven’t been any kind of father to Gio,” he says. “Maybe this is my one chance to watch his back.” He eyeballs me across the table. “You tell him yourself what brought you through our family’s door or I’m going to have to.” He swills the whiskey around in his glass. “It’s not an ultimatum, Iris, I’m not having aGodfathermoment. I’m just trying to do right by my kid for once.”

I expect he can see how much this speech has winded me, and he reaches across the table and pats my hand.

“You can take your time,” he says. “I can see it’s not easy, but I’m sticking around for a while.” He clears his throat and flips into a heavy New York accent. “Thought I’d spend the holidays in New York with the family, see the ball drop,capisce?”

I look up and see the rogue twinkle in his eye. In other circumstances I’d probably quite like him. I mean, I’d hate to have to rely on him in an emergency, but he seems to be someone who thinks of life as a merry jig, a party he’s always invited to. My mother was much the same way.

“That was quite menacing,” I say with a half smile.

He picks up his fedora from the seat beside him and places it on his head. Jaunty angle, of course.

“Blood’s thicker than water,” he says.

“Again, menacing,” I say, getting up to let him out.

I lock up and pour myself another drink, the scrapbook still open in front of me. Blood is thicker than water, Felipe said, an offhand, overused phrase that I feel the accuracy of like a knife between my ribs tonight. Belotti blood is thickand rich, the binding agent that holds them all together, even Felipe. And I understand it well, because even though there was just me and my mother in our family unit, the bond that glued us together sustains me. I’m alone in the world, but never entirely, because her love shields me even now.

She didn’t have a family of her own. Abandoned on some town hall steps at three days old with nothing but a blanket and a gold signet ring, she was a product of the 1960s London care system, passed from foster home to foster home until she left for America. Her voice saved her. It saved us. It was her currency when she was broke, her identity in the absence of a birth certificate or a loving home. She was a motherless child, and because of her own experience she held me closer, loved me harder.

I twist my mother’s signet ring on my finger again, a heavy conviction in my heart that I must do the right thing. I appreciate that Felipe has given me some grace in terms of schedule, and it’s not as if I ever thought I’d be able to keep the balls in the air indefinitely: Adam; the recipe; my mother; Gio.Gio.Much as I like to tell myself that what’s happening between us is separate and private from the rest of the world, it isn’t really. We are all concentric circles, not desert islands. I don’t have much time left with Gio before I’m going to have to draw the blinds for the last time, because if I know anything about Gio Belotti, it’s that he values honesty and loyalty above all. I’ve compromised both of those things to be with him and, once he knows, I don’t think there’s going to be any more to our story.

Life is just so damn complicated, isn’t it, a series of random coincidences and chance meetings that add up to a lifetime. Perhaps in coming here the symmetry between mymother’s life and my own has become too linear. There’s probably a cosmic scraping sound every time our tracks unexpectedly overlap, a shower of dangerous iron filaments sparking through the ether.

I pour myself another generous measure of whiskey in the darkness of the noodle house and sit alone, recalling how Felipe mentioned the ball drop. I watched it alone on my small TV last year, Times Square ablaze with technicolor billboards and overexcited people in razzmatazz party hats and puffa jackets, their eyes on that huge faceted ball as they shouted the countdown to midnight. I’d planned on going to bed early and missing it altogether, but as the New Year flashed up in huge block numbers and the presenters waltzed to the sentimental sound of “Auld Lang Syne,” I wrapped my arms around a cushion and let the tears stream down my face. But then they changed tempo in Times Square to Sinatra’s “New York, New York” and showered the crowd with glittered confetti, and I lowered my cushion and watched, my tears drying to mascara tracks on my cheeks. I found myself mumbling the words, and then sitting up and singing the words, my voice trembling but gathering strength, because if I can make it in New York, I can make it anywhere. And I have. I’ve made lifelong friends in Bobby and Robin, I have a job and a home and part-time custody of a reluctant cat. Those things matter, and they were enough until I saw that painted glass door.

Sitting alone in the dark noodle house, I count how many days there are until New Year’s Eve. Nineteen, I think. Three of them are Mondays, including tomorrow, but the holidays will probably mean Gio’s busy with family stuff. Felipe didn’t expressly set a New Year’s deadline, but I understood himwell enough—don’t dangle my son’s heart on a string. Impending exclusion isn’t a new feeling for me, but I guess I’d hoped I’d left it behind me. No such luck. I’m about to be that lonesome kid again, the one with her face pressed against the window, on the outside looking in.

I wish I could turn the clock back to the Feast of San Gennaro festival and guide myself past Belotti’s without a sideways glance. I didn’t notice the heat from the shower of sparks when the tracks of the past and present touched that day, but I feel them tonight, hot filings scattergunned across my chest. They really fucking hurt.

27.

Wrap up warm tonight, I’m taking you somewhere I think you’ll like.

Gio’s text arrives as I’mstaring into the depressingly empty fridge trying to decide.

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