Raises her glass.
I raise mine.
Max stands up from the floor, Christopher attached to his back like a small, determined barnacle, and finds me across the kitchen. Blue eyes. Dark hair wrecked. The real smile, the one I’ve spent months learning to tell from the other one. The ticking biological clock that I lack suddenly resounds like a pot clashing against prison bars.
Well,he mouths. I shake my head.
He grins adding the eyebrow waggle. And I am, as it turns out, completely done being careful.
Elena invites my father to dinner a second time. I find out when he texts me a photo of the pasta she sent him home with in a container after the first dinner, asking if she uses a particular brand of San Marzano tomatoes because his comes out differently.
My father. Texting me about tomatoes. Because of ElenaRusso. Let me consider this information for a short while. Then I call her. “You gave my father your pasta recipe.”
“I gave him the beginning of my pasta recipe.” She sounds deeply satisfied. “The rest requires another dinner.”
“You’re holding San Marzano tomatoes hostage.”
“I prefer to think of it as a continued relationship.”
“Elena.”
“He’s lonely, Toni.” Her voice gentles. Real now. “Not dramatically. He wouldn’t openly admit it. But he’s been alone for twelve years, and he works constantly, and his idea of a social life is airport restaurants between officiating assignments.” A pause. “He deserves somebody who makes him laugh.”
I stare at my kitchen ceiling. “You make everyone feel like they’re the most interesting person in the room.”
“He actually is.” She means it. That’s the thing about Elena. The warmth is never performed. “Come to dinner Saturday. Max too.”
“Max.”
“He’s your person, Toni. Frank knows it. The sooner those two are in the same room voluntarily, the sooner your father stops carrying it like an unresolved call.”
She’s right. I hate when she’s right before I’ve finished my coffee. “I’ll ask him.”
Saturday arrives with the specific energy of a thing I cannot control. Max picks me up at six-thirty in a jacket I’ve never seen. It’s dark navy, fitted, the kind of thing a man wears when he’s trying without admitting he’s trying. His hair is combed. Actually combed.
“You look nice,” I say.
“Don’t make it weird.”
“I’m not making it weird.”
“You’re making a face.”
“I’m observing your hair.”
He glances in the rearview mirror. “It’s fine.”
“It’s very neat.”
“Toni.”
“I like it,” I say. He clears his throat, fidgeting. I look out the window so he doesn’t see me smiling.
Elena’s apartment smells like Sunday with gravy. She argues that the red sauce you put on pasta is called gravy to anyone who will listen. Good thing my family has always said the same. And underneath all of it the specific warmth of a space that has been lived in and loved. My father is already there when we arrive. Of course, he is. He’s sitting at Elena’s kitchen island with a glass of red wine. The ease of a man who has been here three times, by himself. While I was at practice. He stands when we come in. Looks at Max with the assessment I’ve watched him use on players forever, quick and complete, arriving at a conclusion before the other person realizes they’ve been read.
Max looks back. He doesn’t flinch or perform. He meets my father’s eyes directly and holds them and says, “Mr. Amato. Good to see you again.”
“Stevens.” Dad’s voice is neutral. But not cold. The distinction matters.
