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Great.
She would probably spend the next couple of hours interrogating me about anything that came to mind.
“Don’t sulk,” she said as I dropped into my place at the table with a dramatic huff.
“I’m not sulking.” I straightened my silverware.
“Yes, you are.” Both women spoke simultaneously.
Nancy pointed her wooden spoon at JoJo. “I like her.”
“I sort of figured you would,” I muttered under my breath.
Once we were all settled with enough food for half of the Bronx, Nancy said grace and proceeded to fill our plates to the brim.
JoJo looked a little frightened at the sheer magnitude of lasagna in front of her.
I smirked as I shoved a bite into my mouth.
“I tried a new recipe. It’s vegetarian lasagna. My boys will never eat it unless I don’t tell them.” Nancy dug into her own food. “Thisisgood. I think I will trick them.”
“I hope you didn’t go out of your way for me.” JoJo tried a small bite. “It’s fantastic.”
Nancy beamed. “I’ve had this on my list to try for years. What would I do with all this lasagna by myself? Cutting down a recipe isn’t in my DNA.”
We laughed.
“Tell the truth. You double everything you cook, don’t you?” I asked.
She straightened. “At least. Most of the time I triple or quadruple.” She wiped her mouth. “Have you seen the size of my family?”
JoJo nibbled on a garlic knot while Nancy and I dug in like it was our last meal. Did she always eat like that? Like it was painful to put food in her mouth.
“How many children do you have?” JoJo asked.
“Six boys. And they’re working on more grandchildren for me,” she said proudly. “What about you? Do you have children?”
“A daughter. She’s just started at a law firm.”
Nancy turned to me. “Why didn’t you hire her? She should learn from the best.”
I leveled JoJo with a stare. “For some reason, she thought it was best to keep my niece away from me.”
As I said the words, I realized that stung. JoJo thought so little of me that she’d stayed away from her entire family? Not one holiday spent together in twenty-two years. At first I believed it was because of her mother. And that I could understand. My mother-in-law was a monster of the scariest variety.
But I’d spent years trusting my instinct.
And now it was clearly screaming at me thatI’dbeen why JoJo stayed away.
Nancy lifted a brow. “Why would you think that?” I couldn’t believe she hadn’t touched the revelation the woman at the table was my ex sister-in-law.
JoJo squirmed a bit at the brutally honest question.
“Our family dynamic is difficult,” she said stiffly, refusing to look at me.
“Am I why you never came home?” I set my fork on my plate, food no longer so palatable.
She fingered the napkin in her lap. Seconds ticked by like years. Still, she kept looking down at that damn napkin.
