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I glance around. Penny is chatting with my grandmother, my aunts are arguing over how to serve the stuffed shells even though someone makes them for every single party, a couple of my cousins run inside for more sodas. No one is looking at us except Giana, soapy up to the elbows, her brows drawn together.
“I trust him,” I say.
Mom waves her hand impatiently. “It’s not about trust. It’s about making sacrifices. Goodness knows you’ve never once understood that concept when it comes to our family, but maybe with him—”
“Seriously?” I interrupt. “It’s not like I’m some terrible—”
“Not that this is about us,” she says, a little louder. “This isn’t about that. This is about recognizing that you could have it all, Maria. He’s a good man, he’s going to want a girlfriend and eventually a wife who is there for him. Maybe instead of tying yourself to a school district after graduation, you could tutor and travel with him.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter because I’m not getting my teaching degree anyway.”
The words leave my mouth before I can think better of them. I wince; I was loud enough that everyone in the room heard.
“Wait, what?” someone says into the silence.
My mother grabs me by the elbow and drags me into the living room.
Not the hall by the staircase or the den or even my room, but the formal living room in the front of the house with the pristine couches we only sit on during holidays. It’s my mother’s favorite place for a lecture, and I feel like a seventeen-year-old again, caught doing any number of stupid things.
I wrench my elbow away from her. “Mom, stop. I’m not a little kid.”
“You’d call that mature? Talking nonsense in front of half the family? Your friend?”
“It’s not nonsense.” I smooth down the skirt of my horrible dress, wishing I could rip the thing in two. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about it.”
“Are you even still in school?”
“Yes. God.” I take a deep breath. “I’m just… I’m majoring in astronomy and physics. I want to get my PhD. Do research, maybe even work for NASA. Not teach and be a housewife.”
She stares at me like I really did just rip the dress off. “And when do you expect to have time for marriage? For children? What about Sebastian?”
“This isn’t about him.”
“So you declared a new major and conveniently forgot to mention it to me or your father?”
“It’s not new.”
“What?”
“It’s not new,” I snap, unable to keep my voice steady. “It’s what I’ve always wanted to do, but you didn’t listen.”
Giana appears in the doorway, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Mom looks at her, then back at me with such disappointment in her expression, my knees nearly buckle.
“Your father and I have worked so hard to make sure you could attend that fancy private university,” she says. She takes a step closer. Even with the carpet muffling the sound of her heel, I sense the intention in it. “So you could get an accelerated teaching degree, like we agreed.”
“I never agreed.” I cross my arms, resisting the urge to take a step back. “You just decided it for me and expected me to go along with it. Nonno is the only one who understood me, he encouraged me—”
“My father was many things, but a realist was not one of them,” she interjects. “Jesus, Mia, come on. Stop dreaming.”
“It’s not just a dream.” I feel the beginning of a sob building in my throat and swallow it down. “It’s what I’m meant to do.”
“And what about what Sebastian is meant to do? What about what he deserves? A wife who will support him and his career. Who will take care of his children. You can’t do that if you’re working around the clock.”
“It doesn’t matter!” I throw my hands up. “I told you this ages ago. I don’t know if I even want to get married and have kids anyway.”
She’s silent for a moment. Then she says, in a voice that cracks like ice, “I can’t believe I raised such a selfish daughter.”
A tear rolls down my cheek. I wipe it away roughly. “Nice to know things haven’t changed.”
