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“Not spying on us, surely? That seems like a lot of effort.”
“Seriously.” Dante kept his arm around my shoulders when I went to move. “Just act natural.”
“I’m so bad at that, though.” We both watched her walk across to the takeout counter, pick up a small pizza, smile at the server, pay, and then turn back to us. For a heart-stopping moment, I thought she was going to approach us. Please, no. Not here, in front of my whole family. To my immense relief, she gave us a brief nod and went out. I let go of the breath I didn’t even realize I’d been holding. “It all makes me feel so weird.”
“Me too.”
Before I could say anything further, my dad said, “Thought I might go fishing tomorrow, if you boys want to come? You too, Dante.”
Matt, Gabe and Jake all said they were in. Dante looked to me for confirmation. “Works for me. Mom and I can check out some baby furniture in Charlotte.” He turned back to my dad. “Sure, Bruce, that would be great. I haven’t been fishing for years, thanks.”
“Great. I’ll pick you up at seven. Since that’s a pretty early start, I think I might head home.”
We got the bill and headed out together. It was too cold to stand outside for long, and before I knew it, Dante was hustling me into the car. I smiled when he got in next to me, holding on to my resolution to just enjoy the moment and not think too much about how I would feel when this was all over.
CHAPTER33
Dante
Lazy fingers of mist reached down to trace the surface of the slow-moving river. The height of a North Carolina winter might not seem like the perfect time to go fishing, but there was something about how quiet it was, with the snow settled on the riverbanks and the shallow water crystal clear in the cold, pale light that calmed me. Bruce, Matt, Gabe and Jake seemed to feel the same: we’d been at it for more than hour, with barely more than three words spoken between us.
There was a sudden burst of activity when Jake’s line went taut. We all watched him expertly reel it in, grabbing a net and scooping it out of the water to show us a decent-sized trout. “Fuck, that’s awesome!” He was grinning widely, and I realized with a pang it was the happiest I’d seen him since I’d gotten back to Esperance. Something was clearly up with him, and I hated to see it. But for today, at least, he seemed happy.
“Good one, man.”
We grew quiet again, and after half an hour or so, Gabe said, “Not much biting for me. I think I might try somewhere else. You coming, Matt?”
“Yeah, why not.” The two of them ambled a little further upriver, settling just around a slight bend out of earshot of where I was standing with Bruce. That left Jake by himself thirty feet from us, but he didn’t seem to mind. I noted his relaxed stance and concentration on the water, and thought it was better just to leave him alone.
Keeping my voice low, to make sure I wasn’t overheard, I said to Bruce, “Tell me about Jake.”
He took his time answering, pulling his line out of the water and recasting it. When he finally spoke, it wasn’t to say what I was expecting to hear. “How’s your mom?”
“My mom?”
“Yeah.”
I wasn’t sure where he was going with this conversation and why he wasn’t answering me about Jake, but I didn’t know how to redirect him, so I just went with it. “She’s doing okay.”
“You saw her for Christmas?”
“I did. With Lucy and Stef.”
“Where’s she living these days?”
“In Raleigh.”
“With your dad?”
“He still comes and goes as he pleases, apparently. He wasn’t there when we were.”
“Did you give her money?”
“Yeah.” Where the fuck was he going with this? Did he think I shouldn’t make sure my own mother had what she needed? Even though, let’s be honest, she wasn’t exactly high stakes in the mothering department. I felt a pang of guilt at the acknowledgement. It was meant more for Stef than for me because I’d always been her golden child. The curse of being the carbon copy of Angelo Moretti, I guess. She’d always cut me a lot more slack than she ever had Stef. When she could be bothered paying attention to Stef at all, of course.
“Oof, I think I’ve got one.” Bruce let the line run for a bit, then reeled it in. I grabbed the net and scooped it out for him. “Heck yes, that’s a good one.” After he’d dropped the fish in the bucket and we’d both recast our line, I waited for him to pick up where he’d left off, talking about my mom. But he surprised me again. “He wasn’t the same after you left, you know. After the accident.”
That hurt. “No, I guess not.”
