AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Carlo picked me up from the train station, a smirk on his face, and I rolled my eyes as I got into his aging pickup truck. Paint spattered his jeans, though his sweatshirt was clean, which meant he’d changed before he’d come to get me.
“I only came because I didn’t want to cook today,” I said, poking him in the ribs as he started the truck. “Not because I wanted to see your raggedy self.”
“Raggedy? This is my best sweatshirt,” Carlo protested, honking at the car in front of us who dared to wait until the light turned fully green before moving forward. “Come on…learn how to drive.”
The driver ahead of us offered a one-fingered salute that Carlo cheerfully returned. Driving in Boston was not for the faint of heart, and most people fell into two camps—they either enthusiastically strode into battle each day, or like me, they defaulted completely out of the game and took the train everywhere. Plus, it wasn’t like I could afford to keep a car in Boston, not with the outrageous parking fees. The city was easy enough to get around in, and the train was there when the weather became too bothersome for walking. In the winter, when the nor’easters would blow through, people would often spend an entire day shoveling out their parking spots. Once a spot was cleared, the driver would put a chair in the spot to claim it as their own, and it was considered sacrilege to steal someone else’s cleared parking spot. Of course, things didn’t often go that way, and I’d spent many an afternoon peeking through my window as my neighbors got into arguments in the snow. I didn’t get a lot of time off, and when I did, it wasn’t going to be spent arguing with strangers over parking.
Except that had all changed, hadn’t it?
I still was a touch nauseous over my decision to quit Suzette’s, though the email and subsequent telephone call I’d had with this Sophie woman in Scotland had eased some of the queasiness regarding my abrupt decision to leave my job. Now, thoughts of castles and Scottish cuisine whirled through my head, and I had trouble focusing as my brother wound us through the streets of Medford toward our childhood home.
“You’re gonna tell them, right?” Carlo asked, as he cut a car off to snag a parking spot in front of my parents’ house. A triple-decker-style house, they had rented the first-floor unit for as long as I could remember, though I was told we’d moved into the apartment when I was two. With two bedrooms, one bathroom, and a generous living area, I’d grown up without the concept of personal space. When I’d become a teenager, I’d abdicated from the room I’d shared with my brothers and had claimed a storage closet as my own. Although it had taken up much-needed storage space, my mother had recognized the need for me to have some personal space away from my rough-and-tumble siblings, and together, we’d managed to fit a narrow mattress into the space. I’d hung a pretty shade I’d found at a rummage sale over the lightbulb and had used the upper shelves that lined the walls for my meager belongings and a few knickknacks. It was cozy, albeit at times suffocating, but having my own door to close had meant everything to me.
As the second oldest of five children to two very busy parents, I’d been tasked with raising the rest of my siblings when my parents weren’t around to discipline us. Now, I found it funny how my brothers tried to muscle their way into my life and offer me their opinions on everything from whom I should date to how I should spend my money. Which was rarely, mind you, as evidenced by my empty apartment and even more empty love life.
“Like I can keep anything a secret in this family,” I said as I got out of the truck and took a deep breath. I hated knowing that I was about to break my mother’s heart. She’d never been so happy as when I’d become head chef, following her own love of cooking, and now I had to tell her that I’d quit. Carlo came around the truck and slung his arm over my shoulders, pulling me close.
“Want me to run interference?”
“Oh sure, now you want to be the nice guy. After you threatened to tell her I was fired yesterday?” I glared up at him. I’d inherited my mother’s temper—which ran hot and burned out fast—while my dad often quietly absorbed difficult news with an air of disapproval. I couldn’t say what was more difficult to handle when breaking bad news, but either way, I wasn’t looking forward to this dinner.
“Ma! Lia’s here.” Carlo pushed the door open. “And she’s got big news.”
“Wow, really?” I glared at my brother as my mother came bustling out of the kitchen, a dish cloth in her hands, her brown hair springing out in ringlets around her head.
“Mia cara. Mi sei mancata.” My mother, Giana Maria Elenora Blackwood, hugged me with a worried look hovering in her pretty brown eyes. I’d also inherited her brown eyes and olive skin, which contrasted with the ginger hair my father had passed down to the lot of us. To this day, my mother still shook her head at her five red-haired children, as though she couldn’t believe we’d come from her blood.
“I’ve missed you too.” I hugged my mother, a shorter and rounder woman than me, and breathed in the scent of basil and garlic. Staples in our kitchen, I’d learned to cook the most basic of Italian food at my mother’s hip before my head even reached the countertop. There, she’d also taught me to add her favorite ingredient—love. How many times had I heard her?“Cecilia Giana, when you can’t determine what’s missing in a recipe, look for love, because love—being in love, loving another—is always the perfect ingredient.”
“Nerd alert!”
That was all the warning I had before my brother Luca tackled me from behind. We hit the ground in a tangle of limbs, and I twisted, wrapping my arm around his neck, and squeezing until he gasped for air.
“Ma! Lia’s hurting me!” Luca cried.
“Cecilia Giana Blackwood, let go of your brother this instant.”
I relaxed the grip on my youngest brother’s neck, rolling my eyes at his smug grin. He’d always been the baby of the family and still lived with my parents today. When he stood, my mother swatted him on the side of his head, and he ducked.
“What’s that for?”
“That’s no way to treat a lady, Luca. It’s no wonder you’re still single. I could have grandbabies, couldn’t I? But nothing fromyou.” My mother subsided into muttering in Italian as she strode back to the kitchen to stir the sauce that simmered in her favorite pot on the stove.
“You hear that, Lia? Time to start popping them out,” my second youngest brother, Gio, teased from where he played video games on the couch with Enzo. The five of us all had Italian names, as my mother still couldn’t quite get over the fact that she’d fallen in love with a Scotsman. Her argument to this day was that since we carried my father’s surname, it had been her right to pick the rest of our names. My father had been wise enough to not argue the point. Not that he ever argued much with my mother, instead almost always bowing quietly to her wishes. To this day, I’d never seen a man so besotted with his wife. Their love was a towering example to live up to in my own relationships. Who was I kidding? My dating life was as barren as myWomb of Disappointmentas Enzo had lovingly nicknamed my uterus.
“The only thing I’m going to pop is my fist into your nose if you don’t shut up.” I lifted my fist in warning, though I kept my voice low. The fear of a rebuke from my mother was real. This was the first time we’d all been together in ages, and I knew she’d be furious if we bickered too much.
“Lia, plates.” At my mother’s call from the kitchen, I brandished my fist once more at my brothers and went to help set the kitchen table that dominated a large amount of the living space in the apartment. It was another point that my mother had steadfastly refused to acquiesce. We could live with a smaller couch, but the kitchen table was where family gathered. Over the years, the wooden table had grown worn with use, and the accompanying chairs had been re-covered more than once. The table itself had taken on its own place in our family, as that is where we met to share news, have difficult conversations, or even just to sit in companionable silence while my father read the paper.
“Lia, your mother tells me you have news?” my father said after he’d eaten a good portion of his fettucine al pomodoro and could relax under the watchful eye of my mother who was convinced we were always just minutes away from starvation. My father, Colin Blackwood, was a broad-shouldered man with kind eyes and an easygoing disposition. His personality was the perfect foil for my mother’s heated temper and passionate nature.
My stomach twisted, and I put my fork down, nerves making me reach for my glass of wine. After a healthy sip, I looked up at the silence that had fallen around the table. In a family of seven people, silence was rare.
“I quit my job…and I mightbemovingtoScotland.” I rushed out the last bit in one long breath, afraid that if I didn’t say it now, then I’d never work up the courage to say it at all. Let alone actually do it, that is. Moving to Boston was one thing, but to Scotland? I waited, holding my breath, as my family exploded in varying degrees of reactions.
“Mio dio.” My mother crossed herself.
“You quit?” Luca looked excited. “Badass.” He ducked when my mother reached out to swat his head for cursing.
