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“Pizza?” she said, in her oddly deep and churlish baby voice. They never talked about which child was fathered by whom, but their daughter’s paternity was pretty obvious.
“We’ll ask Fang if there’s pizza.” I was pretty sure pizza had been her first word. I doubted that was what Rodrigo was making for supper, but I wasn’t a bearer-of-bad-tidings kind of uncle. She rested her head on my chest and rubbed her eye sleepily as I carried her carefully down the stairs, probably more terrified that I would inadvertently hurt her than Severin could ever hope I would be. I entered the dining room with her, and she immediately put her arms out for Sev.
“Want Fang.”
I handed her to him. How the children had ever started calling one of their fathers Fang, I had no idea, but it had stuck. I couldn’t imagine what Prospero’s poor teacher would do when the children were supposed to be making Father’s Day cards.
Severin shielded her from the others’ view with his big body and frowned. “You didn’t fix Conk’s hair. Minnow won’t be happy.” He spirited her out of the room as though I had dipped the child in blue paint. Parents were weird. The kids ran around like wildlings most of the time, but as soon as strangers might see them, they had to be neatly turned out.
I stuck to the edges of the room, listening to my sister-in-law make easy conversation with the people I’d fucked, knowing Rodrigo wouldn’t have had time to tell her. She conversed so effortlessly itreminded me of Martine, except unlike my mother, my sister-in-law didn’t have a mean bone in her body.
By the time Severin returned, Concordia was wearing a gorgeous, color-coordinated outfit, and her hair was flawless. No doubt he’d changed the messy diaper, too. Not my job.
Severin handed her off to Minnow when she asked for her.
“If you get tired you tell me.” Severin’s voice held an affectionate warning.
“Yes, Mister Leduc.”
His mouth quirked at the corner. “It’s good you know not to sass me when we have company, Missus Solis-Leduc.”
Tarryn chuckled.
Soon, we sat down to eat. Rodrigo had made an elegant meal in honor of the guests, but with Severin-sized helpings.
“So, did they tell you? Our guests had already met Loïc,” Rodrigo said, looking like a cat that had been left unsupervised in a canary superstore.
“Oh?” Minnow sat up straighter, the creeping exhaustion in her eyes turning into a glimmer of reenergized interest.
Valor drank some wine. I stuffed a bite of sautéed asparagus into my mouth. Minnow turned her attention to Tarryn.
“From their expressions,” Minnow drawled, arching a brow at Tarryn, “I’m assuming you didn’t bump into each other at a coffee shop.”
“No, it was a vanilla club, which was why we thought we might be safe and not stepping on any toes.”
“Well, it’s a little close to home, but it could have been worse.” Minnow grinned. “You hadn’t even met Severin before, so it’s not as close as it would have been if it was Rodrigo’s brother.”
I felt her gaze slide to me, and I took a long sip of my wine.
“Yes, at least it wasn’t Fidel,” I mumbled, feeling my face heat.
I could feel Minnow trying to read me, but there were certain subjects people didn’t bring up in polite company, and I was lost about what was appropriate and inappropriate in this situation.
She was the kind of family member who pried, but only because she gave a damn. I’d spent the first two years of our acquaintance wondering when she would betray me and my confidences. Now I knew she wasn’t like that.
It’s okay to love Minnow and Rodrigo as long as you’re not in love with them.
My brother’s voice echoed in my mind. It was a bridge we had crossed. He had laid out his ground rules after my temporary exile from the family, and I would never, ever break them. Not again. It wasn’t worth losing the three of them and all of the support they gave me in this strange world. And the children—I loved them to distraction, and would do anything to keep them in my life.
“I’m so sorry,” I said to Minnow. “I had no idea you knew each other.”
She gave me a genuine smile, which was actually a smile and not a threat, as I would have assumed, back in the day. “There’s no reason why you should have known. It’s not like we gave you a list of people to avoid. They’re not off-limits anyway, especially now.”
I swallowed, even though it was a lump in my throat and not food. She was always so patient with me and understood the questions I didn’t even ask aloud. It probably had a lot to do with her knowing Severin so well. We hadn’t seemed alike when I first met them, but now, after years of spending time together, our similarities had become more evident.
“I have friends at school,” Prospero added, “and when Conk is old enough to go to school, she can be friends with them, too. Sharing friends means more fun for everyone.” He looked at Concordia who emphatically slapped the piece of pizza on her plate with her palm.
“Pizza!”
