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She put her hand on her stomach and laughed, then pulled out the chair next to me and sat down.
“Come si dice?Err, just married?”
“A few months.” I rested my hand on my stomach like she had.
“Un bambino?”she gasped.
I smiled and nodded. “Do you have any children?”
Francesca held up three fingers, then folded two so only one remained. She rested her chin on her hand. “I have only one daughter now.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, patting her arm that rested on the table.
“A daughter and son, lost.”
“Were they young?” I asked.
She shook her head, then looked over her shoulder in the direction of the kitchen before pulling something out of her pocket. It was a plastic sleeve.“Marco e Marco,”she said, showing me one side containing a black-and-white photo and the other, a more recent color image.
I pointed at the first.“Marito?”
She nodded.
“Tuo figlio?”I asked.
“Yes, my son.”
“You’re doing really well,” Delfino said through the comms. I managed to stop myself from appearing startled, but I had been. I’d forgotten she was listening in. And while Francesca’s accent was strong, I was able to understand everything she’d said thus far.
“Your firstborn?” I asked.
“No. The baby.”
“This is our first,” I said, again stroking my stomach.
“I was very young when my first was born.”
“How old?”
“Twenty-two.” She studied the black-and-white photo of her husband. “Too young.”
“You speak very good English,” I commented.
Francesca’s hunched shoulders straightened, and she smiled. “I practice.” She reached over as if she was patting herself on the back.
“I’m twenty-seven,” I said, bringing the conversation back around to her children.
“I was thirty,” she said, flipping the sleeve over and pointing at the young man.
“And your other daughter? How old were you when you had her?”
“Same as you, err…”
“Twenty-seven?”
She nodded, and my eyes met Rogue’s over her head. His widened, and he looked beyond us in the direction of the kitchen. When my gaze returned to Francesca’s, I noticed she’d absentmindedly taken a sip of the water.
“Mama!”I heard a woman shout from behind the swinging door.
