Chapter 11 – The Family We Choose

Three months later.

The air in the little Italian restaurant was thick with the smell of garlic, fresh basil, and roasting tomatoes.

It was loud. The good kind of loud.

Plates clattered, glasses clinked, and laughter bounced off the exposed brick walls.

I wiped down the front counter, smiling as a regular customer waved goodbye.

I wasn’t wearing a maid’s uniform anymore. I wore a comfortable, tailored blouse, and a small silver necklace my mother had bought me for my twenty-sixth birthday.

The front door chimed, and Michael walked in, carrying a massive crate of fresh produce from the local markets.

“Emily, tell the chef I got the Roma tomatoes he wanted!” Michael yelled over the din of the restaurant.

“Tell him yourself, you’re the co-owner!” I yelled back, laughing.

Michael rolled his eyes, carrying the crate toward the kitchen. He stopped and bumped my shoulder playfully. “You’re bossy, you know that?”

“Luca pays me to be bossy,” I reminded him.

Speak of the devil, the back office door opened, and Luca stepped out.

His arm was fully healed, and the heavy, dark shadows that used to haunt his eyes were completely gone. He looked like a man who had finally woken up from a long, terrible nightmare.

And right beside him, holding his hand, was Leo.

The boy was wearing a miniature apron over his clothes. He had flour on his nose.

“Look, Emmy!” Leo shouted, running toward me. “Papa showed me how to make the dough!”

I knelt down and wiped the flour off his nose. “Did he? Is it going to be the best pizza in Chicago?”

“The best in the world!” Leo declared.

Luca walked over, resting a heavy, warm hand on his son’s shoulder.

“He’s a natural,” Luca smiled. “Just like his grandfather.”

I looked at the two of them. They looked so alike. The dark hair, the olive eyes, the fierce but loving smiles.

“Your mother is sitting at table four,” Luca told me, gesturing toward the dining area. “She said to tell you to take a break and come eat.”

I looked over. My mother was sitting at a corner booth, sipping red wine and reading a book, looking more relaxed than I had ever seen her in my entire life.

She wore the emerald bracelet on her wrist.

I looked back at Luca.

“Thank you,” I said quietly. “For everything.”

Luca shook his head.

“No, Emily,” he said, his voice dropping to that serious, sincere tone he reserved only for family. “Thank you. You brought the light back into this family.”

He squeezed Leo’s shoulder gently. “Come on, Piccolo. Let’s go put this dough in the oven.”

“Okay, Papa!”

I watched them walk toward the kitchen, hand in hand.

I took off my apron and walked out into the dining room to join my mother.

I sat down across from her. She smiled, pouring me a glass of wine.

“Good day?” she asked.

I looked around the busy, warm restaurant. I listened to Michael yelling a joke in the kitchen, and Luca’s deep, booming laugh echoing over the sizzle of the stoves.

I picked up my glass.

“Yeah, Mom,” I smiled, taking a sip. “It’s a really good day.”

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