Letters to the Baumgarters (3 page)

The family gathered around the food, practically drooling, as Mama
Dorotea said a prayer, mentioning her dead husband at the end, asking the
family to remember him. I’d noticed the urn and photo of the mustachioed man on
the fireplace mantel when we came in and wondered how this woman had raised
four children nearly to adulthood on her own.

“
Ti amo,
Padre,
” Anna whispered at the end of the prayer,
reaching over and squeezing her mother’s hand. Mama Dorotea’s eyes were shiny
as she started passing around dishes full of gnocci, tortellini and castagnole.
It didn’t stay quiet for long. The two kids fought over who got the biggest and
best piece of lasagna while Anna continued her diatribe about their dilapidated
flat, and Caprice interjected with her own teen angst—a girl at school who
liked the same boy who refused to speak to her now.

Nico sat next to me, passing me dish after dish, forcing me to fill my
plate. There were frittelle—fritters fried to a perfect golden brown, filled
with meat and gravy. The
migliaccio di polenta
—polenta and sausage—was
so aromatic my stomach actually growled as I put some on my plate. I lost count
after a while of how many plates were passed piled with all sorts of pastas
filled with sweet prosciutto, smoky pancetta, and buttery sopressata.

“What did I tell you about the food?” Nico asked, nudging me, his mouth
half-full. I could only whimper in response, sweet, heavenly pasta melting on
my tongue. If there was something I loved almost as much as the Italian
language, it was Italian food, and this was the best I’d ever had in nearly a
year living in Italy.

“Nico made the lasagna,” Mama Dorotea said, smiling over at me. “And the
Zeppole
for dessert. Wait until you taste!”

“You cook?” I managed, swallowing the perfect bite with a bit of wine.

His cheeks pinked up as he shoveled another mouthful in, not responding.

“Our Nico is the best cook in the family.” Mama Dorotea reached over and
ruffled his hair, making her son blush a deeper shade of red.

“Mama!” he protested, waving her away.

“It’s true,” Caprice piped up. “No one can outcook Nico.”

“Nona Lara was better,” Nico said, gulping his own wine. “My
grandmother,” he said to me. “She’s who taught me how to cook.”

“Nona Lara watched the children while I worked,” Mama Dorotea explained.
“She was here when they came home from school every day.”

“We made dinner together every night,” Nico said.

And now I had a clear picture of this family, the single, young widowed
mother, a grandmother staying home to take care of the children while she
worked. I hadn’t been in the midst of any sort of family for a long time, and
it felt good to be in the middle of the chatter, the teasing, the inside jokes
I didn’t understand but made me smile anyway. I didn’t know if it was the wine,
the food, or the people, but I was far more comfortable than I had expected to
feel surrounded by strangers. It probably should have made me nostalgic for my
own family, but my mother, although a single mother in her own right, had given
me turkey TV-dinners on Thanksgiving and always confused my birthday with her
own. It was hard to miss stuff like that.

“Thanks for inviting me,” I whispered to Nico while the two kids argued
with their mother about getting dessert if they hadn’t finished their dinner. I
saw his mother smile at us approvingly, saw the look she exchanged with her
oldest daughter when Nico leaned in to say “You’re welcome,” into my ear.

“Mama!” A voice called from the other room and everyone looked up.

“They’re here!” Mama Dorotea stood, putting her napkin down on the table
and rushing toward the doorway. “They’re here! They’re here!”

“They’re here!” The kids jumped up and followed and so did both Anna and
Caprice. Only Sal sat unmoving, shoveling in huge mouthfuls of lasagna.

“You’d think the messiah had returned,” I murmured, making Nico snort
laughter beside me.

“You could say that,” he replied with a smile. “You see, my sister and
her husband—”

That was as far as he got before the whole lot of them burst into the
room, all surrounding a pretty young woman with the same dark hair, hers cut
shorter than the rest, curling around her cherubic face, her blue eyes bright
with laughter.

“Let us take a breath!” the young woman—Giulia, I assumed—exclaimed, her
gaze falling on her brother. “Can you help me, Nico?”

He stood, taking two strides toward his sister to take something from her
arms. It took me a moment to register what it was, and by the time Nico had
reached me, his sisters and mother following, exclaiming all around him, I felt
rooted in my chair, trapped and speechless.

“Meet his highness, the Bianchi messiah, my sister’s son, Luka—the first
boy in the family since I was born.” Nico pulled back the blue knitted blanket
to show me the tiny face of a very newborn baby. He couldn’t have been more
than a week or two old, his little hand drawn up to his mouth, eyes screwed up
tight as he sucked on his fingers.

Everyone was quiet now, focused on me and my reaction. I knew what I was
supposed to do and say, but I couldn’t find the words. They were caught in my
throat.

“Give the woman a little room.” It was Sal, Anna’s husband, who spoke up.
“You’re overwhelming her.”

And of course, he was absolutely correct.

“Excuse me.” I managed to stand, grabbing the back of the chair for
support, before bolting down the hall toward the bathroom. I sat on the
commode, my head tucked between my knees, my whole body trembling. They were
talking again, maybe about me, but it sounded more like they were exclaiming
over the baby.

The baby.

Oh my god, I’d just run out of the room like an idiot. What must they
think?

But I couldn’t let them see me like this, shaking and holding back sobs
and trying to draw breath into my lungs like a fish out of water. Sometimes the
pain came out of nowhere and blindsided me. It was like getting hit upside the
head by a two by four from behind. It just flattened me.

“Dani?” Nico knocked gently on the door, calling my name. I thought about
not answering him, pretending I was invisible. That was ridiculous, of course.
I was going to have to face him—face all of them.

“Just a moment,” I called, hearing the quiver in my voice and cursing it.
I stood, checking my face in the mirror—tear-streaked, nose red, mascara
running. I was a mess.

“Come out,” he called, knocking again. “Whatever it is, we don’t have to
talk about it.”

How did he know just the right thing to say? I gravitated toward the door
and unlocked it, peeking out. He must have seen my face, known I’d been crying.
I hadn’t washed it or tried to cover it up.

“I have something to show you.” He extended his hand. “Come with me.”

“I can’t,” I croaked, shrinking back. “You don’t understand.”

“Trust me.”

“I hardly know you.” I sniffed.

“Trust me anyway.”

I took his offered hand and followed.

Chapter Two

Dear Carrie and Doc,

You’re not going to believe

Remember how I said I wasn’t interested in

Carnavale turned out to be a lot more interesting than I expected…

* * * *

“Carnavale.” He whispered the word into my ear. The city was laid out
before us like brightly colored jewels on velvet. The lights of the parade and
shows going on below in the Piazza lit up all of Venice. Each costumed dancer
glittered like a piece of shiny candy we could have plucked up and eaten. I
watched, enthralled, feeling Nico’s warm breath against my cheek. Even in my
desperate attempt to avoid the festivities, I couldn’t help but be a part of
them. Italy had a way of drawing you in, whether you liked it or not.

It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

“This is your place?” I asked, hugging myself as I looked down through
the little window of the attic room.

“Yes.” He peered over my shoulder and I felt him pressed against me, long
and lean. “This way, I can have my own space, but also be near my family.”

“You’re close with them?”

He shrugged. “They’re my family. I take care of them since my mother, she
can’t work anymore.”

“She was a seamstress?” I remembered her talking about it.

“Her arthritis is too bad now for her to work.”

“Thank you for showing me this.” I turned slightly to look at him, his
eyes gleaming silver in the darkness. “Thank you for inviting me today. About
what happened… I’m sorry…”

“Come. Sit.” He led me over to his bed and we perched on the edge, side
by side. If I hadn’t known he was gay, and if I hadn’t had so much wine to
drink, I wouldn’t have followed him. I would have been on my guard and tense
when he put his arm around me and held me close. But I felt safe with him,
safer than I had with a single man in a long time, so I let him comfort me,
settling in as we reclined on his bed, tucking my head under his chin.

“Do you want to talk about it, bella?”

Bella.
He was just using a common Italian endearment, the word for
beautiful. He couldn’t have known the memories it triggered for me.

“No.” I shook my head and held on, closing my eyes. “Can we just… not
talk.”

“Si.” His lips brushed my forehead and I sighed in relief. If I’d had to
explain, I would have broken down completely, shattered into a million little
pieces that poor Nico would have had to pick up and somehow put back together
before we went down to face his family.

Instead we held each other, the music of Carnavale playing below like the
soundtrack of a distant dream. It was probably the wine coursing through me,
making me far too warm in the chilly attic room. I hadn’t had that much to
drink in a long time, and even all the food we’d consumed hadn’t dampened the
buzzing in my head.

It was the wine—that’s what I told myself when Nico began stroking my
hair, sending little shivers through me. I reminded myself that this was
impossible, that he was simply comforting a crazy woman he’d had the misfortune
to invite into his home. That I was lucky he hadn’t kicked me out at the first
sign of insanity. And maybe we were both a little drunk and lonely and looking
for comfort that night.

“Your family,” I reminded him after a while, although I didn’t want to
move. I was sleepy and it felt so good to be held in a man’s arms again, even
if nothing was going to come of it. Maybe because nothing was going to come of
it.

“Shhh.” He kissed my forehead, tightening his arms around me. “Don’t
remind me.”

I smiled. “We can’t stay here forever.”

“What happened to not talking?”

“But—”

I gasped in surprise when he silenced me with a kiss—and not a brotherly
little kiss either, this was a full, hard sort of kiss that deepened the longer
it went on. I felt faint when we broke apart, my limbs trembling.

“I’m sorry,” he panted. “It was the best way I could think of to keep you
quiet.”

“It worked,” I whispered, looking at him in the darkness, incredulous.
This couldn’t be happening. For all sorts of reasons.

He kissed me again, this time slower, exploring, his hand running down my
side, over my hip, pulling my pelvis in against his. I moaned in response,
shifting toward him, sliding my leg up over his.

I don’t know how it happened. I told myself we were drunk, crazy with the
sights of Carnavale. Like the masked revelers in the streets, we were
anonymous, just heat and friction together in the darkness. I forgot about
everything in his arms, giving in to pure sensation, letting instinct and
desire alone guide me.

I think I tried to protest once, questioning his motives—and my own—but
he drowned me with kisses, the weight of his body on mine a welcome relief from
thought. His mouth slanted across mine and he wedged his thigh between my legs,
rocking us on the bed to the faint beat of a distant drum. I clung to him, just
as hungry as he was.

“Is this okay?” he gasped, kissing his way down my neck, opening the V of
my blouse.

“Yes,” I urged, daring to reach down and cup his crotch in response,
sighing happily at the bulge found there. The heat of him through his jeans was
incredible. I wrapped my legs around him, arching to give him better access as
he fumbled with the front hook on my bra, the buttons of my blouse already
undone to my waist. “Wait, did you lock the door?”

“Of course.” His mouth moved over my breasts, leaving hot trails of
saliva. I didn’t even have time to register that he might have been planning
this all along—or was it just an opportunity we both took? I still couldn’t
quite wrap my head around what I’d assumed—that he was definitely gay and not
interested in me sexually—with what was happening now.

I thought about saying something, asking, clarifying—but I didn’t want to
break the mood.

It had been far too long since I’d let a man touch me, and with his hands
and mouth roaming and the feel of his hard cock pressed against my hip, the
word “no” seemed to have vanished from my vocabulary. Besides, Nico was not
only attractive, he was clearly skilled. His tongue made hot circles around my
nipple while he unzipped my jeans, sliding a hand inside to find the soft,
hairless swell of my labia with his fingers.

“Smooth,” he murmured, his eyes widening in surprise. I hadn’t gone
native, still keeping up with the American trend of shaving my pussy
completely. “Oh bella, she’s so soft…”

I squirmed as he began exploring, working my jeans down my hips, wanting
to give him more. He helped me, tossing them aside as he settled himself
between my thighs, my panties still on, the crotch already soaking wet. Nico
brushed his cheek against the silk, breathing me in, and I ran a hand through
his hair, my nails digging into his shoulders when his tongue found me through
the material.