Chapter Text
Gina allowed herself a little tipple while she waited for her nephew and his boyfriend – partner? – to arrive for their much-delayed dinner. Her mother’s funeral had been months ago, and she’d been hoping to host Thomas and Evan sooner, but their schedules were so hectic that this was the first free evening they’d been able to find.
Gina took another sip of sherry and double-checked that everything was ready for her guests’ arrival: the pot roast was perfection if she said so herself and the potatoes were as rich and creamy as her dear Siobhan had taught her. She’d tried something new with the vegetables: oven roasting them rather than boiling them as she’d been raised to do and the brussel sprouts were surprisingly flavourful, especially mixed with cheese and crispy bacon bits. She’d have to try the recipe again sometime maybe when it was her turn to host book club. Gina nodded to herself and took another sip of sherry. Yes, that sounded like a splendid idea.
As Gina was straightening the table settings for the umpteenth time, her doorbell rang.
Nerves fluttered through her stomach which was ridiculous. She was a fifty-two year old woman hosting her (much) older brother’s son and his partner – boyfriend? – for dinner after having barely any contact over the last fifteen years. She could do this. Everything was going to be fine.
Gina downed the last of her sherry before answering the door. She had to step a good two feet back in order to get a look at Thomas and Evan without straining her neck. God they were tall. “Come in! Come in!” She channelled all the good hostess energy she’d learned from her dearly departed mother to plaster a smile on her face as she accepted a bottle of wine and a bouquet of white roses (new beginnings if she remembered her flower meanings correctly. Although what were the odds that these two macho firefighters knew about the language of flowers?). “Lovely,” she exclaimed, burying her nose in the roses.
“I remembered they were your favourite,” Thomas said, and God did he look like his mother (her late sister-in-law) with those piercing blue eyes, that dark hair, those cheekbones, that look of caution.
“They’re perfect,” Gina declared. “Let’s go find a vase to put them in and then we’ll open this wine to let it breath.” She led the two of them into her little kitchen which didn’t usually feel so small but Gina was far from a large woman standing at five-foot-two and slim enough that she worried she was going to start developing osteoporosis in addition to the rheumatoid arthritis in her hands. Her doctor said she really should start weightlifting but the idea of trying to learn something so new and different was more daunting than she would ever admit out loud. All this to say that her galley kitchen had never really seemed that small to her until she had two six-foot-two, broad-shouldered men crowding her on either side as she opened the wine.
Well, at least she could make use of their height instead of fetching out her step ladder. “Evan, dear, would you be so kind as to fetch a vase out of that cabinet,” she pointed with a swollen, gnarled finger. “The cut glass one.”
The young man rushed to comply with far more enthusiasm than the task required, handing the vase down to her with a flourish and Gina thought she understood some of what her nephew saw in this man. “Thank you, dear.” She patted him on the cheek which in hindsight might have been a bit too familiar for what was only their second meeting but Thomas had brought Evan to his grandmother’s funeral. Personally, Gina thought that was only something a person did if they were in a serious relationship. But did she know? Her last romantic partner had died in 2006.
It didn’t seem like Evan minded anyway because he smiled and asked her where her kitchen shears were and then proceeded to trim the roses and arrange them in the vase for her, which Gina was grateful for because those roses had awfully thick stems and her shears weren’t overly sharp and trying to trim them herself would be murder on her hands.
“Anything I can do to help?” Thomas asked.
Gina tugged on his sleeve until he bent low enough that she could whisper in his ear. “He’s so much better than that boy you used to moon over as a teenager. The one with the weak chin.”
Thomas chuckled. “I’m glad you approve, Auntie. I kind of plan on keeping him.”
“Good,” she said with definitive nod of her head.
Over dinner, Gina watched the two of them, the way they exchanged glances that contained whole conversations, the way they held hands below the table where they thought Gina wouldn’t notice, the way they leaned ever-so-slightly in towards one another as though gravitationally drawn together. But what struck Gina most as they ate their way through her pot roast, potatoes, and cheesy bacon brussel sprouts was how much Thomas smiled. She’d known him all his life and she had never seen him smile so much, not even as a child.
Not that she could blame him. It was hard to smile in her brother’s house, hard to relax in that oppressive, authoritarian atmosphere where Jonathan Kinard’s word was law and his word fluctuated depending on how much he’d had to drink and how much his back hurt and what the weather was like. Which was why she’d hardly ever visited when Thomas was a child outside of family holidays.
She regretted that. Of course she did, leaving her sister-in-law alone in that house with three small boys and a tyrant. But what was Gina meant to do to defend them against a brother eight years her senior?
Gina shook herself mentally. Now was not the time to dwell on past regrets. Now was the time to savour her nephew’s happiness, to match his smile with one of her own, to think how happy his mother would have been to see him so happy now.
Once they’d devoured dinner and dessert (homemade cannoli – her mother’s recipe), Evan offered to do the dishes. More like insisted. “Seriously,” he said, gathering the last of the dirty things off the table. “You two have a lot to catch up on. I can manage on my own.”
“You’re sure, Evan?” Thomas asked and Evan gave him a look that seemed to serve as answer enough (slightly exasperated, but most assuredly fond). Thomas raised his hands in defeat.
“Come.” Gina placed her folded napkin on the table and led her nephew out into the living room to sit side-by-side on her forest green, velvet sofa. “I found some old pictures of your mother while sorting through some things the other day.” Which was a lie. She’d gotten home from her mother’s funeral three months ago after seeing Thomas again for the first time in fifteen year and had dug out her old photo albums immediately. Just in case.
She’d been so happy when, a few days later, he’d emailed. She’d have felt like a fool if he hadn’t. An old fool with too many regrets to count for all she was only fifty-two.
“Here,” she hands Thomas the photos. She carefully chosen pictures that only showed his mother Angela alone or with her children. She’d burned the ones containing her brother. She considered it a warmup for when Jonathan died and went to hell which was probably not a very charitable thought.
Thomas smiled sadly as he looked down at a picture of his mother standing next to him on the day of his high school graduation, days before she’d died in that accident. “She was so proud of me,” he said.
“Of course,” Gina said, taking his hand in hers. “You did what she wasn’t able to do: graduated high school.” His face fell and she wondered if he was regretting the fact that his mother had had to drop out of school after giving birth to him. “She never regretted having you, Thomas. Know that. You and Michael and Anthony were her world, her joy, her pride. So don’t ever think you weren’t wanted. Not by her.”
Thomas nodded. “I used to wish I’d never been born,” he admitted. “I thought maybe things would have been easier for her if she hadn’t had me, that he’d have been better to her.” No need to clarify who “he” meant. “I know now that he would have always found something to criticize her for. It’s just his nature.”
Gina squeezed his hand. “He got that from our father. I’m not sure who’s worse: your father or mine. I’m glad you got away from him. I’m only sorry I couldn’t be there to help you when needed me.”
“You have nothing to apologize for, Aunt Gina. It wasn’t your fault,” Thomas said. “I’m the one who ran away. I was so scared that I was broken, that I’d never amount to anything, that no one would ever love me, that everything he’d told me all my life was true. I was scared you’d reject me too.”
And Gina had to hug him after that. And if he cried a little bit, she’d never tell. “I wish I could have made you feel safe,” she said when he’d dried his eyes. “I regret not being able to do that for you and your brothers. That’s the only reason why I haven’t completely severed ties with Jonathan and his family. I want to be an option if one of the kids ever needs a place to go like you did.”
Thomas stiffened at the mention of his half-siblings, staying silent, expression closed in a way she hadn’t seen once throughout the course of the evening.
Gina pinched him on the arm. “Don’t you feel guilty about not protecting kids who were born long after you left home Thomas Angelo Kinard,” she said. “Your shoulders weren’t broad enough to carry the weight of the world back then and they still aren’t now if you can believe that.”
Thomas laughed. “I’ve missed you,” he said. “I wish I’d reached out sooner.”
“Ah, well,” Gina cleared her throat. She was definitely not about to cry. “We’ll have to make the best of the present.”
Thomas grinned that nose-crinkling grin that was the spitting image of his mother’s. “It’s a promise,” he said before growing serious again. “Evan and I were talking, after Nonna’s funeral, about my half-siblings.” He paused, shoulders hunching ever-so-slightly. “If they ever need a place to stay, we’d like to be there for them.”
“You mean it?” Gina asked, flabbergasted. “Evan agrees with this?”
“Yeah.” Thomas nodded. “We both know what it’s like to be saddled with less-than-ideal parents. To be honest, after the funeral, I got into a bit of a spiral, feeling guilty for not being able to do more to stand up to him. For not being there for Mikey and Tony after Mom died, for not even having met my half-siblings. I kept thinking about what if he was doing the same things to them and his new wife that he did to us.”
“None of that is your responsibility, Thomas,” said Gina.
“I know,” he said. “But just, let them known if they ever need a place where Dad can’t find them, they can come to ours.”
Gina nodded. “I’ll let them know.”
Thomas sighed and visibly relaxed. “Thank you.”
Feeling it was time to change the subject to something a bit happier, Gina asked, “so when are you and your young man getting married?”
And that was the moment Evan emerged from her kitchen, wearing her frilly apron with the silly chicken on it, sleeves pushed up to his elbows. He blushed and did an adorable little head tilt and Gina was hit once again by how smitten her nephew and this young man were with each other.
Evan perched on the arm of the sofa next to Thomas and leaned down to kiss the top of Thomas’s head before saying. “We’re still talking it over. Whether we want to get married. We’re weighing the pros and cons.”
Gina raised an eyebrow. “What’s there to discuss? You love each other. I understand you live with each other. Get married.”
Thomas laughed. “It just seems like a bit of an old fashioned formality,” he said. “A piece of paper to tell us what we already know: that we’re committed to each other.”
Gina hadn’t meant to say anything about Siobhan tonight, maybe not ever. She wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like Thomas and Evan would judge her, but maybe she liked to keep Siobhan close to her heart. But now, Gina felt compelled to tell a story she hadn’t told anyone before, not even her mother, God rest her soul. “Do you remember my best friend, Siobhan?” she asked, not sure how else to begin.
Thomas nodded. “She lived with you, right? After you quit being a nun. You were roommates.” Even as the words left his lips, his eyes went wide and his mouth formed an astonished “O”.
“She was the closest thing to a spouse I’ll ever have,” Gina continued trying her best to keep her voice steady and her eyes dry. “I loved her more than I can ever say. I still love her so much it hurts and she’s been dead for almost twenty years. She had a stroke. Lingered in the hospital for days on life support, but they wouldn’t let me see her. I wasn’t allowed to say goodbye. And when she died, her family claimed her body and I wasn’t even invited to her funeral. We were together for over a decade and I don’t even know where she’s buried, or if she’s buried or if they had her cremated.” She reached over and took Thomas’s hand in her left hand and Evan’s in her right and laid their hands over top one another. “I know things are better now, but take my advice and make sure the law recognizes you as family. Especially given how dangerous your jobs are. Do you want Jonathan Kinard to be called in as your next of kin?”
Thomas shivered. “You make a compelling argument.” He glanced over to Evan and a look passed between them, an entire conversation and Gina found herself missing her Siobhan more than she had in a very long time.
She sniffed. “I expect to be invited to the wedding.”
Evan and Thomas laughed, vibrant with joy, never breaking eye contact with one another. “I think that can be arranged,” her nephew said.
Later, after they’d said their goodbyes and Gina watched through her front window as they drove away, she whispered, “they’ll be alright, Angela. They’ll be happy.”