“I won’t do that, Roman. I can’t. No more than you’d tell me to come with you. Because you know I can’t. This is my home. And I will not be the reason you turned your back on what you’ve worked for or the promise you made to your father. It might not happen right away, but at some point you’d resent me for it, maybe despise me for it. And I’d hate myself for making you choose. You have to be the one to choose. It’s your life. Hey.” She brushed a finger across his cheek at the shock in his eyes. “It’s okay. We caught it in time. It’s not like either one of us is in love, right? We can walk away without being hurt.”
Oh, but she did hurt. A hurt so deep she could feel it in her bones. But that would be her secret. For as long as she needed to keep it.
“You know what?” She pulled away and stood up. “I’m going to head home. Better yet? I’m going to take a long walk on the beach. Alone,” she added when he struggled for his crutches. She leaned down and slipped off her sandals, dangling them from her fingers as she backed away. “I’ll see you at the station tomorrow, all right? Thank you for dinner.” Because she couldn’t resist, because she needed to touch him one more time, she leaned in and kissed him. “Goodbye, Roman.”
She was halfway down the beach before she let the tears fall.
* * *
CHRISTMAS EVE BROUGHT with it the familiar selection of seasonal music drifting quietly through the station house. In prepping for this evening’s Feast of the Seven Fishes, his mother had thought of everything, right down to the musical ambience.
Closing the door to his room and hobbling into the kitchen, Roman recalled how she’d arrived at the station that morning with even more of a spring in her step than usual, and a twinkle in her eye that would have rivaled the North Star.
Ozzy and Jasper were now helping her with the final touches for the evening by setting up two banquet tables she’d conned out of Jake at the youth center. Near as he could tell, she was expecting more than a dozen people for the first feast she’d hosted in five years.
“Are you going to wear that to dinner?” Ezzie halted next to him and stared. Their guests were due to arrive at any moment. Guests. At the station house. “Honestly, Roman. It’s Christmas Eve and you aren’t on call. Put on a tie, please.” She gave him “the look.”
He returned to his room and sorted through his meager selection of clothes that fortunately included a navy suit and tie. The same suit he’d worn for his interview with the feds. He changed and returned to find his mother steaming vegetables. “You look nice,” he told her. “Is that a new dress?”
“It is. I bought it for a cruise then didn’t wear it.” She spun, and the flare of the skirt had it lifting slightly. The dark green complimented her features, and the circle of embroidered poinsettias along the hem gave it that extra-festive touch. “There’s this darling retro shop back in Boston. It’s like being transported to the 1950s.” She touched the sharp-edged collar at her throat. “Oh, how your father would have loved to have seen you here in this kitchen.”
“Only if you were here with us.” He missed those days, walking in on his parents while they cooked for the holidays. The way they’d feign embarrassment over being caught kissing over the simmering sauce or dancing to the music drifting through the house. He wanted that. With Frankie. Those spur-of-the-moment bursts of happiness and joy, wrapped up in each other, spinning about the kitchen. He’d been hoping he might have had that with her. Until she made it clear they wouldn’t.
“Whatever’s been eating at you, either spit it out or chew it up,” Ezzie ordered. “Tonight’s a night for celebrating new life, a new year. The joy of the season. Not Ebenezer Scrooge’s worst qualities.”
He managed a smile at that. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Oh, and Roman?” Ezzie touched her hair. “Whatever screwed things up between you and Frankie? Please fix it. I’m not losing that girl now that I’ve found her.”
Roman couldn’t help but laugh. “Yes, ma’am.”
He hadn’t anticipated that a little over an hour later, he’d find that his mother—with Ozzy’s and Jasper’s help—had transformed the station house into a winter wonderland of lights and color. Frankie had done a job all on her own, but his mother just took it to the next level, including wrapped presents under the tree and a long, cloth-covered table beautifully set for eighteen.
Frankie was darting around the kitchen, following his mother’s instructions as Roman straightened his tie. He froze when he saw her, laughing and teasing his mother as they worked together, arranging platters of fish and pasta. She didn’t get the lecture about the evening’s dress code since she was on duty, but he entertained himself with thoughts of what she might have worn had circumstances, and work shifts, been different. The entire station house smelled like they’d been dropped into the middle of an Italian village, and there, on the back counter, sat a lasagna ready for tomorrow’s dinner.