by Bethany-Kris
• • •
Gabbie palmed the mug as Michel finished explaining to his father just how they had gotten to this point. Coming to New York, being married, and finally, sitting at this very table. He’d skimped on some details, leaving out the fact he had been the one to drop the final straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back in Detroit, but she didn’t mind.
She understood why.
Dante exhaled heavily and rested back in his chair. “Give me a second, Michel. To digest.”
Michel nodded. “Yeah, I know. It’s a lot.”
Catrina, on the other hand, eyed her son pensively. “You stopped calling as much as you used to this last year.”
“I’m sorry, Ma, I just—”
“Is this why?”
Michel shifted in his chair. “I mean, part of it, yeah.”
Gabbie had never felt more awkward than she did in those moments. Maybe it was because the conversation had quickly turned serious, and she realized just how much of her private moments with Michel were being laid out bare on the table for basically strangers to dissect. Oh, sure, they were his parents.
But she didn’t know them.
Not that well.
It didn’t help that whenever Catrina spoke, she did so shortly, and with little emotion to her tone. Yet, the woman’s eyes blazed. Gabbie understood why, sure, but it didn’t make it anymore comfortable to sit there at the table like nothing was wrong.
“The Irish …” Dante trailed off, giving Michel a raised brow. “Will I need to handle that?”
“I don’t think so,” Michel returned. “Charles made his position clear.”
Catrina’s gaze flicked to Gabbie, then. “Yes, shame, that.”
She didn’t know what to say.
So, she said nothing.
It was only the roar of a car’s engine somewhere outside the house that stopped their conversation. Soon after, the front door slammed closed, and footsteps echoed down the hallway leading to the dining room.
“I thought you weren’t coming home for Christmas this year?”
Everyone, including Gabbie, turned to find a young woman standing in the entryway. Catherine, Gabbie thought … Michel’s one and only sibling. He’d never talked much about her, but the two siblings looked fondly at one another all the same.
Michel smiled. “Nice to see you, too, little sister.”
Catherine stuck her tongue out in response. “Seriously, no one thought to tell me?”
Well, there was that awkwardness again. Silence coated the table, because clearly, no one wanted to explain to Catherine the same things Michel had just gone through before she arrived. Gabbie looked to Michel, but he glanced his father’s way. Dante, to his benefit, was staring at his wife like she might like to be the one to explain.
“Well, you see …” Catrina started, making a face as though she couldn’t find the right words to use. Gabbie wished she could just shrink away into her chair, and be done with it.
“It was a surprise for us, too,” Dante finished for his wife.
Catherine seemed like she didn’t care at all as she turned to Gabbie with a wide smile. “Hi, I’m Catherine.”
She smiled back. “Gabbie.”
The first thing Gabbie thought about Catherine was that she didn’t look a lot like her brother. She shared her father’s green eyes, his dark hair, but her mother’s entire face, essentially. But the way she tilted her head to the side as she regarded her brother … Gabbie found familiarity there because Michel did the same thing when he was considering something.
“Holy shit,” Catherine said to Michel, “you brought home a girl.”
Michel relaxed next to Gabbie. “Yeah, I guess I did, Catty.”
Dante chuckled across the table. “Sort of.”
Heat rose to Gabbie’s cheeks at the implication in the man’s words.
“What did I miss?” Catherine asked.
The silence echoed.
Catherine, again, didn’t seem to care as she turned to her brother for an answer. “You didn’t, like … knock her up or something, right?”
Michel barked out a laugh.
Gabbie had the strangest urge to smack him for it, too.
“No,” he said.
Okay, this was grand, but Gabbie had just about enough of being the brunt of the joke. As if this wasn’t awkward enough, it was only being made worse. Maybe this hadn’t been the best time to do this.
She didn’t hide the roll of her eyes as she said to Michel, “Well, this has been fun, but maybe it’s time to go.”
Catrina quickly stood from her seat, and her gaze locked on Gabbie, then. “Please stay; this was just a bit of a shock, that’s all.”
Dante nodded. “Yes, stay.”
Gabbie looked to Michel.
She would … if he would.
He winked.
“Seriously, what did I miss?” Catherine asked louder.
Michel cleared his throat, gave Gabbie a small smile, and then lifted his hand for his sister to see the gold band on his ring finger. A new addition to his hand, but permanent. At least … if he wasn’t in a hospital working. They’d picked up matching bands that morning after breakfast because Michel didn’t want to wait. And frankly, neither did she.
“Meet my wife, Catherine.”
• • •
“Gabbie, would you like to help me make some bread?”
On the couch, Gabbie stiffened.
Beside her, Catherine let out a light laugh. Michel’s sister was nothing like him, and yet, Gabbie still felt herself drawn to the young woman. There was something haunting in her eyes, and yet, a strength, too. Like nothing she had ever seen before in someone else. Catherine was also easy to like.
She needed to make friends here, didn’t she?
“I don’t know what that sound was for, Catty,” Catrina said from the doorway, “but you better correct it.”
Catherine rolled her eyes and stood from the couch. “You’re a little intimidating, that’s all, Ma. Don’t have a stroke.”
“Catherine.”
“I’m not wrong, though.” Catherine winked down at Gabbie and smiled. “Her bark is way worse than her bite—watch out for the claws, though. They’re the real killers.”
She could tell Catherine was just trying to poke at her mother, and it was amusing. Not to mention the way Catrina fumed in the doorway.
“Stop making up lies about me,” Catrina said, a smile starting to grow. “I don’t bark, Catherine. I enunciate words like a proper fucking lady, and use them like knives to cut people down, as anyone would. And if someone isn’t doing that, well that’s a damn shame, because they should.”
Jesus.
“I would love to make bread with you,” Gabbie said, standing from the couch as well. “A wee bit late for it, though, isn’t it?”
Catrina gave her daughter a look. “See, she’s going to be fine.”
“Mmhmm. Watch the claws, Gabbie. That’s all I’m saying.”
Catherine drifted from the living room soon after, which left Gabbie alone with Catrina.
Waving a hand for her to follow, Catrina turned away from the entryway as she said, “Making bread is how I decompress, and think. No one around here complains when there is always fresh bread to eat.”
“I do like bread, but …”
“Hmm?”
“Do you have a good whole wheat recipe? I’m a type two diabetic, and—”
Catrina turned fast, almost making Gabbie bump into her at the same time. “Are you?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” Catrina rubbed her hands together. “I’ll check what I have, but if I don’t have what we need, then we can call one of my sisters-in-law. They’ll have the rest.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Of course, I do. Now come on, let’s go cook.”
Catrina didn’t need to call for more ingredients; they ended up finding everything in the home’s very large pantry. Gabbie was still a bit overw
helmed at how large the home was, and she thought her childhood house was huge. Not to mention, from the outside, the place looked like an upscale family lived here, but inside?
That’s where the wealth was.
And it was everywhere.
“Yes, those are real gold-plated spoons,” Catrina said as Gabbie eyed the utensils that had been haphazardly thrown in a cup to make coffee. “They don’t get any use unless I put them there, and people still hesitate.”
“Because it’s gold, maybe?”
She was not unaccustomed to wealth.
They lived a good life.
This was not the same.
Catrina made a noise under her breath as she pushed a bag of flour across the island to Gabbie. “Possibly. Get it opened, hmm?”
Gabbie laughed, and did as she was told. Before long, Catrina had the dough made, and was working hard to knead it to what she called perfection. Was there even such a thing? She didn’t know, but she wasn’t going to ask the woman to go into further detail. As it was, making bread with Catrina was already a whole experience.
“My mother-in-law welcomed us women into the family by cooking, too,” Catrina said, “and this was also, over the years, how she would bring us back down to earth. Cecelia never had an issue with dragging one of us into the kitchen, so she could bark orders at us on how we should cook, while at the same time, telling us the meaning of marriage and life.”
“Oh?”
The woman nodded. “I was never more grateful. I didn’t have a mother … not for a long time, anyway. And when I needed one the most, I didn’t have that influence. It felt, in a way, as though I met my mother figure later in life. You see, she wasn’t very happy with me coming into my husband’s life in the way I did, and it was rocky for a while, but this … cooking … was often how Cecelia and I worked through it.”
Gabbie frowned.
Catrina didn’t miss it. “What was that for, now?”
“I was just thinking … well, I’m sorry if you’re angry about me being here, or if you feel like you’re being forced to like me because of everything. I—”
“Oh, that’s enough of that.”
Her head snapped up from the flour in her hand.
Catrina was smiling again. “Of course, I like you.” She clicked her tongue, and passed Gabbie a look from the side as she quickly added, “I would dare say love, actually, but I wouldn’t want to scare you with that. He loves you, after all. And you love him, don’t you? That is all I need to know. I may not have been the woman who brought Michel into the world, but I still gave him life, and I am still the only woman he calls his mother. All I need to know is that he loves you, and you love him. That is enough for me. I may be angry at him, but I am blessed to meet you.”
Gabbie blinked.
That had been a lot to take in.
There were a lot of things she wanted to reply to in Catrina’s statements, but she kept rolling back to the same one thing. A specific thing. Something she hadn’t known about Michel until this moment.
“Michel is adopted?”
Catrina’s smile stayed firmly in place. “He doesn’t act like it, does he?”
“No, and isn’t that something someone might mention? You know, that they’re adopted?”
Although, it made sense. Michel did not share his mother’s blue eyes, or her red hair. He did not take his father’s dark shade of brown hair, or Dante’s dark green eyes. The dimples that peeked out whenever Michel grinned didn’t come from either of his parents, either. He did have some similar features to Catrina, like the shape of her eyes and the sly look in her gaze as she looked at someone from the side, but the latter could be explained by nurture over nature.
“He’s never felt like it, either, maybe that’s why he didn’t say anything. I can’t say that makes me unhappy. All I ever wanted was for him to know that he was so loved.”
“I can see you love him,” Gabbie returned.
“I do, very much, as if he came from my body—I love him the same.” Catrina shrugged one shoulder, and put her hands back into the dough to continue kneading it. “He was born to my half-sister. She died very soon after his birth, and I took him out of the country to bring him with me to America.”
Huh.
“Ma.”
The low voice coming from the kitchen entryway made Gabbie look up from her own work of dusting the counter with flour. There, she found Michel leaning against the entry wall, a small smile playing on his lips. Just how long had he been standing there?
His gaze drifted to her for a quick passing before cutting back to his mother. Catrina raised a brow at him, but he only chuckled in response. Gabbie swore she could hear the woman silently chiding her adult son for spying on their conversation.
“Ma,” he said again, giving her a look.
“Yes, Michel?”
“I have always known that I am loved.”
Catrina kept her gaze on her work, but one couldn’t miss the smile playing on her lips. “I know, ragazzo. I know.”
• • •
Gabbie flipped a decorative pillow off the bed, and onto the chair in the corner. Michel tossed her another from his side of the bed, too. For now, they would stay at his parents’ home until they figured something else out.
“Are you still set on the lawyer thing?” he asked.
“Why not?”
Michel shrugged. “Because here, you can do anything.”
Gabbie winked. “And that’s what I want to do.”
“All right. We can head to the college tomorrow and start the process to get everything transferred for you. If your grades are good enough, we shouldn’t have any problems.” Then, he smirked sinfully, adding, “And just in case they are a little iffy … I have enough money to pay your way in.”
She didn’t even think before picking up a normal pillow from the bed and whipping it at him. He barely managed to catch the pillow before it hit him right in the face, which probably would have been a grand sight to see.
“Hey,” she joked, “my grades are perfect.”
“I have no doubt.”
“You do—you just said so!”
“In case, I said … in case, Gabbie.”
She threw another pillow at him.
He blocked that one, too.
“And,” she added, “I can’t be too mad at you because I love that you want to take me there tomorrow. Like it can’t wait a day or a week.”
Michel’s gaze met hers, and love shined back. “I want you to be happy, Gabbie.”
“With you, I am.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“What about pre-med for you?” she asked.
Michel shifted on his feet before leaning over on the bed. He used his palms against the sheets to keep him steady as he grinned. “I had acceptances from colleges all across this state—they’ll jump to take me, so I’m not worried.”
“Arrogant,” she tossed at him.
He just laughed. “You know it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were adopted?”
“It’s not important to me,” Michel said. “I never knew my real parents, and I didn’t find out about the adoption until I was a teenager. It just … I know some people expected me to make a thing about it, but I never cared. I know who my mother and father are, and it showed me that sometimes, blood doesn’t make a family.”
She could tell he wasn’t lying.
“Is your sister also adop—”
“Catherine is the spit from my mother’s mouth, and the apple of my father’s eye. If there was ever a perfectly terrifying combination of the two of them, it is her. She is their biological child, can’t you tell?” Michel shook his head, adding, “They are so alike, in fact, that it has become a running joke to the rest of us, one they aren’t aware of because then we would have to listen to all of them go on about it together. At the same time, Gabbie.”
Gabbie pressed her lips together to keep from grinning. “Oh, you have a sibling complex, huh?”
“You didn’t have Catherine as a teenager growing up next to you, let me just say. She purposely seeks out trouble … it’s what she does. I love her, but facts are still facts.”
“And so do you, apparently.” Michel stilled across the bed, and Gabbie arched a brow to challenge him to deny it. “But am I wrong, though?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.
“Right.”
Gabbie threw another pillow.
Michel let that one hit him.
Their laughter colored up the bedroom with the sound—it felt like love, really. She knew they still had so much to figure out, like where in the hell they went from here, and what they were going to do.
That was fine.
That was okay with her.
Because they were together.
Just like they were forever meant to be.
EPILOGUE
Eight years later …
“This isn’t right.”
Michel glanced upward, the ceiling staring back at him, and he swore if it could taunt him, it would be saying, keep looking, fucker. Warm ceramic met his lips as he tipped the mug up for another drink. Bitter heaven coated his tongue, the coffee sliding down his throat and waking him up even more.
And upstairs?
Chaos reigned.
Michel was not a dumb man, nor was he a stupid husband. Being just two years shy of a decade in marriage to Gabbie taught him a single lesson, one that was simple: the worst thing a man could tell his wife was to calm down.
Now, most times, men didn’t even think before saying it. They just did. The dumbness slipped out of their mouth because the first thing normal humans thought to say to another human when they were in a panic was the obvious thing—to calm down.
No, that was foolish.
And a death wish.
So, as Michel thought he was quite smart because so far, he’d not died from being dumb, he knew better than to go upstairs and step in his wife’s path. Every morning for the past week, she woke up the same way.
