At Last

by Mindy McKinley

  All he knew was that he couldn’t look at this dying woman and not grant her wish. He would make good on that promise; he would protect Lula until the day he died, even if she wasn’t a part of his life.

  He was stunned at how bleak a life without her seemed.

  “Am I interrupting something?” Lula asked, coming back into the room. She was smiling, clearly happy they had made a connection. Jesus, she made his heart do all kinds of crazy things.

  “Just an old lady enjoying the company of a handsome young man,” Nan answered, deftly recovering. “I hope you don’t mind, dear, I don’t see many of them these days.”

  Lula laughed. “I forgive you, Nan. I have a hard time keeping my hands to myself too.”

  “I bet you do,” Nan said with a twinkle in her eye. Her face suddenly looked softer, less lined. As if his promise had taken years of crushing weight away.

  When they left that night, after the hugs and kisses and “I love you’s,” Dominic made sure he held onto Lula’s hand tightly as they walked to the car. He knew it would only be a couple of days before Nan left for good, and knowing how much pain his beautiful girl was going to go through gutted him.

  “She’s an amazing woman, Lu,” he told her as he opened her car door. “You take after her in all the best ways.”

  She absolutely beamed at him and it tugged at his heart. “Thank you.” She pushed up on her tiptoes and kissed him. “I’m so glad you got to meet her. Now I’m not sure if she’ll even want to see me if you aren’t with me.”

  He chuckled and shook his head. “Nah, I’m just eye candy, it’s you who she loves more than life.”

  Lu smiled and slipped into the car.

  He shut the door with that lump still pushing in his throat. Had he done the right thing? Should he have said nothing so that she would hang on longer? He didn’t know; all he knew was that he would absolutely, without a doubt, make sure Beverley Stanley’s last wish came true.

  Chapter 26

  Lula

  “You can just have it,” Amy told Lula, thrusting the red dress into her hands when she arrived for lunch that Friday at school. “Your ass looks waaay better in it than mine anyway.”

  “Oh my God, are you serious?” Lula wrapped her arms around her friend and kissed the side of her head. “You are the best, you know that?”

  “I do,” Amy sat down at her desk, as Lula took her usual seat on the other side. “Now, are you going to give me the Dom Adams update?”

  “I would never disappoint my best friend,” she answered, pulling lunch items out one by one.

  As they ate, Lula told her all about him being so sweet to Nan, the research, about how Dom was helping her find her father.

  “That’s where we’re going tonight,” she explained. “It could be my father’s restaurant.”

  “Oh, wow,” Amy breathed. “Are you nervous? I think I would be.”

  “Only completely,” Lula answered, her statement coming out as a nervous laugh. Her stomach had been in knots all day and she wished she knew why. She had always thought of the possibility of finally finding her father as exciting. This feeling was definitely not excitement.

  Amy eyed her for a moment before she spoke. “Well, I’m glad Dom is going with you. I wouldn’t want you to go alone.” She leaned over the desk. “He’ll make sure you’re safe, and you get to have delicious Italian food with a handsome man. I think it’s win-win.”

  “True.” She let out a breath, still unable to reason out the heavy feeling in her gut. “Even if I don’t find my father, I’ll still get to have those delicious, delicious carbs.”

  “And really, isn’t that what life is all about?”

  Lula laughed, feeling slightly better. If she didn’t find him tonight, it wasn’t the end of the world, just a date. A date with Dominic Adams.

  Yeah, there was some definite silver lining there.

  Dom picked her up exactly on time that night looking devastating in dark pants and a grey button-up shirt that she was itching to peel off.

  “Fuck,” he said, taking her in when she opened the door. “Jesus, Lula, you continue to stun me.” He leaned in and kissed her neck.

  Every inch of her skin reacted to his kiss. “Amy told me I could have the dress,” she told him with a smile.

  “Remind me to give that woman a thank you card,” he growled and slid his hands down over her ass.

  She was so hungry for him that she debated just taking his hand and leading him to her room. They could order Italian food from bed if they wanted to ...

  “Nope,” he said, reading the look in her eye. “You can feast on this”—he motioned toward himself—“later. Right now we have a table waiting at what could be your father’s family restaurant.”

  She pouted at him but allowed him to lead her to his car. That unsettled feeling reared its head again. She willed it away unsuccessfully.

  The restaurant looked exactly as she expected it to, definitely old school with a windowed storefront and a green and red striped awning. Zetticci’s was spelled out in giant block letters that looked as if they were original to the façade. It was anachronistic nestled amid all the newer university buildings.

  “Cool place,” Dom said, parking the car just across the street. “I love the throw-back vibe.”

  It really did look as if that one building had been trapped in the past. The interior was no different; it was dark and decorated with traditional Italian décor. Black and white photos of family members and important visitors covered the walls between copious bunches of plastic grapes.

  She peered at the photos with interest, wondering if it was family staring back at her.

  As they waited for their table, Dom took interest in a particular photo that hung in the entryway. It was in a fairly prominent spot. In it, there were three men in suits just looking at the camera.

  The caption simply read Giuseppe Zetticci, Lorenzo Bellini, and Sal Castiglione, 1943.

  “Anyone you know?” she asked playfully.

  She expected him to chuckle, but his face was serious as he drew her even closer to his side. “Not sure,” was all he said.

  Before she could ask anything, they were ushered to their table and presented with wine and the most amazing bruschetta she had ever eaten.

  “Oh, man,” she said, after taking a larger-than-ladylike bite, “this is so delicious.”

  “Yes, you are,” he told her and then leaned forward. “How are you feeling about all this?”

  She set her bruschetta down. It was a good question. “Honestly, I’m not sure how I feel. How do I know if this is the right place? What do I do if it is?”

  “You mean you don’t just want to run up to every man of age here and ask ‘Are you my daddy?’”

  She laughed, grateful that he could lighten the mood. “Not even a little.”

  “Good thing, they’d probably take it the wrong way.”

  She giggled but the odd feeling in her gut quashed it quickly. “So, what do I do, though? Some of the pictures look like they could be relations, but I suppose dark hair isn’t really enough to go on.”

  He reached over and grabbed her fingers. “I have a plan,” he said. “We’ll have to be here for a while, but I think it’ll work.”

  She smiled and eased a little. Of course he had a plan. She should have known that he wouldn’t walk into this not having one in place.

  As she had.

  Lord have mercy, she was a mess without him by her side.

  She let out a melodramatic sigh. “I guess I’ll just have to order more bruschetta and wine, such a tragedy.”

  Dom laughed and opened his menu.

  Dominic

  As he looked over the menu, Dom could not shake the sick feeling in his stomach that something was very, very wrong. He couldn’t piece it together completely yet, but seeing the name Sal Castiglione on the wall did nothing to help.

  It was too early to jump to conclusions and until he figured it out, he wasn’t going to let L
ula know. There was no reason to upset her whenit might be a coincidence.

  His plan was simple. They would wine and dine until the restaurant was about ready to close down so they could get a good look at all the pictures on the wall. Once he had a clear idea whether or not any of the family members fit the age range they were looking for, he figured a few “drunken” questions to the employees might yield some further results.

  As luck would have it, the restaurant cleared out fairly early and he and Lula were able to make their way around, looking at all the photos without much trouble.

  He got caught up again by another picture of Lorenzo Bellini and Giuseppe Zetticci. He didn’t like their eyes. They were hard, unemotional. Cold. He was so fixated by the disturbing image that he didn’t even hear Lula’s gasp from a few tables away.

  “Dom,” she said, her voice shocked, her eyes wide as she stared at a photo. “Come here.”

  That sick feeling worsened as he rushed to her side.

  She didn’t say anything, just pointed to the picture.

  It was a photo of a much older Giuseppe and two other men, clearly family. It read: Three Generations of Zetticci: Giuseppe, Guido, and Giovanni, 1990.

  His heart fell into his stomach as he looked at the young man named Giovanni. He was the spitting image of Lula in male form. Only his eyes didn’t shine and dance like hers, they were cold and unyielding like his father and grandfather.

  He heard her draw in a shaky breath. “I think it’s him ... I think”—she looked at him with wide, almost frightened eyes—“I think this is my father.”

  He shook his head, wishing he felt happier about this discovery. “I think it’s a good chance, Lu.” His voice was soft. “But I think we need to dig a little deeper before we know for sure.”

  “But look at him.” Tears spilled over her lashes. She was shaking. “He looks just like me.”

  He pulled her into his arms and tried to quell her quaking frame. He didn’t tell her that he was afraid she was right and that he wished she wasn’t. He just held her and tried to wrap his brain around how she might be feeling.

  “What do you want to do?” he asked her, kissing the top of her head. “You tell me what you want.”

  “I don’t know.” She shook her head against his chest. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, what the protocol is for something like this. I just ...” She sobbed and he pulled her into his arms. “Can we leave?” she asked, looking up with tearful eyes.

  “Of course, babe, of course.” He kept his arm around her shoulder and escorted her out of the restaurant hoping that it was the last time they set foot there.

  Lula was quiet as she settled into the car and he let her have the time she needed to reflect. Halfway home, she looked at him with utter confusion.

  “What is it, beautiful?” he asked, weaving his fingers through hers.

  “I just thought”—she looked so earnest—“that I would be happier when I found him.”

  He didn’t have an answer for her, so he just lifted her hand and kissed it as tenderly as he could.

  “I thought that once I figured out the puzzle, everything would just fall into place, that I would have this big beautiful family.” She turned her head and looked out the window. “I suppose that was silly.”

  “Not at all,” he said softly. “No one ever knows how they’re going to react when they are finally granted their biggest wish. It’s a lot to take in, Lu, a lot to consider.”

  She didn’t answer and he didn’t press her further.

  When they got back to her place, he simply took her hand, led her to the bedroom, and held her all night long.

  Chapter 27

  Lula

  Lula was so fucking confused. She had seen her father looking right back at her. Finally, after all these years. And all she felt was unsettled.

  It was definitely him, she had no doubt, she knew it as sure as she knew her own name. She could feel it so deep in her gut it made her sick.

  But why? It was a moment she had dreamt about and replayed in her mind a thousand different times. None of which ended with her feeling anything other than elated.

  It was his eyes. They were hers but not. They looked motionless, like a glass doll. And it wasn’t just him, it was her grandfather and great-grandfather—they all had those same dead eyes.

  What did it mean? What did she do now?

  Dom had suggested she think about it for a few days, as if she weren’t going to think about it every fucking minute. It was eating her alive.

  Dom had been wonderful, truly he had, but she needed time to think things through on her own, so she had sent him out the door that morning demanding that he go home and get work done.

  “Can I come back over later?” he asked. He looked like a puppy that just got shooed out of a house.

  Dear Lord, how did he not know how absolutely, insanely in love she was? “Yes, but only if you work all day and you bring me a dozen cinnamon rolls?”

  He smiled. “A dozen, eh?”

  “I stress-eat,” she said and kissed him. “Thank you, for last night. Even if I don’t know what it means, I wouldn’t have made it this far without you.”

  “You’re welcome, beautiful. I’ll see you later.”

  She watched him stride lithely to his car with her forehead pressed against the screen door. What would she do if she lost this man? Especially now?

  With a sigh, she cuddled onto the sofa with Missy and her laptop and entered her father’s name. Her name. She was a Zetticci.

  There were no social media accounts that she could find that might belong to her father, which was no real surprise, and all other internet searches wound their way back to the restaurant home page.

  She flipped through the images on the website and found him again, this time no longer a young man but with greying hair, a rounder body, and the same lifeless eyes. General Manager was written below his picture.

  In another picture, he had his arm around a pretty dark-haired woman. This one simply said: Gio and Lorena. She guessed Lorena was his wife; they wore wedding rings and had the look of a couple that had spent years together.

  Her gut pinched when she thought about whether they had children or not, whether her grandparents were alive. She could have this giant mob of a family and never be a part of it. Or, she could suck it up, get past whatever this unsettled feeling was and have a family.

  Lord, she didn’t know.

  After hours of searching with just little rays of sunshine via texts from Dom, she simply shut her computer off, carried Missy to her room, and fell asleep no closer to an answer than she had been a day ago.

  She woke up a couple hours later to banging on her front door. Sleepy-eyed and confused, she looked at the clock and was shocked to see it was after eight in the evening. It felt like a time warp.

  Wiping the sleep from her eyes, she opened her front door to a frantic Dom who burst in and captured her to him, dropping a box of cinnamon rolls. “Oh thank God,” he breathed. “I was so worried.”

  “Worried about what?” she asked, still not fully awake. He was holding her to him so tight her face was smashed against his chest. She loved it there.

  “I’ve been texting and calling you for hours and you never answered so I just came over here.”

  “Oh,” she said slowly, realization dawning on her. “I think I left my phone on the sofa when I went to go lay down. I’m sorry.”

  He held her at arm’s length. She was surprised to see the genuine worry and relief that she saw warring in his eyes. It made her heart stutter wonderfully. She didn’t understand why he would be quite this worried, but she loved it nonetheless.

  “I’m just glad you’re okay,” he said, kissing her forehead, her cheeks, and finally her lips. “Are you okay?”

  It was a good question. She smiled. “I’m better now that you’re here.” She looked at the box on the floor. “And with cinnamon rolls. You might just be the perfect man.”

  He caught h
er into a kiss. “Well, I aim to please, beautiful.”

  Chapter 28

  Dominic

  After the combined emotional drain of finding Lula’s father and the continued strain with his mother regarding Steve, Dom suggested that they just spend Sunday doing nothing important.

  Lula was quick to agree, and they started the day eating blueberry pancakes at a nearby café, went for a walk, watched movies, cuddled, and made love all evening. It was a singularly perfect day.

  They kept their conversation away from the subjects plaguing them the most, and as he walked hand-in-hand with this beautiful girl on a crisp fall day, he was certain that he’d never be the same without her.

  She’d already become an integral part of his life. There was not really an easy way to extract at this point. Nor did he want it.

  He wanted her in his house while he worked, in his bed when he slept, by his side when he faced the terrible and wonderful. It was hard to swallow how far his ideals had swung from bachelor supreme to a one-woman guy. Scratch that, a one-Lula guy.

  Feelings like these were new to him. He didn’t know what any of them meant, or where they would lead, but he was determined to stay the course and find out. She was worth it, this feeling he had when he was with her, was worth it.

  He also didn’t know what to do about Lula’s probable father and the unsettling feelings that came with it. He prayed his suspicions were incorrect or that she would just give up the search, but he knew it was up to her; this wasn’t really something he could interfere with.

  He could, however, protect her with every fiber of his being.

  After school the next day, he went with her to visit Nan, who was awake but weak and simply gripped on to Lula’s hand as tight as she could.

  He held Lula while she cried knowing worse was to come and probably pretty soon. It was devastating.

  She went home with him afterward and read a book while he worked. She was quiet and he didn’t press her to talk. He couldn’t even imagine the number of things swirling around in her head at the moment. All he could do is make sure she knew he cared about her.