“Take it easy, baby.” Matteo’s hand guided her up the steps to the brownstone house, and he rang the doorbell. “It’s almost over.”
“It’s only beginning,” she reminded him with a mutter.
“True, but that first moment will be over with, and you’ll be able to feel your way through this from there. Now smile and fake it with me.” He leaned over to peck her on the nose just as the door opened.
“Matteo!” A young woman, roughly around Marie’s age, answered the door with a happy shriek. Marie winced a little as the woman flung her arms around Matteo’s neck before she pulled away just as quickly. “And you must be Marie. Welcome to the family, I’m Trina.”
“Hi,” Marie spoke softly and nearly stepped back in surprise, but she stood her ground and lifted her head up. “Thanks for the welcome.”
“Come in, let’s meet the family, shall we?” Trina pulled them into a foyer and Marie looked around. The room was open, and she could see now that the building had once been three buildings but was now one. Two stairways led up to another floor, and that’s where the slim young woman took them. “The first floor is mainly a study, the kitchen, a bathroom, up here is where you’ll find everyone. The dining room is off to the left there, and over here is a ballroom as Aunt Celeste likes to call it.”
Trina, a pretty woman with dark gray eyes, black hair, and olive skin, pushed open a door to show a crowd of people standing around talking. Along each wall were tables and chairs, and at the front of the room by the door was a bar with some snacks on trays.
Marie took a calming breath and walked into the crowded room, filled with over 30 people, and looked around. Everyone was dressed exquisitely, with jewelry dripping from every finger and earlobe, even the men. Some were old, some younger, none that were under the age of 15 as far as Marie could tell.
“This is my mother, Audrina,” Trina said as she came up next to an older woman with silky black hair down to her waist, dressed in a long, dark-green velvet dress. It complimented the bright-red velvet dress that Trina had on. “And this is my dad, Solomon O’Toole.”
The man was older, dashing in that gray hair at the temples kind of way, with the gray eyes that matched his daughter’s. The couple smiled at Marie and greeted her and Matteo. Marie surmised that Trina’s mother must be the blood relative, a man with an Irish last name surely wasn’t a brother of Celeste’s.
“Welcome to the family,” Solomon said somberly, and his wife frowned.
“He makes it sound terrible, we aren’t that bad, really.” She smiled and leaned over to peck Marie’s cheek. Marie wasn’t short, but she wasn’t too tall either. She matched these two women in height, at least, especially since they all wore similar heels. “Celeste hasn’t come down yet.”
That part she said softly to Matteo, but Marie heard her.
“And my mother?” Matteo asked, his voice as quiet as Audrina’s.
“She’s not well, Matteo.” Audrina looked away, and Marie knew she was lying, but why would she lie? Why lie about his mother’s absence? “She’s sorry she couldn’t make it.”
“No matter.” Matteo looked down at Marie and winked. “Another time.”
Marie didn’t quite understand how a mother could let another woman take her child away, but she wasn’t this family or Matteo’s mother. She had a feeling Celeste was the type of woman that you didn’t often say no to, as well. It was all strange, but no stranger than her own parentage, or upbringing. Just a different kind of strange.
Marie smiled politely as extended relatives were introduced, more cousins, and then a slew of family friends. She forgot most of their names after a while because it all became a blur of introductions, small talk, and then on to the next one. Marie felt anxiety tighten her throat with each passing name, with each new face, but she pushed it down.
She’d learned to hide her emotions from her mother, learned to hide hunger and misery from her teachers and the occasional social worker, she could get through this. She smiled, nodded, spoke when she had to, and held onto Matteo’s hand like it was her one and only lifeline.
She’d had two glasses of white wine by the time his aunt made her entrance. The entire room went quiet as the door opened