he started to slow down like this, he’d had only about another year left, and then the family had been heartbroken. Even Papa.
After a few weeks, he’d brought a new puppy home, and Snuggles’ youthful sweetness had eased their loss.
Lia dropped went to her knees and hugged the dog, accepting his stinky, old-man kisses all over her face. “Hi, baby boy. I missed you, too.”
“Lia! Hi, honey!”
Her mother had come into the foyer. She wiped her hands on a dish towel and hooked it over her shoulder.
For all of Lia’s life, her family had had a housekeeper and cook—the current one’s name was Emilia—but not on the weekends. Unless they were having some big party, from Friday afternoon to Monday morning, the Paganos were almost like normal people.
Except for the armed guards.
Pushing Snuggles gently back, Lia stood. “Hi, Mamma.” She crossed the foyer and gave her mother a hug.
She loved her mother almost as much as she loved her father, but it was different. Mamma was devoted to the children and had always been there when they needed or wanted her. In fact she’d been their primary parent, the one who volunteered in their classrooms and sat in on the school board, was an officer in the PTA, chaperoned field trips and dances, took them to all their extracurriculars. She worked, too—she owned the town bookshop, though she had staff that did the daily work of running it—and she did charity work throughout the Cove, but mothering was her primary job and always had been. And she was good at it.
Still, there was a thread, slim but strong, of resentment in Lia’s love for her mother. Maybe precisely because she was the one who was always there. When Papa got involved in a conflict, odds were it had been going on for a while, and Mamma hadn’t been able to resolve it herself. Like some throwback to 1950s television, Papa was the kind of father who sat at the head of the dinner table, offered wisdom and advice, and intervened in their childish troubles when a serious hand was needed.
Papa had been present, certainly. Lia had a mountain of fond memories of her father, reading bedtime stories and leading their bedtime rituals, being enthusiastically part of holiday events, attending their recitals, plays, and games. He’d always made a point of being home for dinner and devoting his evenings to his family as much as he could. They’d gone on wonderful family trips, and though he’d worked while they vacationed, he didn’t let it consume him. He, too, was good at the work of being a parent.
But Mamma was the one who always was there.
Lia supposed it wasn’t all that surprising, then, that she bore the brunt of her children’s attitude. She was just more human to them, and therefore weaker. Papa almost never showed any emotion but love. When he was angry he got very quiet, but he almost never got angry with his kids—not demonstrably, at least. Mamma showed her emotions, whatever they were, and she struggled a little with depression.
It wasn’t fair to say Mamma was weak. She wasn’t weak at all. But in comparison with Papa, everybody seemed less than they were.
Mamma gave her a warm hug, and Lia returned it.
“I just put a lasagna in the oven, and I’ve got bread cooling. Ren is sleeping over at a friend’s tonight, but Carina’s upstairs. Why don’t you head up and settle in a little?”
Obviously, her mother knew that Lia had changed the way she ate; she’d started this intermittent fasting regimen at the beginning of the summer just past, and they’d had several disagreements, including two actual arguments, about it. Mamma knew very well that lasagna and bread were no longer on Lia’s menu. But she thought that diet was unhealthy, and once she couldn’t convince Lia to stop, she’d stopped fighting and simply pretended it wasn’t a thing.
It was classic Mamma, this refusal to acknowledge what she didn’t want to be true. It was actually classic Papa, too, except that Papa was overt about it, and Mamma was not. Papa got his way with a clenched jaw and a strong arm. Mamma got hers with a smile and a hug.
Lia had learned from them both and formed her own kind of quiet resistance, picking her battles so they wouldn’t cause a scene. She said nothing now. She simply wouldn’t eat lasagna and bread. Even though it had once been one of her favorite meals, as her