Page 178 of Boss of the Year

Standing in Lea’s kitchen, I felt the weight of that possibility settling over me. I had a few things to do in New York, but they wouldn’t take me much time.

Pack up my belongings, which had basically already been done for me at Prideview.

Figure out my budget for the next year, including a financial plan for the business.

Say goodbye to my family.

The last one, I knew, would be the hardest. I was going to take my time.

“Want to help me make dinner?” Lea asked, apparently sensing that I needed something to do with my hands. “I was thinking Nonna’s cannelloni. The kids have been asking for it, and I bought all the ingredients last week.”

I smiled. “With fried artichokes?”

Her grin lit up her otherwise exhausted face. “Obviously.”

We fell into the familiar rhythm of cooking together, just like when Nonna would supervise us making Sunday dinner for the whole extended family. As the eldest daughter and often the one tasked with helping Nonna with most of the domestic chores around the house, Lea cooked efficiently, but with little artistry, in the matter-of-fact way of a woman who needed to get food on the table for a bunch of mouths within a quick timeframe and on a tight budget.

“Here, let me do the pasta,” I said, taking the flour and eggs needed to make the dough. “Just give me this counter.”

She looked at me dubiously. “Don’t you want the machine?” She pointed at the old hand-crank roller that used to be Nonna’s.

“No, just give me the rolling pin, and I’m good.”

I actually preferred to roll dough like this. It was more enjoyable to feel my food this way, and I swear, it made it taste better.

Lea put on some Beyoncé, her favorite. She cooked the meat and spinach filling while I kneaded enough dough for a tray of pasta shells. It was like we were kids again—her a too-capable teenager acting as a surrogate mother while I, a too-quiet eight-year-old, learned how to dice and cut and peel from the big sister I idolized.

“So, where are you thinking of working now?” I asked as I washed the flour from my hands. “Please don’t tell me it’s Uber. Or Salt Lake”

Lea snorted as she dropped a combination of ground beef and pork into the frying pan with a sizzle. “As it happens, I just got a new job doing remote bookkeeping for this guy in Idaho. He does a bunch of transport in and around the US—trucking and things like that. The pay is decent, and I can work from home. It’s just part-time right now, but if it goes well, he wants to fly me out to meet him in person, discuss expanding the arrangement.”

“Would you have to move there?”

She shrugged as she stirred the filling. “Honestly, I don’t know. But…I’m actually open to it.”

“Idaho?” I tried to imagine my city-bred sister in a place known mostly for potatoes. “Really?”

“I know. But it’s pretty. He lives in the northern part of the state, somewhere called Coeur d’Alene. And you know I’ve beenthinking about leaving. Now with the issues at school…” She shook her head. “I think it’s time.”

I had to wonder if she was talking as much about herself. “What about somewhere closer to Matthew? Or Frankie? You could even move to France with me. It’s so much cheaper there than here.”

Lea snorted as she let the meat continue cooking. “Please. What would I do in France? At least in Idaho, I have work. And as for the rest…everyone is so spread out now, you know? It’s good to have family, but you’re all doing your own things. Maybe we need to do ours too.”

I frowned as I took one of the balls of dough out of the fridge, where they had been resting for the last twenty minutes, and began the process of rolling it out on the other counter. Since when hadLeabecome all about disconnecting from family? She’d been the glue of ours for more than twenty years.

“I tried to talk to Mami again,” she said as she pulled a container of ricotta from the fridge.

Ah. That made things clearer.

“How did that go?” I asked, though I had a feeling I already knew.

Lea’s mouth tightened. “She showed up drunk. Apparently, she’s off the wagon, has been for a few months. I had to ask her to leave before the kids saw her like that, but she was talking about coming back.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I just can’t have that around them, Marie. Addiction has taken enough from this family.”

“You’re protecting them. That’s what good mothers do. It’s what she should have done for us.”

“It’s just one more thing I have to watch out for. Mobsters who killed my husband. My kids, turning into little hellions. Now this. Sometimes I look at Tommy throwing punches andPete following his example, and I wonder if I’m failing them no matter what I do.”

“Hence Idaho?” I had to ask as I started cutting the blanket of dough into squares that we could roll around the filling like crepes.