Page 30 of Boyfriend of the Hour

“You can do it,tesoro,” she said. “I know you can.”

Before I could help it, a tear slipped down my cheek. “I—okay. Thanks, Nonna.”

I didn’t want to say I would. I didn’t want to make promises I couldn’t keep. Doubt screamed through every cell in me, but I didn’t want to voice that either.

All I could do was look into her eyes and try to absorb some of that hope she still had in me for some strange reason. And try to forget that starting tomorrow, I wouldn’t be able to get it anymore.

Nonna stepped back to find that all of my siblings were fighting their own tears. After all, she hadn’t just been a rock for me. She’d been the rock of our whole family. When things had gone to shit—which they had, too many times, in the Zola household—she’d been there, filling our house with love and lessons and a soft spot to land.

“I don’t know why you’re all crying,” Nonna finally burst out, even as she wiped a few stray tears from her eyes too. “I’m just a few hours on a plane, not going to the moon!”

And just like that, we were all sobbing, huddled together in the kind of big family hug I hadn’t experienced since I was small, since Matthew still lived at home and none of my siblings were married, and it was just us, the Zola kids and their grandparents, an unbreakable unit in a world that seemed to break everyone.

I buried my face in my sisters’ arms, inhaled Nonna’s gardenia perfume that I’d stolen when she thought I was cleaning, and relished the moment when no one was fighting or bickering.

I knew that love was at the heart of what it meant to be a Zola.

I only wished we could feel it a bit more.

“Ciao, babies!” Nonna called as she walked toward the gate.

We watched until she had gone all the way through security, until she gave us a little wave and vanished into the crowds.

An hour later,we all emerged from Lea’s minivan and piled into the tiny blue house she shared with her husband and their kids. There was barely room enough for the five of us in the living room, so I could understand why Lea hadn’t allowed me to crash here. Her home was a shoebox.

“I could probably make a ziti if you’re hungry,” Lea said as she hung her keys on a rack next to the front door. That was followed by her coat and scarf on an already loaded row of hooks. “One last family dinner.”

“No, I gotta get back to the shop tonight,” Kate said. “I have a client coming in the morning, and I still haven’t steamed all the things he wants to try.”

“Xavi is going to be here in ten to pick me up too,” Frankie said as she checked her watch. “The jet leaves Teterboro at seven.”

“I’m driving back up to Boston tonight too,” Matthew echoed. “I don’t want Nina alone.”

They all looked at me expectantly, expecting the final chorus.

Even Sunday dinners were finished, I thought bitterly. The Zola kids were splintering like kindling.

“Oh, don’t worry about me,” I said. “I have a busy schedule of staring at the ceiling in the shop’s breakroom.”

My siblings all shared meaningful looks. Then Frankie reached into her pocket and held out an envelope.

I took it. “What’s this?”

“I told you I’d give you first and last,” she said.

“I added a few extra too,” Matthew said. “Nina and I wanted you to have enough to get some furniture or whatever you need.”

“I popped a couple of twenties in there too,” Kate said. “We were hoping you would have found a place today.”

“Mike and I will help you move in,” Lea added.

I swallowed as I took the envelope full of my siblings’ charity and stared at the plain white exterior. “Overnight? Asking a bit much, don’t you think?”

“Then use it tomorrow,” Lea said, only a little too sharply. “Come over after the kids are at school, and I’ll help you look. We can go into restaurants too, see if there’s a hostess position open.”

“With a toddler and a baby in tow? I’m sure that will really impress the landlords.”

“Joni, come on.”