Chapter 1
“You reject my son,” I said, looking directly at Lucille. “I reject this family.”
Nobody moved.
Cakes and shattered glasses covered the stone terrace around us. Celina stood several feet behind Lucille with the smile gone from her face, while the same relatives who had laughed at Emmett moments earlier suddenly found the ruined dessert table fascinating.
My son was beside me now.
Blackberry filling stained his little banquet jacket. Tears still clung to his eyelashes, but he was trying very hard not to cry anymore.
That angered me almost as much as Lucille.
I crouched.
“You can cry.”
He looked at the guests.
“Aunt Lucille said Montaros don’t.”
I went still.
Not today.
Not one insult.
Teaching.
I looked at my aunt.
“How long have you been saying things like that to him?”
Lucille folded her arms. “Don’t be absurd.”
Emmett tugged my sleeve.
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“Aunt Celina said if I made Grandma Lucille’s favorite, she’d let me sit at the big table.”
The terrace became quieter.
I looked at Celina.
Her face changed.
Small.
Enough.
“What favorite?”
Emmett pointed toward the cobbler smeared across the stones.
“Blackberry.”
I turned slowly toward Lucille.
Everyone in the Montaro family knew blackberry cobbler was her favorite dessert.
She ordered it every birthday.
Every Christmas.
Every private summer dinner.
Celina knew that too.
Meaning Emmett had not wandered into the banquet with random food.
He had been prepared.
Encouraged.
Given hope.
Then publicly rejected.
I stood.
“You told him to make this.”
Celina shook her head.
“I suggested it.”
“Why?”
“He wanted Lucille to like him.”
That sentence landed harder than she intended.
I looked down at Emmett.
My three-year-old son had believed he needed to cook something correctly enough to earn affection from his own family.
Lucille sighed.
“This is exactly the problem. He expects approval simply because he’s yours.”
“No.”
I stared at her.
“He expected basic kindness because he’s three.”
Her eyes hardened.
Then Raymond Cole, one of my older capos, whispered from behind the guests:
“Rafael…”
I turned.
He looked uncomfortable.
“What?”
“That wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”
My stomach tightened.
“What wasn’t?”
His eyes went toward Lucille.
Then the broken cobbler.
“The First Plate.”
I had never heard those words before.
May you like
Lucille closed her eyes.
And suddenly I understood why so many older relatives had been watching Emmett before he ever reached her chair.
