Page 1 of Matteo
CHAPTER 1
Matteo
I sigh with relief as my mother and grandfather leave. Rafe chuckles as the door closes behind them. Damn, he looks different. He’s no longer wound so tight I worry he’ll have a heart attack before he hits fifty.
Javi laughs. “Why the hell did you do that without warning us?”
“What, I wasn’t supposed to ask if Mom was finally going to divorce Dad now that she and Abuelo are getting biblical? It’s a valid question, considering they’re now three years in. Especially since she and Dad are more than twenty years legally separated.” I shrug.
“Yes, it’s a valid question. However, you only asked so they’d leave. That’s what makes you an ass.” Rafe sends a dark eyebrow up. “You want us to leave too? It was a long flight from Baltimore to home.”
Typical Rafe, calling me on being an ass while giving me an out for my behavior. I always knew he was going to be a great father. Since he was one to us growing up, even though he was only two years older than me. He was a better father than our actual father.
I shake my head. I’m not ready for them to leave—to be left alone with the emptiness.
Am I home? My mother kept going on and on about me being home. It’s why I said what I did, aware it would send her running. I wasn’t sure how I felt yet about being in Dallas after more than twenty years gone.
Over the years, there were times I thought of Dallas as home. Only because my family is here. After almost fifteen years in Baltimore, it’s hard to think of anywhere else as home.
“You sure?” Javi asks as he eyes me.
Running a hand over my face, I nod. I’m up at the window that looks out over an enormous pool and a large green grass area residents were assigned and could use for a garden, but no one uses for much of anything.
I shake my head again. “I should be asking you for the number of a therapist, not…”
“Talk to me.” It’s an invitation spoken softly yet also a demand. The iron hand in the silk glove Rafe has down to an art. “You left Johns Hopkins weeks before you called me to tell me you were coming back to Dallas.”
I shouldn’t be surprised he knew. The last thing I want to do is talk about it. And maybe that’s why I should. “I lost another one. Nine years old, the sweetest thing you’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter as a doctor treating her for leukemia. As cancers went, her case should have been a walk in the park—a gloomy as fuck park, but nothing I couldn’t handle. I did everything right. And she still died. I’m standing over her calling time of death, and I didn’t feel a thing.”
Even now, the memory of that day is fucking with my head. “Almost fourteen years I’ve been doing this. My thirty-ninth birthday was two days before she died. She was the thirty-ninth patient I lost. I couldn’t feel a thing. No sadness, no anger at myself for losing her. Not a damn thing… I was positive it would come back. It had to. I needed it to do what I do.”
Rafe and Javier share concerned looks I pretend I don’t see.
“Except it didn’t come back.” Unease is still in me at the lack of feeling, even now. “After a week, I gave in to what I had known in the back of my mind as I walked away from the hospital—I was done. I sent an email with my notes on my cases and told them I wasn’t coming back. Then I laid in bed for a week while I tried to figure out what to do next.”
“Just a week?” Javi’s eyebrows are up. “It’s okay if it was longer than a week.”
“It might have been a little longer than a week,” I admit.
It was more like a day in bed and two weeks on the couch trying to figure shit out. “I was lost on what is there for me if I’m not doing oncology. Since the only reason for me to be in Baltimore was Johns Hopkins, it didn’t feel like there was anything left for me there. I’m hoping a new environment will jumpstart the desire for me to do something.”
“You don’t have to do anything. Not a fucking thing.” Rafe is firm. “What you did day in and out is going to leave cuts no one can see. If you never want to set foot in a hospital again, there’s no shame in that. If you want to come by the office and see if you’re interested in having one of your own in the building, we’ll welcome you with open arms. And I have the number of a great therapist.”
The idea appeals as much as running a cheese grater over my face.
Rafe doesn’t miss a thing and chuckles. “I get it. I’m sure Abuelo would love it if you took over the running of the charity he started. I don’t know if you were aware it went from focusing on breast cancer to a broader stance on women’s general health. The women’s center here in Dallas is also an option. I’ve heard rumblings about the current administrator. I know they would welcome you immediately. It’s a warning, so you can brace yourself for him to ask. His focus has moved to mom, so they’ve contacted me for direction and attention.”
I consider it. “Are you sure you aren’t soft asking me to ensure they no longer contact you?”
He chuckles. “Maybe.”
“I’ll take those calls. It might help fill the days.”
“Come on, let’s cut into the enchiladas my wife had me bring you. I had to beg her to make more so we could have some for the house. She’s an awesome cook.” Javi licks his lips as he opens the refrigerator.
I sit down at the table, separating the living area from the kitchen. Javi waxes lyrical about his wife and two kids. Although I came back to Dallas for Rafe’s wedding a few years ago, I couldn’t get time off for Javi’s wedding last year since there was so little warning—only a week before the day.
Rafe gets in on showing me pictures. I’ve yet to meet their daughter, Elena, or their newest daughter, Stella. Carrie has sent me pictures of them over the years. I have better text conversations running with her than I did with Rafe. She kept me updated on what was happening in our family, like my mom and Abuelo, Rafe taking the weekends off, and when Ava appeared in Javi’s life.